Archive for the ‘dx’ Category
The VK3BVW Winter DX Survey
August 14th, 2017 | 
Author:  |
| courtesy: VK3BVW |
Every once in awhile I get the yen to tune through the international SW broadcast bands as my interest in good old, basic SWL'ing, is rekindled.
These bands are certainly quieter compared to when I first discovered the magic of radio and started DXing at age eleven using a lovely old all band cathedral-style GE set up in my attic-high radio shack ... no longer just a boring attic bedroom, but one with walls plastered with QSLs from all over the world.
It was an amazing experience and one that obviously has left a lasting impression. There were hundreds and hundreds of stations on SW, throughout all of the HF bands but the highest I could tune was 19mc. on the old General Electric beauty ... who knows what was missed up higher as this was the peak of Cycle 19 and HF was on fire!As the huge decline in international SW broadcasting over the past few years continues, I'm always pleasantly surprised to see that there are still a lot of nice DX targets to hunt for.
I was particularly excited to read Rob's (VK3BVW) just released blogspot, describing his fall listening project from down-under. Being the DX season down in Australia, Rob decided to do daily bandscans of the low HF international SW bands (4.8 - 10MHz) to see what popped-up from day to day, which was actually afternoon to afternoon, since his listening was done between noon and 4PM local time. The project may be viewed here along with a nice introductory video ... in all, a huge effort by Rob with a lot of helpful details to go along with the logs.
While there be sure to visit the rest of Rob's SW blog ... there's a lot of good stuff here to get your SWL juices flowing!
His survey results are very encouraging for those of us that may have thought that there is just not much to be heard when it comes to international SW broadcasting. As Rob points out, even though these logs reflect what was heard in Australia, most, if not all should be hearable in North America as well, even more so as we approach the DX season in North America.
So pull up your chair sometime after dark, grab a cup of your favorite beverage, and take a relaxing tune through the SW bands with Rob's list in hand ... see what you can find, and perhaps rekindle that early fascination in SW radio outside of the ham bands that may have hooked you many years ago. You may also find this broadcast frequency database helpful should you run across something unknown.
The VK3BVW Winter DX Survey
|
| courtesy: VK3BVW |
Every once in awhile I get the yen to tune through the international SW broadcast bands as my interest in good old, basic SWL'ing, is rekindled.
These bands are certainly quieter compared to when I first discovered the magic of radio and started DXing at age eleven using a lovely old all band cathedral-style GE set up in my attic-high radio shack ... no longer just a boring attic bedroom, but one with walls plastered with QSLs from all over the world.
It was an amazing experience and one that obviously has left a lasting impression. There were hundreds and hundreds of stations on SW, throughout all of the HF bands but the highest I could tune was 19mc. on the old General Electric beauty ... who knows what was missed up higher as this was the peak of Cycle 19 and HF was on fire!As the huge decline in international SW broadcasting over the past few years continues, I'm always pleasantly surprised to see that there are still a lot of nice DX targets to hunt for.
I was particularly excited to read Rob's (VK3BVW) just released blogspot, describing his fall listening project from down-under. Being the DX season down in Australia, Rob decided to do daily bandscans of the low HF international SW bands (4.8 - 10MHz) to see what popped-up from day to day, which was actually afternoon to afternoon, since his listening was done between noon and 4PM local time. The project may be viewed here along with a nice introductory video ... in all, a huge effort by Rob with a lot of helpful details to go along with the logs.
While there be sure to visit the rest of Rob's SW blog ... there's a lot of good stuff here to get your SWL juices flowing!
His survey results are very encouraging for those of us that may have thought that there is just not much to be heard when it comes to international SW broadcasting. As Rob points out, even though these logs reflect what was heard in Australia, most, if not all should be hearable in North America as well, even more so as we approach the DX season in North America.
So pull up your chair sometime after dark, grab a cup of your favorite beverage, and take a relaxing tune through the SW bands with Rob's list in hand ... see what you can find, and perhaps rekindle that early fascination in SW radio outside of the ham bands that may have hooked you many years ago. You may also find this broadcast frequency database helpful should you run across something unknown.
Calling Olivia-mode Operators (from All Regions)
Calling all Olivia-mode operators with experience using the Olivia digital mode in all areas of the world:
Please join our Facebook group at the following link. We are discussing important operational changes!
If you are on Facebook, and interested in the Olivia HF radioteletype chat mode, please join the community group at the following link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/olivia.hf/
If you want to join our discussion by way of the Olivia group on Groups.io, please feel free to spread the news, and also to subscribe to that group email reflector. We’ll start discussions, soon. Here’s the link: https://groups.io/g/Olivia
OLIVIA (Also, Olivia MFSK) is an amateur digital radioteletype mode designed by Pawel Jalocha, SP9VRC, starting in 2003, and in use by 2005. The Olivia-mode goal was to be effective even in poor propagation conditions on the high frequencies (shortwave).
OLIVIA can decode well under noise, propagational fading (QSB), interference (QRM), flutter caused by polar path propagation and even auroral conditions and sporadic-E. Olivia uses a 7-bit ASCII alphabet. There were a handful of amateur digital modes that were derived from Olivia, including RTTYM and PAX.
