AmateurRadio.com

As mentioned previously, today was the Raritan Valley Radio Club (of which I am a member) Hamfest.  I got up bright and early at 4:00 AM to be on site by 5:30 AM, in order to help direct vendors and sellers to their spots in the Piscataway High School parking lot.

Providence was with us, and after a few days of soaking rain, when the sun rose this morning there was absolutely not a cloud in the sky.  In fact, for the duration of the hamfest, the sky was that deep, clear crystal blue that you see maybe only 4 or 5 times a year.

Things started off really slow but in the end, we ended up (again) having more sellers show up than last year and more buyers, too, which is a good thing!

Sadly, I really did not get a chance to browse and peruse the tables much.  In addition to my parking duties, I was asked to serve as one of the VEs for the test session that we held.

Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

My portable mobile by the river.

It was another great day  here and I wanted to get all the house chores done and get on to some radio stuff! I wanted to get out and about with my KX3 so today I decided to operate from the car with my 20m whip antenna. Not sure how charged up the KX3 battery was I took along with me my new external battery just in case a low battery issue came about. The All Asia contest is on so the bands could be busy with DX and I wanted to be there to make some contacts. I found a nice place in town along the river were I was able to stay in the car as the bugs are very bad at this time of year. The bands were alive with DX, the first station that was booming in was JH4UYB from Japan then came RN3F from Russia, OH2BV from Finland, LY6A from Lithuania and finally UP2L who was 17 years old by the way from Kazakhstan. All GREAT DX but none of which could hear my 5 watts from the portable setup. I then moved on to just

A view down the river

calling CQ at the 20m watering hole. I did get a response from W5ESE from Texas but conditions changed very fast and he was still trying to pull out my call form the mud. The 2 hours went by very fast without really one confirmed contact! It was now time to pack up and head for home and try to make some contacts on the Elecraft K3  this evening.
On a side note.......last night I did make contact with a new DXCC 7Z1HL from Saudi Arabia! 
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

I made contact with 19 Japanese stations yesterday afternoon (June 14, 2013) on the 50-MHz (6 meter) band between 2314 and 2356 UTC.  This was my first “JA opening” on 50-MHz in a LONG time; my last Japanese QSOs on 50-MHz were back in the ’90s when we lived in Tiffany, Colorado (grid square DM67), a bit south of our new home in Glade Park, Colorado (grid square DM59pa). During the years we lived in Vermont the furthest west I ever reached on 50-MHz was Guam, a bit short of Japan.

If I’m anywhere near my radio (and sometimes when I’m not – thank you, smartphone) I point a Web browser at the “ON4KST 50 MHz IARU Region 2″ chat page to read late breaking 50-MHz DX related news, spots, rumors and general chatter especially during during times of the year when 50 MHz propagation is known to be possible:

• Around the spring and autumn equinoxes for Trans-Equatorial Propagation (TEP)
• May through the first half of August for the northern hemisphere summer Sporadic-E (Es) season
• A few weeks either side of New Year’s Day for the northern hemisphere winter Es season sometimes with propagation links to the southern hemisphere
• And – if we had more sunspots than Cycle 24 has seen fit thus far to bequeath – the northern hemisphere autumn and winter for F2 propagation

(Of course 50-MHz can open at any time of day and year and much of what happens on “The Magic Band” is poorly understood.  But the periods above are the ‘prime time for six.’)

It all began yesterday afternoon at 2200 UTC (which was 4 pm Colorado time) when Han JE1BMJ, a noted 50-MHz enthusiast and propagation theorist, was reported on 50,090.5 kHz by Jay K0GU on the ‘KST chat which grabbed my attention.  Jay lives in Wellington, Colorado (grid square DN70mq) about 230 miles east of me and is a dedicated, experienced 50-MHz DXer.  Jay hears a lot of stations before any one else in the Rocky Mountain region and his ‘KST posts are always worth noting.  I turned my new 50-MHz antenna (thanks to K7JA for assistance in building and installing this last month and of course G0KSC for the design) towards Japan – 312 degrees azimuth – and started listening.  At 2226 UTC I started hearing Han’s CW (Morse Code) signal slowly fade and out.

