Posts Tagged ‘Propagation’
Conditions sucked yesterday
July 6th, 2015 | 
Author: Apologies for my bluntness, but it is what it is.
After completing a bunch of yard work, I got set up for the QRP-ARCI Summer Homebrew Sprint. All I heard was a bunch of nothing. I ended up working K4BAI and N4BP and that was it. Discouraged, and thinking that it might be my portable antennas (which performed just fine for Field Day last weekend), I left the park early and came home. The HF9V and the W3EDP antennas connected to the shack KX3 weren't hearing any more or any better, so I guess it was just a bad propagation day.
So this morning, I noticed a post from another Ham in the Facebook Field Radio group. He didn't have any luck either in his own personal portable ops trip yesterday. He was wondering whether it might be his antennas or a case of an unacceptable SWR ........
So of course, someone had to pipe up with "Try a 100 Watt radio next time. Life is too short for QRP."
That just burns my biscuits. So I fired back with, "Propagation sucked yesterday, and can we do without the "Life's too short for QRP" line? Not only is it untrue, but it's really overused."
A bit later, I got a pang of conscience, feeling that I might have been a bit harsh with that line, so I added, "I've got nothing against QRO (use it myself sometimes). I have been at this Ham Radio thing since 1978 and have been 99 and 44/100ths % QRP since 2003. I'm not trying to make it a "religion" or force anyone into it, but I still get amazed and shake my head sometimes as what 5 Watts will accomplish. But still ...... whatever peels your potato. If you like QRO, fine - QRP, fine - CW, fine - SSB, fine - digital, fine - there's room for all of us. The more the merrier."
Really, there's no reason to ever demean or diminish what someone likes about Amateur Radio. Even if for the life of you, you can't understand why someone would like to spend hours chasing after some little island in the middle of nowhere, or why someone chases signals that you can't even hear with your own ears, or why someone just won't give up on an old, antiquated form of transmission that was invented over 100 years ago and has been dumped by just about everyone else in the world, or why some people seem to get together for hours just to kibbitz about old times or enumerate their aches and pains, or even why someone would "waste" their entire weekend working a contest while simultaneously "clogging up the bands".
If it's what you like, then that's all that's important - and don't let anyone tell you different.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
After completing a bunch of yard work, I got set up for the QRP-ARCI Summer Homebrew Sprint. All I heard was a bunch of nothing. I ended up working K4BAI and N4BP and that was it. Discouraged, and thinking that it might be my portable antennas (which performed just fine for Field Day last weekend), I left the park early and came home. The HF9V and the W3EDP antennas connected to the shack KX3 weren't hearing any more or any better, so I guess it was just a bad propagation day.
So this morning, I noticed a post from another Ham in the Facebook Field Radio group. He didn't have any luck either in his own personal portable ops trip yesterday. He was wondering whether it might be his antennas or a case of an unacceptable SWR ........
So of course, someone had to pipe up with "Try a 100 Watt radio next time. Life is too short for QRP."
That just burns my biscuits. So I fired back with, "Propagation sucked yesterday, and can we do without the "Life's too short for QRP" line? Not only is it untrue, but it's really overused."
A bit later, I got a pang of conscience, feeling that I might have been a bit harsh with that line, so I added, "I've got nothing against QRO (use it myself sometimes). I have been at this Ham Radio thing since 1978 and have been 99 and 44/100ths % QRP since 2003. I'm not trying to make it a "religion" or force anyone into it, but I still get amazed and shake my head sometimes as what 5 Watts will accomplish. But still ...... whatever peels your potato. If you like QRO, fine - QRP, fine - CW, fine - SSB, fine - digital, fine - there's room for all of us. The more the merrier."