Outside of amateur radio two-way communication, this mode is utilized during the tests run by the VoA every weekend. See the VoA RadioGram website, VoARadiogram.net, for the schedule.
The Olivia QSO between K4SOL and NW7US using 16/500 mode settings on shortwave, 2017-AUG-06 @1410UTC
The first on-the-air tests were performed by two radio amateurs, Fred OH/DK4ZC and Les VK2DSG on the Europe-Australia path in the 20-meter amateur band. The tests proved that the protocol works well and can allow regular intercontinental radio contacts with as little as one watt RF power. Since 2005 Olivia has become a standard for digital data transfer under white noise, fading and multipath, flutter (polar path) and auroral conditions.
Voluntary channelization
Since Olivia signals can be decoded even when received signals are extremely weak, (signal to noise ratio of -14 dB), signals strong enough to be decoded are sometimes below the noise floor and therefore impossible to search for manually.
As a result, amateur radio operators have voluntarily decided upon channelization for this mode. This channelization allows even imperceptibly weak signals to be properly tuned for reception and decoding. By common convention amateur stations initiate contacts utilizing either the 16/500 or 32/1000 modes and then switch to other modes to continue the conversation. The following table lists the common center frequencies used in the amateur radio bands.
The traditional channels are now under heavy use by newer modes. Thus, this Olivia group is working on refiguring the strategy for continued use and channelization. Please join us for discussion.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/olivia.hf/
[embedyt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-EXniWF79w[/embedyt]
[embedyt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUjiBVsXrzE[/embedyt]
[embedyt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz7a–ePSNs[/embedyt]
Thank you,
Tomas / NW7US
What a Zoo!
The question I raised in my article about JT65’s success (“Who’s next?”) has already been answered: Joe Taylor. The same guy that brought us the JT mode of families has devised the mode FT-8, developed together with Steven Franke (K9AN). It’s basically turbo charged JT65, with a message length of only 12.64 seconds and transmission beginnings synced to the next 15 second interval. It’s not as sensitive as JT65, but that might change when a priori information is added at a later stage.
My version of WSJT-X was automatically updated to 1.8.0-rc1 on July 11th and just for fun I decided to check out if there was any FT-8 activity. There was: a couple of VKs and JAs. I was a bit surprised, because I had been monitoring FSQ which has been around for a while already and I couldn’t find any activity. FT-8 had only just been introduced so that was a good sign. It got even better when I noted some European stations popping up in the local evening. I tried my hand at making a QSO, but couldn’t get through, so my first ever FT-8 QSO was with HS7WMU from Thailand. The reason why I couldn’t get through became clear later: the delta loop for 6 meters was still hooked up to the rig! After switching to a proper antenna if became apparent that even my modest verticals didn’t have any problem in getting through to Europe. Even better, stations from the east coast of the US were also coming in fine early evening and I also had no problem working them. (Over here in Taiwan the eastern US is one of the more difficult regions of the world to work).
Over the course of the next few weeks I noticed a steady increase in the number of stations I could receive. The statistics page of pskreporter.info backs this up. As I write this the number of FT-8 spots over the last 2 hours outnumber the JT65 spots 2 to 1. JT9 has already been relegated to the margins, so it seems Amateur Radio’s new favourite mode has become FT-8.
I have always been critical of the JT modes, mainly because they reduce QSOs to a 599 exchange with no possibilities to engage in a more meaningful conversation. Plus, JT65 is boringly slow. So, how do I feel about FT-8? Well, it’s not slow at all. In fact, you don’t even have time to push the appropriate macro buttons on the screen, so let WSPR-X do all the work for you. Even answering a reply to your own CQ can be handled automatically, which frees your hands into doing something else (In my case practising guitar. I’m working on Lindsey Buckingham’s “Never Going Back Again“, but don’t expect any performance soon). Arm chair DXing but still no possibility to start a real conversation with the other party. Not great in my book.
Screen capture of WSJT-X with my first ever FT-8 QSO. Notice the checks with “Auto Seq” and “Call 1st”. Keep these on if you want smooth, automatically sequenced QSOs.
Still, I’ve been playing with FT-8 a lot and it is kind of fun. I normally only log some four hundred QSOs a year and in the last two years that has been reduced to forty or less. Honestly, till July 14 I only had 22 QSOs in my log for 2017. Now I’m way over 240 of which 212 are FT-8 QSOs. July 8th was the highlight so far: SSN of 11 and the K index only 1, so pretty good ionospheric conditions. Within 4.5 hours I worked 50 stations from 19 DXCC entities, working from the east coast to the west coast of the US (I added four new states for my WAS), then into Europe. I hardly had any time to put out CQs, because the next station was already calling me before the previous QSO was finished. The pass band on the scope was filled to the brim, when one anonymous ham sent out the cry that became the title of this post: “What a Zoo!”
Screen capture of pskreporter with all the stations I received on August 8 in the span of 4.5 hours.
