Friday, December 9, 2016

#28MHz high hopes monitoring

This blogpost is about monitoring 28MHz just before the ARRL 10m contest this weekend. It will be updated regulary till the weekend. It is not only my own monitoring but I keep track of others on 28MHz as well. A excellent station to follow for instance is PG0DX Henry who is also here in the northern part of the Netherlands and a avid 10m explorer. Besides that G3XBM Roger does monitor the 10m band on JT65 quite often and reports on his blog.

Friday 9-Dec-2016

Propagation: SFI:73 SN:14 A:23 K:4

Looking at the propagation index again (why should we do that actually?) it's getting worse. Even a small HF radio black out is expected. Is there still something 10m? Yes, you better believe that. 10m is interesting although not in excellent shape. For the average 10m user the band might be dead but if you take the time to listen you will encounter DX paths you almost cannot believe. This will be my last update before the ARRL 10m contest. I do not expect to make much QSO's during the contest although you'll never know.

Best contest times for us in the Netherlands will be the greyline in the morning starting around 6:34 UTC and just after sunrise according to the VK spots by PG0DX. In the afternoon best time is 15:00 UTC till darkness. Or according to the latest info even after sunset.

Henry PG0DX did write me a mail to explain he has the antenna to the west and so missed the Italian spot yesterday. Of course the beam width of a 6 element is very tight. Henry was not interested in that Italian spot at all. He also told me that he's monitoring 11m quite often and finds Australian stations on 27.355 LSB when no WSPR spot is made. Same count for US stations on 27.385 LSB. Indonesian statios can be heard on 27.305 USB. Does this sound ridiculous, you better think again. We know of a Thai station on 11m that made long path QSOs to Europe last week. A distance of 35000km.

So what happened today on the 10m band? SP4KA spotted VK2GGC at 8:09 UTC on SSB a good sign! A hour later PG0DX was spotted by VK6XT and VK2XN, this shows the band is open almost everyday to Australia. OZ9QV spotted 5B4CY in CW at 9:01 UTC. Then the usual everyday spots from Germany and some from the Netherlands till 15:00 when FY5KE came on again. Henry PG0DX text messaged me that he turned the beam to the east and got a incredible +15dB report. I received FY5KE as well but my antenna was pointed south. Not so unfortunate as it seems some sporadic-E was on when my own callsign was suddenly spotted at the DX cluster by HA9AL, I received his 2W signal with -17dB. Here is my list of unique stations spotted on WSPR today:

Of course there is more activity with the upcoming ARRL 10m contest and it might be my postings about the propagation on 10m these days. At least at 16:00 UTC there was a amount of sporadic-E I hope to see that as well tomorrow in the contest. My not so impressive list of stations that received my 1W signal:

I shure hope that propagation will be lifting, we still have high hopes.
For who participates in the 10m contest this weekend I wish you all a big success!

Thursday 8-Dec-2016

Propagation: SFI:74 SN:18 A:11 K:4


If you read the above it seems propagation gets worse. It's just a indication, I am not believing those indexes. Today I had a day off the job, excellent as besides some work in the house I had the chance to turn the antenna and try some other modes. A occasional 10m listener would say the band is dead and only noise could be heard today.....no way!

I learned one today when searching for anything to do besides what my own system did receive, don't use only one DX cluster or reporting site, use as many as possible. I was active with WSPR and JT65 today. WSPR TX was no success but RX was great:
7 unique calls spotted and IK1WVQ was missed by others. What did others hear or see? The day started early when G4HZW spotted PG0DX already at 5:34 inside the greyline. PG0DX and G4HZW were spotted by VK2KRR around 8:30 UTC. G4HZW was spotted by FY5KE at 13:12 UTC and later FY5KE spotted PG0DX and PA4O around 14:30 UTC. I didn't get my 1W spot through to French Guyana however some stations from Scandinavia did come through with less power on WSPR! FY5KE was active on 28030 CW around 15 UTC and got lots of DX cluster spots from europe. G0GGG and F6KBF spotted ZS6AI on JT65 around 15:10 UTC. I decided to call on JT65 a half hour later with 50W with my antenna to the south-west I was heard at OH1CO/QRP (15:40 UTC) and DG0OPK (15:50 UTC). No QSOs were made, no SSB stations were heard. It shows a dead 10m can be busy at times! I monitored some DX clusters later on and saw north-south propagation in America is great.


