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Propagation remains good on 10 metres. I left the K3 on 28.076 running JT65-HF for most of the day. I made several contacts including N3CAL, WA2CRB, PY8ELO, KE1AF, WB9OTX, WK8G and SV4FFK. The map shows where my signal was heard. I was even spotted by Joe, W6CQZ/4, the author of the excellent JT65-HF software.

JT65 is addictive. It’s also a very relaxing way to make QSOs. It’s ideal for me at the moment because my eyes tire very easily. I end up with blurred or double vision if I read or stare at the computer screen for too long so modes like PSK31 aren’t really a good idea. Thanks to the JT65-HF add-on JT-Alert an alarm sounds if a station I haven’t worked before calls CQ and another sound wakes me up if a station replies to me. This means that I can look out the window or something and only need look at the screen when I have something to do. The print in the JT65-HF program window is nice and big too.

Listening on 28.076 I heard some strange noises which I eventually realized were FM transmissions being received in SSB mode. CBers transmitting out of band I presume.

I don’t suppose many CBers read this blog but come on, guys. It’s none of my business if you choose to operate illegally but if you do, please stay below 28MHz. You may not hear our weak JT65 signals with your FM radios but we sure as hell can hear you.

Update: Just worked Joe “The Man” W6CQZ/4 in Florida. He was running 5W to what I seem to remember him posting once in the JT65-HF Google group is a Hamstick on a mag mount stuck to the roof of his shed. Thank you Joe for the contact and for the fantastic JT65-HF software!

Today was the first really big Sporadic-E opening of the year. Six metres was wide open across the whole of Europe and Scandinavia. There was even a good 2 metre Sporadic-E opening in central Europe though no propagation appeared to reach the UK.

Yesterday I worked a string of Spanish stations on Six but that opening was not as good as today’s. This morning’s fun began with a contact with OK2IEN, then it was mostly Germans with a few other countries until round about lunch time.

I prefer the relaxing pace of Search and Pounce but when most of the stations you pounce on either have a pile-up and don’t hear you or are S&Ping themselves and move away it’s time to call CQ. It’s not something I often do and it’s almost more than my brain can cope with to talk to people while simultaneously typing into the computer their report, locator and call, but I quickly worked a string of stations and often had two or three at once replying to my CQ calls. This isn’t something that happens often when you run a stealth dipole so you have to enjoy it when you can!

In the afternoon, for a break, I tried JT65A. A lot of the interest in monitoring 50.076 seems to have evaporated when conditions were flat but a few stations were on and I made three contacts using the mode, though none were DX I could not have worked on SSB.

Later the propagation seemed to have shifted North to favour Denmark and Sweden and I worked a number of stations from there, many at massive signal strength. In all I made 45 contacts today – probably more than I have ever made during a single day except when playing in a contest.

I love six metres – it really is the magic band!

The 6 metre band is showing signs of life, as this map of WSPR activity from this afternoon shows.

However, some of the traces on the WSPR application screen look a bit odd.

I don’t claim to be an expert but I think what I am seeing is the result of doppler shift on the signals being reflected by fast-moving Sporadic-E clouds. In several cases what seems to be a trace has not been decoded.

I’ve said this before, but I wonder if WSPR mode with its 110 second transmit periods and tiny frequency shift encoding is really suitable for detecting Sporadic-E propagation. But no-one has ever commented on this, leaving me to wonder whether they think I’m an idiot who doesn’t know what he is talking about or whether nobody knows.

The digital mode most people seem to use on 6m is JT6M, however this entails using the WSJT program which I find rather confusing. I’m interested in trying JT65A but I’m not sure if it is any more suitable than WSPR for this type of work.

In the absence of any expert advice I’m going to try JT65A using a dial frequency of 50.276MHz. With the JT-Alert accessory to tell me when anyone replies I can leave the rig calling CQ whilst I am otherwise occupied. It will be interesting to see what we can work on 6m with the JT65A mode.