When I first attempted to make contact with Han but he was unable to hear my complete callsign and was responding to me as “AA7X” (leaving off the final T, I am AA7XT).  I eventually stopped calling JE1BMJ – I didn’t want to ‘hog the DX’ as Han and other Japanese stations were being heard over much of the US.  For a two-way contact to be considered legitimate in ham radio circles each party must copy correctly the other parties callsign and preferably some other information such as a signal report.

At 2314 I noticed Han’s signal had gotten louder so I called him again and made a solid contact straight away.  Success!  I was amazed my ‘barefoot’ (no amplifier, only 80 Watts output) Elecraft K3 transceiver and InnovAntennas 8 element LFA Yagi (an awesome antenna but it was on a tower parked at only 3 meters [10 feet ]above ground due to recent high winds) were making the 9,000 kilometer journey!  At ten feet up towards Japan my antenna was looking into a hillside!  I listened to Han work other stations for a few few minutes and savored the moment.

Here’s a short YouTube video I made of JE1BMJ’s signal yesterday:

I would have likely made many more contacts if had started calling CQ earlier!  For a long time I was only hearing JE1BMJ so I didn’t bother calling CQ until around a full hour after opening started.  I had an ‘instant pileup’ after first my CQ call; clearly I should have started CQing much earlier – Doh!  I proceeded to work 18 more Japanese stations before the path closed:

UTC	kHz	MODE	CALL	KM	GRID	RST_RCVD	RST_SENT
2356	50,093.0	CW	JA0DET	9079.748	PM97jk	559	559
2355	50,093.0	CW	JA7LGE	9355.597	PM85io	559	529
2350	50,093.0	CW	JA0MVW	9011.677	PM97ox	559	559
2349	50,093.0	CW	JA7DDK	8920.079	QM08dg	599	549
2348	50,093.0	CW	JH1RFR	9063.668	PM96wr	559	559
2346	50,093.0	CW	JN1JFC	9355.597	PM85io	559	549
2345	50,093.0	CW	JQ1TIV	9355.597	PM85io	559	559
2344	50,093.0	CW	JA1UAV	9133.899	PM96ta	559	559
2343	50,093.0	CW	JR2UKF	9351.394	PM85km	559	559
2342	50,093.0	CW	JF2WXS	9355.597	PM85io	559	559
2341	50,093.0	CW	JA7KE	8843.041	QM08pk	559	569
2340	50,093.0	CW	JH1MDJ	9355.597	PM85io	579	559
2339	50,093.0	CW	JA0RUG	9066.984	PM97jo	599	599
2338	50,093.0	CW	JH7FNM	8856.099	QM08ml	579	569
2337	50,093.0	CW	JA7EVP	9355.597	PM85io	599	529
2334	50,093.0	CW	JI1DMH	9150.703	PM96nf	559	549
2331	50,093.0	CW	JH0INP	9155.598	PM96cw	559	559
2329	50,093.0	CW	JA9SJI	9236.878	PM86pp	559	559
2314	50,094.5	CW	JE1BMJ	9355.597	PM85io	559	559

 

Toshi ,JA0RUG, who I worked during this opening, sent me a MP3 recording of my signal as heard in Japan (click on link to listen to the audio):

2013June14-2340z-AA7XT-50.093MHz-CW

Here are the grids I worked during yesterday’s opening:

The first hop was certainly Es as I was hearing loud stations in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia at reasonable Es single distance, but how about the rest of the way?  Han, JE1BMJ, the first station I worked in this opening, has developed a theory on these openings – which cluster around the summer solstice – and he has dubbed the mechanism “Short-path Summer Solstice Propagation” aka SSSP.  Articles on SSSP by JE1BMJ, W3ZZ, WB2AMU and KH6/K6MIO have been published in Dubus, CQ VHF, Six News and elsewhere.  Here are a few links:

• http://www.cq-vhf.com/vhf_highlights/2008_vhf/2008_fall_vhf/Fall08SSP.html
• http://k0ha.com/6m/ExtremeMultihopEsPubv2.pdf
• http://www.uksmg.org/content/g5kw/Short%20Path%20Summer%20Solstice%20Propagation%20bt%20JE1BMJ.pdf

So far, SSSP, if it in fact exists (such mysteries make 50-MHz DXing a fascinating avocation!) seems to be unique to the 50-MHz band.  I look forward to learning more about SSSP as more and more DXers become aware of the mode and watch for it.  Ham Radio is the exception to the ‘watched pot never boils’ rule of thumb.  In DXing, an unwatched band never opens!  One interesting note is that propagation like SSSP frequently repeats itself the next day so you can be sure I will be at my radio this afternoon!

