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- Written by: Chris G4ZCS
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Operationally, I have still been using FT8. As an experiment, I logged a short dash one lunchtime. Mostly Europe, there were just short of 25 in the first half hour but a few fewer in the second - but over 30 contacts and 24 DXCCs in the hour.
DX activity has been a bit slow this month, probably due to the summer 'E' layer absorption, however those working the higher bands have had some Sporadic E to play with.
As part of my reminiscing during the D-Day celebrations, I was reminded of Harry Patch, the oldest surviving veteran of WW1. The attached QSL shows him with Viv G4PLY, who operated a station in his memory.
I am also reminded of more peaceful times with this E40VB card from 2012.
This autumn sees the 100th anniversary of the first 'proper' DX between ZL4AA and 2SZ.
I was fortunate enough to have worked and confirmed both ends of this during the 90th anniversary. At the time of writing there are plans to repeat the celebration, so watch out nearer October.
I had another small bit of luck when the postman dropped a heap of envelopes on the mat with hundreds of bureau cards. These cards should give the 'newbies' a taste of things to come. Cards are ideal for showing friends what you have been up to in the shack, as well as being the proof needed for the major award schemes. Some of the pictures give spectacular views of far-flung corners of the globe and would make a great geography lesson for youngsters.
The photo shows just some of the recent cards from Germany!
This has also re-triggered my interest in the IOTA programme. I did a quick search of my log and found 54 contacts that had not been confirmed, so I have started to catch up on cards, ClubLog and hopefully LOTW (as it has just been restarted). My list shows 14 Oceana islands that need cards, so I’ll be busy for a while!
Don’t forget we are nearing the peak of the sunspot cycle - so make the most of conditions while they last, especially the DXpeditions that are only active for a short period.
Cheers & Good DX
Chris
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After my ever-so-slightly disparaging remark earlier this month on the cadence of TX Factor releases, just like busses...
Episode 31: https://youtu.be/Zqrcvr9GTyc
This episode covers:
A review of the new Icom IC-R15 Communications Receiver (Scanner)
The Anytone BT-01 Bluetooth Microphone
QO 100
The first geostationary amateur radio transponder (P4-A) on Es’hail-2 is a joint project by the Qatar Satellite Company (Es’hailSat), the Qatar Amateur Radio Society (QARS) and AMSAT Deutschland (AMSAT-DL).
There is a 500kHz Narrow Band Transponder which amateurs can use to communicate via USB or narrow band digital modes. No FM, AM or other wideband modes are permitted. 2.7kHz is the maximum bandwidth permitted. There is also an 8MHz wide transponder for DVB Amateur Television and other experimental digital modulation schemes. Uplink is in the 2.4 GHz band and downlink in the10GHz band.
DX Patrol Groundstation 2.0 (Part Two)
Based in Portugal DX Patrol have been manufacturing and selling QO100 suitable up-converters, down-converters and amplifiers for some time.
Designed for those without previous microwave experience in mind, their Ground Station 2 is a one-box solution for the generation of uplink signals by transverting up to 2.4GHz from a standard amateur transceiver and also transverting the downlink for reception. They also supply modified LNB’s and helical transmitting antennas for QO100 use.
The TX Factor website has a list of previous episodes here: http://www.txfactor.co.uk/episodes.html
Berni M0XYF
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As you may or may not have realised, the Sunday morning 80m net has been suffering from the effects of poor propagation of late, and it has therefore been decided to add a new weekly net on 40m.
The Sunday morning net will continue to run as normal (as will the 15m Lunchtime net), but from Wednesday 3rd July, there will also be a 40m net on 7.080MHz LSB from 08:00am. It will run until further notice, but may just end up becoming a seasonal thing. If it works out OK, I'll add it to the regular MSARS 'Net' schedule.
Sure, this frequency sits toward the bottom of the band, mixing it up with some of the 'recognised' digital mode frequencies, but at this time of the morning in the summertime, it tested fine earlier this week.
That could just be fortunate though, as 7.078MHz USB is the frequency nominally recognised as the JS8Call frequency, so be prepared to slide up the band five or ten Kc's if you can't hear anyone, or you can hear loads of digital wailing and squealing. You will also be just above FT8 on 7.074 USB too of course.
I believe that Ken G3WYN, Phil G4UDU. Sean EI7CV and Gerry EI9DZ are likely to be 'founder members', so if you're neither working nor having a lie-in, jump on 40 and call in.
'Nor' is a great word by the way, and greatly underused in my opinion.
73
M0XYF
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The release schedule of TX Factor episodes has taken a rather disastrous hit in the last year or three, but I always find them to be of good production quality and generally informative, so if you have a similar level of interest then you can find the most recent offering on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGQ7Kln7DJY
The TX Factor website has a list of previous episodes here: http://www.txfactor.co.uk/episodes.html, although at the time of writing the link to episode 29 is incorrect. You can find that one directly here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xy2uwbJxpY
Berni M0XYF
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Just out of interest, I looked up last month’s edition and saw the read counter was over 200, so it seems someone is reading this stuff! Many thanks also for the kind comments from Berni, however in my view this sort of input is just part of the club’s activities. I am only following on from those who used to do this years back!
The month got off to a quiet start as I was spending a lot of time trying to get the log program to work properly. After a week of struggling I found the fix, just two mouse clicks!
Again, many thanks to Berni for his help with cleaning up some of the remaining minor niggles. Now I have my full logbook back.
So I eventually managed to make an upload to ClubLog. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the Logbook Of The World, that seems to have been subject to some sort of crash! At the time of writing it's still offline.
Note: The ARRL 'HQ-based systems' were this month hacked by bad actors, and many of their services have since been taken offline as a precaution against further loss. You should know however, that if you have an account with the ARRL (for LOTW for example) then it is highly likely that all of your data, including your personal data, has been stolen - https://thecyberexpress.com/cyberattack-on-arrl. This is at least the second time that the ARRL has been hacked, as a major security breach was also reported in 2014 - https://www.arrl.org/news/arrl-investigating-web-server-breach). M0XYF
In the meantime, I worked a heap of USA counties and some interesting islands. At the end of the first week I found and worked RI1ANE down in the Antarctic on 10 metres, AN-016 for IOTA and the last continent for WAC on FT8. On the 28th I managed to contact FT4GL on Gloriosa Isl’ for one of my rare (these days) ATNO. To finish off the month I got 4X2DS from 440 metres below sea level!
On the evening of the 10th we enjoyed an almost total blackout, but the Aurora here in mid Sussex was really spectacular. I recall cycle 19 in 1956 with the full curtain display, after that cycle 22 in 1990 - not so bright, but enough to overcome the Sodium street lighting.
This time in cycle 24, almost the full works, with green displays from the whole of the northern horizon up to overhead with a small display south of here over the channel. Radio contacts during this period were very few, but Bogota seemed like a local contact!
One major advantage of the digital modes is the computer’s ability to display the actual propagation in nearly real time. On 15 metres the main routes are the greylines, both morning and evening. So last thing at night for me China, Indonesia, and Australia are common contacts.
Next time as I run up to 40 years of 'ZCS' operation, a little history.
Enough for now, so 73s
Chris G4ZCS
