AmateurRadio.com

It's time once again for The Weekender. This is our bi-weekly departure into the world of amateur radio contests, open source conventions, special events, listener challenges, hedonism and just plain fun. Thanks for listening and, if you happen to get a chance, feel free to call us or e-mail and send us some feedback. Tell us how we're doing. We'd love to hear from you.

73 de The LHS Crew

Russ Woodman, K5TUX, co-hosts the Linux in the Ham Shack podcast which is available for download in both MP3 and OGG audio format. Contact him at [email protected].

RFI issue spread across the band

Over the last let's say a month or so I have been seeing some RFI on the waterfall of my Icom 7610 that is new. For about 7 months I have been RFI free at my new QTH and was very happy regarding this fact. At my old QTH in downtown Toronto RFI was the norm. 20m seems to be the worst for the issue and it's not all the time and as for what are the times I am not exactly sure. I have been very lazy with trying to narrow down a time frame for the RFI events. Way back about 10 years I did have a plasma TV that gave me a huge headache but I was able to solve that issue with the MFJ 1026 noise cancelling unit. In my wisdom, I ended up selling the MFJ unit for whatever reason. To try to narrow down the issue I have done the following:
- Switched to my active antenna and I still had the issue.
- I change to battery power only and I still had the issue.
- I turned off the main AC circuit breaker to the house and I still had the issue while using battery power obviously. Oh and an added note.....my dear wife was not happy about that.

Sometimes the RFI stops but then soon starts

-Switched to my dummy load and the issue was gone but so were all signals.
So from the above, it seems it is being picked up by the antenna and not something within my home. At this point, I have not tried to pinpoint times as to when or if the RFI is present. I will be within the next few weeks paying very close attention to times when I am on and if the RFI is present or not. Until then I wanted to see if I was able to solve the issue with the Icom 7610's filtering. The choices I have are the noise reduction option or the noise blanker option. As a side note, my previous rig was the Elecraft K3 and it had amazing filtering for RFI issues. It was time to put the Icom 7610 to the test and see how it performed. I tried both the NR and NB and found it was the NB (noise blanker) that did the trick. I was able to totally remove the RFI and still hear the CW signal that was getting buried in the noise. Within the noise blanker settings, you can adjust the level, depth and width. I did find certain settings worked better than others at removing the offending RFI. I did change over to my Elecraft KX3 just to see how it dealt with the RFI and I was shocked how it really was not able to remove the RFI and the Icom 7610 won hands down!

Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Hello and welcome to Episode 344 of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this episode, the hosts discuss the Contest University, learning Morse Code, virtual online club meetings, 6-meter season, open-source N95 masks, WSJT-X, BSD, Solaris...what the??? Anyway, hope you enjoy the episode, stay home, stay safe and play amateur radio and open source.

73 de The LHS Crew

Russ Woodman, K5TUX, co-hosts the Linux in the Ham Shack podcast which is available for download in both MP3 and OGG audio format. Contact him at [email protected].

Way back in 2013, Joyce/K0JJW and I did the first SOTA activation of W0C/SP-099, an unnamed summit in the San Isabel National Forest. As is often the case, we just reviewed the forest service map and drove down a road that got us sort of close to the summit and headed on up. On this initial activation, we came from the south, which is a viable route, but not all that great. Later, Walt/W0CP found a much better starting point to the east of the unnamed summit, so we were interested in trying that out.

The driving directions are to take County Road 187 south to CR 185, then turn off onto 185E. Consult the San Isabel National Forest map for context. The graphic below shows the immediate area near the summit.

The only mildly tricky part of FS 185E is that it passes through a section of private property that is surrounded by national forest. There are a number of private drives along the road (most of them gated and labeled “No Trespassing.”)  However, 185E keeps on going and pops out the other side, where a wire gate marks the reentry into the national forest. Walt indicates a good place to park is at Lat/Lon 38.78067, -105.98301. The road was in good condition and should be passable with a high-clearance 2WD vehicle.

At this point, headed west towards the summit, hiking off trail. There is very little downed timber so the walk is quite enjoyable. The specific route is not critical but stay north of the private property.

My GPS app shows the hike at 0.85 miles one way with 460 feet of elevation gain. This is easy peasy, so we have started to call this unnamed summit “EZ 99”.

We worked a number of stations on 2m FM and then headed on down. (We also activated Bald Mountain W0C/SP-115, about two miles west,  on the same day.)

This summit is now on our highly recommended list, an easy-to-access, pleasant hike in a beautiful area of Colorado.

73 Bob K0NR

The post Activating SOTA W0C/SP-099 appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

Bob Witte, KØNR, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Colorado, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Here is this week’s space weather and geophysical report, issued 2020 May 11 0302 UTC.

Highlights of Solar and Geomagnetic Activity 04 – 10 May 2020

Solar activity was very low. Regions 2760 (S06, L=306, class/area Cro/020 on 29 Apr) and 2763 (N32, L=260, class/area Bxo/010 on 30 Apr) were both plage regions as they rotated off the west limb on 05 May and 08 May, respectively. No Earth-directed CMEs were observed.

No proton events were observed at geosynchronous orbit.

The greater than 2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit was at normal to moderate levels. The peak flux was 240 pfu observed at 09/0420 UTC.

Geomagnetic field activity was mostly quiet with isolated unsettled periods observed on 06 and 10 May. Solar wind parameters were at nominal levels with solar wind speed ranging from 285-360 km/s. Total field ranged from 1-8 nT while the Bz component was between +6/-7 nT.

Forecast of Solar and Geomagnetic Activity 11 May – 06 June 2020

Solar activity is expected to be at very low levels on 11 May – 06 Jun.

No proton events are expected at geosynchronous orbit.

The greater than 2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit is expected to be at normal to moderate levels.

Geomagnetic field activity is expected to be mostly quiet. Unsettled levels are expected on 13-14 May and 18-19 May due to coronal hole high speed stream activity.

Don’t forget to visit our live space weather and radio propagation web site, at: http://SunSpotWatch.com/

Live Aurora mapping is at http://aurora.sunspotwatch.com/

If you are on Twitter, please follow these two users: 1. https://Twitter.com/NW7US 2. https://Twitter.com/hfradiospacewx

– – – – – – – – – – – – –

Be sure to subscribe to our space weather and propagation email group, on Groups.io

https://groups.io/g/propagation-and-space-weather

Spread the word!

– – – – – – – – – – – – –

Links of interest:

+ Amazon space weather books: http://g.nw7us.us/fbssw-aSWSC
+ https://Twitter.com/NW7US
+ https://Twitter.com/hfradiospacewx

Space Weather and Ham Radio YouTube Channel News:

I am working on launching a YouTube channel overhaul, that includes series of videos about space weather, radio signal propagation, and more.

Additionally, I am working on improving the educational efforts via the email, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, and other activities.

You can help!

Please consider becoming a Patron of these space weather and radio communications services, beginning with the YouTube channel:

https://www.patreon.com/NW7US

The YouTube channel:
https://YouTube.com/NW7US

..

Visit, subscribe: NW7US Radio Communications and Propagation YouTube Channel

This is 20m FT8 on Saturday it sure is very hard to belly up to the bar and find a spot for your signal cursor! I would chance to say that FT8 is seeming to have caught on. I did manage to contact many U.S stations are well as Russia, France and the Netherlands. 
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

In this episode, Martin M1MRB is joined by Chris Howard M0TCH, Ed Durrant DD5LP, Frank Howell K4FMH and Bill Barnes WC3B to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin M6BOY rounds up the news in brief and this episode’s feature is the Restoring Valve/Tube Gear.

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Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at [email protected].