Really, there's no reason to ever demean or diminish what someone likes about Amateur Radio. Even if for the life of you, you can't understand why someone would like to spend hours chasing after some little island in the middle of nowhere, or why someone chases signals that you can't even hear with your own ears, or why someone just won't give up on an old, antiquated form of transmission that was invented over 100 years ago and has been dumped by just about everyone else in the world, or why some people seem to get together for hours just to kibbitz about old times or enumerate their aches and pains, or even why someone would "waste" their entire weekend working a contest while simultaneously "clogging up the bands".
If it's what you like, then that's all that's important - and don't let anyone tell you different.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
CLE 195 Results
Propagation conditions co-operated for the recent CLE weekend but the weather did not. The high level of lightning activity resulted in some stations hearing just a fraction of what they usually hear in the 270 - 319KHz region. Although most of the lightning was a few states / provinces to my east, the results here were the same, with noise levels receding by ~18db when sunrise arrived over the lightning-affected regions.
It seems that almost everybody logged 500-watter YQ-305 in Churchill, Manitoba except me as this monster eluded me all weekend ... yet little 25-watter, YPM, in Pikangikum, Ontario made it through in fine form ... very odd.
The following stations were logged, all on the first night of the three-evening affair, with no new catches being added after night one:
20 07:00 272 XS 343 Prince George, BC, CAN
20 08:00 274 YPM 1299 Pikangikum Apt, ON, CAN
20 10:00 274 FR 928 Fort Resolution, NT, CAN
20 08:00 275 GEY 779 Greybull, WY, USA
20 11:00 278 1U 521 Masset Municipal Apt, BC, CAN
20 11:00 281 CRN 1510 Cairn Mtn - Sparrevohn LRRS, ALS
20 11:00 283 DUT 1867 Dutch Harbor - Unalaska Apt, ALS
20 09:00 284 QD 1014 The Pas Municipal Apt, MB, CAN
20 11:00 284 FHR 26 Friday Harbor Apt, WA, USA
20 09:00 286 EKS 600 Ennis - Big Sky Apt, MT, USA
20 10:00 287 PE 560 Peace River, AB, CAN
20 10:00 290 YYF 171 Penticton, BC, CAN
20 10:00 292 ZET 518 Devon - Edmonton IAP, AB, CAN
20 10:00 293 MB 18 Mill Bay - Sidney, BC, CAN
20 10:00 295 8C 537 Fairview Municipal Apt, AB, CAN
20 11:00 296 LGD 349 La Grande, OR, USA
20 09:00 299 TV 417 Turner Valley, AB, CAN
20 10:00 302 QW 705 North Battleford, SK, CAN
20 10:00 304 FH 485 Mc Leod (Whitecourt), AB, CAN
20 09:00 305 Z1 484 Three Hills, AB, CAN
20 11:00 305 ONO 448 Ontario Municipal Apt, OR, USA
20 10:00 307 M5 605 Manning, AB, CAN
20 10:00 308 ZZD 515 Calmar (Edmonton Intl Apt), AB, CAN
20 10:00 311 9Y 421 Pincher Creek, AB, CAN
20 11:00 312 UNT 173 Naramata, BC, CAN
20 10:00 317 VC 873 La Ronge, SK, CAN
CLE organizer, Brain Keyte, made the following comments in his CLE summary:
Most listeners seemed to be more affected by the natural QRN than by DGPS Stations' QRM.
Europe seemed to be relatively lucky with less static interference, especially for those able to pick their listening times.
Most listeners seemed to be more affected by the natural QRN than by DGPS Stations' QRM.
Europe seemed to be relatively lucky with less static interference, especially for those able to pick their listening times.
We covered the same frequencies back in March last year. Surprisingly, Europe's reception statistics showed very little difference. The rest of the world had the more normal summertime problems, perhaps also a bigger loss of active NDBs, and some of their overall reception statistics (number of NDBs heard and total distance) were 50% lower.
The highest 'rest of the world' NDBs count, unsurprisingly, was achieved by Edgar 'down under'. It must be quite hard for many of us who are 'up over' and trying to keep cool, to imagine his mid-winter conditions!