The 6 metre band is showing signs of life, as this map of WSPR activity from this afternoon shows.

However, some of the traces on the WSPR application screen look a bit odd.

I don’t claim to be an expert but I think what I am seeing is the result of doppler shift on the signals being reflected by fast-moving Sporadic-E clouds. In several cases what seems to be a trace has not been decoded.

I’ve said this before, but I wonder if WSPR mode with its 110 second transmit periods and tiny frequency shift encoding is really suitable for detecting Sporadic-E propagation. But no-one has ever commented on this, leaving me to wonder whether they think I’m an idiot who doesn’t know what he is talking about or whether nobody knows.

The digital mode most people seem to use on 6m is JT6M, however this entails using the WSJT program which I find rather confusing. I’m interested in trying JT65A but I’m not sure if it is any more suitable than WSPR for this type of work.

In the absence of any expert advice I’m going to try JT65A using a dial frequency of 50.276MHz. With the JT-Alert accessory to tell me when anyone replies I can leave the rig calling CQ whilst I am otherwise occupied. It will be interesting to see what we can work on 6m with the JT65A mode.

Digital modes such as WSPR and JT65A are time-synchronous and require the computer clock to be accurate to within a second. New users frequently don’t realize this and find that they aren’t decoding any signals. When they go to a forum for advice they are inevitably advised by well-meaning helpers to run a bit of software called Dimension 4.

Once upon a time there may have been a good reason for using this program but today it is not a good idea at all. I have seen several forum threads where people have installed Dimension 4 and believed that their PC clock was now accurate, but were still not decoding signals. I suspect that this is because newer versions of Windows have tightened the security controlling whether programs are allowed to do things like change the system clock. Dimension 4, being last updated in 2004 according to its website, knows nothing of this.

There may or may not be ways to make Dimension 4 work under Windows 7 or Vista but there is no reason to bother with them. Instead, just install Meinberg NTP for Windows. Not only is this every bit as free as Dimension 4, it is also the official Network Time Protocol client software. Nothing is ever going to keep your computer clock more accurate than this, and if installed using the default settings it will “just work” even on the latest versions of Windows.

So please, computer Elmers, stop telling people who need to get their clocks synchronized to install an old and unsupported program.

No, I haven’t gone and bought an Icom IC-9100. Nor am I planning to. However, through the JT65-HF Google group I learned of an issue that could be a serious annoyance to anyone who owns one of these radios and wishes to use it for digital modes on a computer that runs Windows XP. The issue is that the audio output from the radio is at a fixed level and cannot be altered. I thought it deserved wider publicity, because if I had been thinking of buying an IC-9100 I would have found this out the hard way, and I don’t think many people would be happy at having to buy a new computer to go with their £3000 radio.

The IC-9100 (and the IC-7600) both have USB connections between the rig and the radio. Hailed by many as the way to go (though not by me) this single connection provides both a virtual serial port for rig control and a USB sound device for digital modes. Unfortunately under Windows XP when you select the Icom sound device and open the mixer settings to set the audio level from the radio there is no slider. It is fixed. I’m told there isn’t a control in the radio itself to change the level either.

Most digital mode programs don’t have a level control within the software, they expect you to use the Windows level controls. So if your waterfall is bright yellow because the audio level is too high there is nothing you can do if you own one of these Icom radios (except, presumably, use the good old-fashioned analogue audio connections.)

Progress. Don’t you love it?

One of the problems with operating in the evening is that on most HF bands even a few watts of RF is enough to turn on the neighbours’ security lights. So there is an extra incentive to work QRP. This evening I tried JT65A at 2W on 30m, then moved to 20m with 5W. This map shows where my QRP signals were received.

The antenna on 20m was the multiband attic dipole. Stations worked included K3AXR (FM28), KF4NX (EM83), AB0DI (EN41), VA3WLD (FN03) and KD2A (FN13). By the way, whoever said JT65A is not a chat mode!