Wednesday 7-Dec-2016:

Propagation: SFI:79 SN:24 A:7 K:3

I started with WSPR again this morning, HB9CV pointed south. A quick look at the results and reports from yesterday revealed a opening to South and North America. That's promising! See PG0DX results from yesterday on the PE1ITR WSPR challenge page:


Today LA6LU reported 5B4CY/B on CW at 08:19 UTC, a early opening.  PE0JBE spotted EA8GF at 12:13 UTC a good sign! G3XBM has been spotted by EA8GF on JT65 at 13:40 UTC. I was only heard in the Netherlands and I only heard stations from the Netherlands and Germany. PG0DX was spotted in the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and UK although he was using 100W for a moment combined with his excellent antenna situation it has to be equivalent to several kilowatts output. He heard the same countries as well. According to the 10m DX cluster it seems better in the Americas were the north-south path seems to be open sometimes.




12 comments:

pa4m said...

Toen ik een paar dagen geleden het bericht las van PG0DX over zijn spots op 28 MHz was is positief verrast. Maar nu ik weet van zijn antenne en uitgangsvermogen begin ik me toch weer wat zorgen te maken over de condities op 28MHz komend weekend. Zoals het er nu uit ziet mogen we al blij zijn als we verbindingen binnen Europa kunnen maken en zal elk qso buiten EU een geschenk zijn.

PE4BAS, Bas said...

Hallo Mark, Henry maakt wel veel power af en toe en zijn antenne liegt er niet om (6 element beam op 18m richting oost). Maar vermogen zegt ook niet alles, kijk maar eens in de WSPR database wat FY5KE ontvangen heeft uit Skandinaviƫ. Condities kunnen ook heel even heel plaatselijk zijn. PG0DX heeft bijvoorbeeld de spot van die Italiaan gemist! Terwijl ik hem wel ontving. We hopen er dit weekend maar het beste van maar makkelijk zal het zeker niet worden, des te meer voldoening zal het geven als er toch nog een aantal QSO's in het log staan. 73, Bas

Peter pa4o said...

Zal ook proberen wat qso's te maken. Heb wspr nu ook aan staan. Beam staat richting 70gr.

PE4BAS, Bas said...

Zag je gisteren ook. Ging wel goed daar bij jou hi. 10m is heden te n dage een moeilijke band. 73, Bas

Hans said...

Hallo Bas, de condities op 28Mhz vallen erg tegen. Ik heb nog even gekeken op WSPR wat er bij jou binnenkomt en het viel mij erg tegen. Uitschieters (FY5KE) daar buitengelaten. Ik hoop dat het weekend de condities beter zijn. Aan je antenne, tranceiver en jouw inzet kan het niet liggen als de resultaten tegenvallen.
Ik wens je alvast veel succes. 73 Hans, PE1BVQ

PE4BAS, Bas said...

Hallo Hans, kijk ook eens naar de resultaten van PG0DX dan weet je wat er mogelijk is. Als de antenne maar groot en hoog staat. Bij mij is het iets minder maar de inzet is gelijk hi. Ik ben benieuwd hoe het gaat dit weekend. Denk dat er echt wel wat mogelijk is. 73, Bas

Peter pa4o said...

Ga je ook cw qso's maken Bas?

PE4BAS, Bas said...

Ja, doe mee in mixed sectie....dat is het leukst. Alleen SSB met zulke condities gaat niet werken. 73, Bas

Peter pa4o said...

Ga ik je zeker werken. Succes alvast Bas.

PE4BAS, Bas said...

Heb je nog niet gehoord! 73, Bas

Peter pa4o said...

Heb er ook nog maar een 32 in log staan.

PE4BAS, Bas said...

Zo....dat is heel goed...dan heb je er wel even aan besteed. Want condities waren niet echt constant. 73, Bas