CLE196 will be over the weekend of 24-27 July.
LDE’s – Really Long Ones!
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| courtesy: https://openclipart.org |
Tommy happened upon the LDE when tuning around the band one December evening. He heard a weak, warbly ... "CQ CQ CQ de VE7BLF VE7BLF K". A chill went up his spine as he had actually called CQ about 30 minutes earlier, and was answered by a K7. Sure enough, the phantom LDE soon came back to the K7 while Tommy listened to himself send the report, name and his QTH information on the next transmission! Listening to his own signals, 30 minutes later, really shook my friend up as he had no idea what to make of the incident.
Over the next few weeks, Tommy heard several LDEs, some with separations as much as 3 or 4 days and during this time made several recordings of the events. He made a copy of the recordings for me to listen to and the sound of the signal really did send shivers up my back. It was tormented, warbly, with a bit of flutter and very weak. It sounded as though the signal had been ripped apart on a trip to hell and back, adding further to the mystery.
The LDEs stopped as quickly as they had begun and were never heard again but in the meantime, Tommy and I speculated on what might be the cause. Were they genuine LDEs? ... they certainly sounded as if they had been on a very long trip ... or was the explanation something far less sinister? We never did solve the mystery but I had suggested that one likely explanation might be a faulty (or normally operating) VCR, somewhere in the neighborhood. Someone that happened to record at around the same time that Tommy was operating and playing the program back when Tommy happened to be listening. It seemed a far-shot and one that we never tested, preferring to think of it as another one of the mysteries of radio. Unfortunately Tommy became an SK several years ago, never knowing the cause of his mystery signals.
During a recent discussion with Tony (VE7CNF) and Mark (VA7MM) about the newly imagined plasma tubes, the subject of their possible link to LDEs also emerged. I related the above story and Toby immediately went to work with his old VCR! In his own words:
Yes, old VHS recorders could cause long delay echoes. When Steve mentioned it, I had to try it. I attached a photo and some recordings.
I hooked up my old VHS recorder with BNC video and audio cables in and out. I pulled out the video cables a bit to disconnect the shields, so RF could leak into and out of the video ports. My IC7410 was connected to a dummy load and split, through a T connector, to a whip antenna on top of the VHS.Transmit power was 100W to the dummy load.
I transmitted while recording video. When I played it back I could hear the CW signal pretty much on frequency. I tried this at 1820 kHz and the signal had a lot of frequency flutter. At 3510 kHz the playback signal was stable enough for SSB.
So, RF leaking into and out of the video cables of a nearby VHS recorder could explain LDE's where the delay is hours or days.
Mystery solved ... the signals that Toby reproduced had the exact same characteristics as I recall from Tommy's old tape recordings although his signals were much weaker, making them seem as if they had been on a very long journey.
I wonder how many others have run into this same situation over the years?
Since getting on the air as a teenager in 1963, and thousand of hours of operating, I have never heard an LDE, or at least nothing longer than a keying echo on a longpath reflection. How about you?
CKZU – 6160 Close-Up
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| courtesy: googlemaps.ca |
On a weekend bike ride along the West Richmond dyke, Mark (VA7MM) snapped this wonderful close-up view of the system:
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| courtesy: VA7MM |
So the next time you are tuning around 40m, drop down a bit and see how their signal sounds at your location ... you may be pleasantly surprised.
Earth-Shrouding Plasma Tubes
If you haven't seen this by now, you'll want to check it out! It seems that the world of astrophysics has been set all agog by a brilliant Australian undergraduate student's recent discovery. Cleo Loi from the University of Sydney has used a combination of radio telescopes to prove the existence of earth-surrounding tubular plasma ducts. Travelling from the ionosphere to the edges of space, these multi-layered plasma tubes were believed to exist but were never proven ... until Ms. Loi and her team managed to image them:
What the implications might be when it comes to their influence on radio propagation, if any, remains to be seen but I suspect that astrophysicists all over the world are having a close examination of long-held theories and the implications on their own fields of study.