He may have found it a zoo, but I like zoos, a lot. All joking aside, the one thing that really attracts me to FT-8 is the fact that you can do real time ionospheric observations. WSPR was meant for this, but the number of WSPR stations is too small and signals are too infrequent to be very accurate in my opinion. By constantly monitoring the FT-8 pass band I already noted a couple of sudden ionospheric disturbances and even a complete black out. Sometimes it only takes minutes for conditions to change from favourable to abismal and as a self reliant ham FT-8 is then a nice monitoring tool to have.
So apart from Antenna Summer, this has also become FT-8 Summer. Until the end of August (summer break) I will be active from 05 to 15 UTC most days, calling CQ a lot. I’m on 20 meters only, so if you see me on your waterfall there give me a call.
ETH081 – Flying Around the World with Brian Lloyd
I’m sure that all of you have heard about Amelia Earhart and how she wanted to become the first woman to fly solo around the world. On June 1, 1937, she and her navigator took off from an airport in Florida and attempted to do just that. She however didn’t make it, but she came close. Her plane disappeared somewhere in the Pacific ocean.
Eighty years later, Brian Lloyd, WB6RQN, decided that he would attempt to fly around the world solo following(for the most part) her historic flight. Thankfully, Brian made it home back here to Texas, however it wasn’t without it’s problems.
In this episode of the Everything Ham Radio Podcast, we talk with Brian about his trip We talk about all the highs and lows, about all the awesome people that helped him along the way and generally about his adventure.
Give this episode a listen, I had a great time talking with Brian and I hope that you enjoy listening in on our conversation. You can find the show notes for the episode as well as listen to it at:
Field Day 2017 with Ian Kahn, KM4IK – ETH071
The biggest hamfest is over, but the biggest ham radio on the air event is quickly approaching! Yes I am talking about Field Day 2017! Back in episode 67, I had Ian on and we talked about PSK31. During that interview he mentioned that he was the Field Day Chair for his radio club, the North Fulton Amateur Radio League, so I asked him to come back and talk to us about Field Day.
We had a great conversation about what Field Day is, some general information about it, what its like to be the Field Day Chairperson and be in charge of planning the event for your club and wrap it up with things that his club does during Field Day and what goes on afterwards.
Check out the show notes of this episode for more information about things that we talk about, links that we mention and probably some that we didn’t. The show notes can be found at:
That’s Not Real Ham Radio
Things had been pretty quiet on the ham front lately but then I ran into a string of “That’s Not Real Ham Radio” discussions. This happens from time to time…I usually ignore it…but this time I got sucked into the topic.
It started with some HF enthusiasts I know talking about how “digital modes” are just not very satisfying. Their point is that with CW and SSB, there is an audio connection to your ear that makes you an integral part of the radio communication. The extreme-DSP modes such as JT65 insert serious signal processing that essentially removes the human connection. This can quickly lead to the generalization that these digital modes “aren’t real ham radio.”
I think its fair to say that most hams think of the HF bands as the center of the hobby…getting on the air, bouncing signals off the ionosphere to talk to someone over the horizon. Some hams will go even further and say that CW is the only way to go. Anything less is just phone. FM and repeaters? Forget that stuff…not enough skill required. And certainly, don’t get stuck on 2 meters.
In a previous post, I argued we should not confuse religion with modulation. I do occasionally make snarky comments about the continued use of AM (AKA Ancient Modulation), but I’ve tried to tone that down in recent years.
What About DMR?
Just last week, I was playing around with a DMR hotspot on the Brandmeister network. It really struck me that people on the system were having a blast talking to each other across North America and around the world. But then that nagging little voice in the back of my head said “hey, wait a minute…this is not real DX…the RF signal might only be traveling 20 feet or so from an HT to a hotspot.”
This caused me to put out a plea for insight on twitter:
I received a lot of good replies with the answers tending to clump into these three categories:
- I don’t know (“That’s Not Real Ham Radio”)
- It’s fun, new technology
- It’s a digital network that brings ham radio operators together
My interest seems to fall into the second category: this is fun, new technology. Which does make me wonder how long this new technology will remain interesting to me. Well, that is difficult to predict but I’ll invoke the principle of try not to overthink it. The idea that DMR is a digital network that brings ham radio operators together makes some sense. In the past, I have argued that amateur radio is not for talking. In other words, if you just want to talk someone, there are much more convenient ways of doing that. Still, there is something attractive about this ham-radio-only digital network.
It really is important to not overthink this kind of stuff. Ham radio is supposed to be fun, so if you are having fun, you are probably doing it right. If you are not having fun, then you might want to examine what you are doing. See my post on the Universal Purpose of Amateur Radio.
Sometimes hams can get a little spun up about those other guys that don’t appreciate our way of doing ham radio. What the heck is wrong with them anyway? I’ve always been inspired by the Noise Blankers Mission Statement:
Do radio stuff.
Have fun doing it.
Show people just how fun it is.
If your preferred form of ham radio is so superior, it ought to be easy to show other hams how cool it is. If not, then maybe you aren’t doing it right. Conversely, as long as other hams are having fun and operating legally, don’t knock what they are doing. In fact, encourage them. We need more people having fun with ham radio, even if it’s not your favorite kind of fun.
That’s my opinion. What do you think?
73, Bob K0NR
The post That’s Not Real Ham Radio appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.