73 and CU on the Magic Band!

Bill AA7XT

 

PS:  Some interesting recordings of 50-MHz DX signals heard in Japan by JE1BMJ can be found here (including yours truly):

http://audioboo.fm/han01a

Bill Hein, AA7XT, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Colorado, USA. He is co-owner of Force 12 and InnovAntennas. Contact him at [email protected].

Over on Twitter, this week, my pal Rachael Lucas, who has recently self-published an amazing successful first novel, drew my attention to some ‘interesting comments’ from the established publishing industry about self-publishing. Let’s just say, the comments weren’t encouraging. They reminded me of music company executives who hadn’t worked out how downloads would revolutionise their industry.

I’d casually wondered about self-publishing before, but I decided to look into what you needed to do to publish your own book. It turns out remarkably simple to get your eBook content onto Amazon. Clearly, you need to write something compelling and to be able to market it. Social Media is your friend, after all.

What does this mean for amateur radio publications? Well, if you’ve an idea and you want to put an eBook together, it’s simple! What does it mean for established publishers such as RSGB and ARRL? Time will tell, but I’d guess they will get squeezed as we see a shift towards self-publishing. That should mean that the breadth of titles available increases – up until now, ARRL/RSGB would presumably only commission titles that were reasonably mainstream. With subject matter experts able to self-publish, it would be good to feel that a wider and more esoteric range is available ( though sales may not be that high!).

For ARRL/RSGB who have traditionally made some money out of publishing, this represents an opportunity (or a threat, depending on your standpoint).

And yes, I have some ideas – I just have to find time to apply brain to keyboard.

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].

I was able to work this new DX country (PZ5RA) on the Northern tip of South America this evening. Suriname is a mere 2,791 miles but was a difficult catch for me. He was listening “up two” and it took me several attempts to work him. Fortunately my friend Eric (AC8LJ) who also lives here in Charleston, worked him just a few moments before me. It gave me a good estimate of where he was listening.

This station in Suriname, makes my 86th DX contact.

John Smithson, Jr., N8ZYA, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from West Virginia, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Inspired by David, KK4MND’s video the other day, I thought it would be fun to see if I could at least listen to the SO-50 satellite with the UV-5R. I realised that I would most likely need a better antenna than the stock antenna which comes with the UV-5R.

Via eBay, I ordered a Nagoya NA-771 dual bander which seems to have quite a good reputation. Having read about ‘counterfeit’ antennas, I wondered what I would get, but at around £8 including shipping from Hong Kong, it would not be the end of the world if it was useless.

The antenna arrived yesterday. Some quick comparisons, inside, on local repeaters were encouraging and signals were better on several UHF repeaters that I listened to with both antennas.

This morning, SO-50 obliged with a nice overhead pass as I was out in the garden, digging out a new vegetable bed. To my delight, signals were quite audible. Rob, M0TFO had a particularly good signal and I also heard an EA7. I’m pretty sure that on a quieter pass, I should be able to make a QSO with the UV-5R.

Of course the Elk antenna is much better – but the simplicity of the UV-5R and the NA-771 is appealing.

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].

Google has announced Project Loon, an experiment to use balloons aloft at about 60,000 feet / 20 km to provide broadband wireless Internet service to the hinterlands.  The Loon moniker is somewhat of an admission that the project is a bit crazy and a play on the word balloon, but it does have a sound technological foundation.  The technology is much cheaper than satellites and naturally easier to launch.

The experiment is beginning this month with the launch of a handful of balloons from New Zealand which will orbit about the 40th parallel and navigate around New Zealand using varying direction and magnitude air currents at various levels.  Beta testers have been selected in New Zealand to try out the system.

The idea of using aircraft to provide wireless services isn’t new, and radio amateurs have been launching experimental balloons with radios for quite awhile although recently there has been an upshot in interest.  Google is known for using open source software and contributing open source technology back to the community.  I’m curious if Google will open source the hardware, perhaps enabling amateur radio to benefit with its own balloon network similar to this someday.  Current typical amateur radio balloon missions last only a few days.  Having several balloons aloft could perhaps be an alternative to satellites which are becoming increasingly expensive and difficult to launch.

The Project Loon site has a nice video detailing the project here.

Anthony, K3NG, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com.