You can read more details about this exciting discovery here.
What the implications might be when it comes to their influence on radio propagation, if any, remains to be seen but I suspect that astrophysicists all over the world are having a close examination of long-held theories and the implications on their own fields of study.
You can read more details about this exciting discovery here.
New Sunspot Region: Flare Activity Expected This Week
There is a new sunspot region rotating into view, producing moderately-strong (M-class) x-ray flares. This video shows you the first 11 hours of May 5, 2015
Expect flares throughout this week, which will degrade HF propagation DURING the flare, but enhance propagation overall (due to the higher Radio Flux). There might be occasional coronal mass ejections, too.
Happy Morse Code Day!
Today is Morse Code Day, which of course, is celebrated on the birthday of Samuel FB Morse.
Does this make Samuel the original "Old Man"? Sorry Mr. Maxim*, I think Mr. Morse has seniority on you for that title, as Mr. Morse would be celebrating his 224th birthday today, were he of the kin of Methuselah.
Now that QRPTTF is over, except for e-mailing in my log summary, I thought I'd post where my signal was being heard on Saturday, according to the Reverse Beacon Network.
Bob W3BBO and I were discussing QRPTTF yesterday amongst ourselves, and it occurred to both of us that the western half of the nation seems to have reported larger QSO totals than the eastern half of the nation. This based on e-mails sent to QRP-L that we had read. Not sure what that means, but so far I haven't seen many e-mails from anyone east of the Mississippi with log summaries of around 40 QSOs or so. It will be interesting to see how it breaks down geographically once the results are in.
The EARCHI does get heard, and being on the top of a high hill (we call those mountains, here in NJ) sure makes a difference. And this makes for the other important lesson I've learned from events such as these. As nice as it would be to come in 1st place in a contest such as QRPTTF, the real prize won is enjoying a day outdoors, playing radio in the fresh air and sunshine, being able to forget about everyday worries, cares and concerns, even if it's just for a couple hours.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
* - For those of you who are new to the Ham radio game, Hiram Percy Maxim who founded the ARRL, often wrote editorials under the pseudonym "The Old Man". Since HPM lived from 1869 - 1936. I guess that makes Mr. Morse the rightful holder of "The Old Man" title.
Does this make Samuel the original "Old Man"? Sorry Mr. Maxim*, I think Mr. Morse has seniority on you for that title, as Mr. Morse would be celebrating his 224th birthday today, were he of the kin of Methuselah.
Now that QRPTTF is over, except for e-mailing in my log summary, I thought I'd post where my signal was being heard on Saturday, according to the Reverse Beacon Network.
Even though I didn't make any contacts on 15 Meters, it appears my signal was leaping over The Pond. Not the loudest, but still making it. Here's as much of the table was I was able to snip.
Bob W3BBO and I were discussing QRPTTF yesterday amongst ourselves, and it occurred to both of us that the western half of the nation seems to have reported larger QSO totals than the eastern half of the nation. This based on e-mails sent to QRP-L that we had read. Not sure what that means, but so far I haven't seen many e-mails from anyone east of the Mississippi with log summaries of around 40 QSOs or so. It will be interesting to see how it breaks down geographically once the results are in.
The EARCHI does get heard, and being on the top of a high hill (we call those mountains, here in NJ) sure makes a difference. And this makes for the other important lesson I've learned from events such as these. As nice as it would be to come in 1st place in a contest such as QRPTTF, the real prize won is enjoying a day outdoors, playing radio in the fresh air and sunshine, being able to forget about everyday worries, cares and concerns, even if it's just for a couple hours.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
* - For those of you who are new to the Ham radio game, Hiram Percy Maxim who founded the ARRL, often wrote editorials under the pseudonym "The Old Man". Since HPM lived from 1869 - 1936. I guess that makes Mr. Morse the rightful holder of "The Old Man" title.
