Swallowline

 

According to superstition, swallows bring good luck. Where a swallow builds its nest, prosperity will reign and lightning will not strike...

Lucky me...

An evening on 30m

 

Since we are officially allowed on 30m FT8 now since last friday. And 6m was almost death. I decided to spend the evening on 30m. Despite being active for approx. 2 hours I was spotted by stations all over the world. Made some very nice DX and probabely worked a few new on band ones, didn't check it yet...

I've been quite active on 30m PSK31/64 in the past but not really with the new digimodes. 30m is a very good DX band.

#6m Finally OJ0C and 1st Japan QSO 2021

  Chasing DX on 6m is very addictive, It is so unpredictable and that's the fun of it. You can have a large antenna or a array of antennas, you can have power, you can have a worldclass receive......but in the end you need some form of propagation to reflect 50MHz signals. Of course a good station helps but when propagation is good a small antenna and 50W power would do well, even on DX.

OJ0C from Market reef is currently active focusing 6m till 21-june. Of course I had to chase this station since it would be a new one on 6m. Actually I saw them on FT8 first day of their activation but signals were low and QSB too fast. I had a reply on my call but no QSO. Then the day after, same thing happened again. And although I heard several Swedish and Finnish stations OJ0C didn't become stronger. I tried every day last week and once had a reply with report +8dB. But no 73, so I'm not in the log I guess. Hopeless....last evening I heard them on CW, finally with a great signal 559. They worked split but I couldn't find out were to transmit exactly, I didn't hear the stations he was replying to as well. I called numerous times but no reply and OJ0C faded away........again. The 21st does approach and I really wanted to work OJ0C on 6m.... So, today I noticed they were on SSB 50.187MHz. No sign listening of course, but I know ES is sporadic. It is just a matter of time....patience. And it worked out, suddenly OJ0C came out of the noise and we made the QSO I could just hear his 73 to me and then it was noise again. But we exchanged reports and that is enough.

But before the above story I had the opportunity to work my first Japanese station on 6m in 2021 today. JS6TWW Yuji is located on Minami-Daito Island (IOTA  AS-047) near Okinawa. Living on an island can of course lift your signal being surrounded be salt water. Unfortunately this island is known for passing typhoons and Yuji lost some antennas in the past.....

Pretty amazing propagation today (click on the map to view a larger version). Received China and Hong Kong as well. I recently see more activity from China on 6m and I almost had a QSO with a Chinese station. Unfortunately signals faded just before we could finish the QSO.

Update 21-June-2021: OJ0C log online. Definitely am in the log on SSB. And indeed not on FT8. 

The QSO that didn't happen but happened in the end...

 I realize that the title of this post sounds very strange. And it is a strange story indeed. Actually a fellow blogger is involved.

What happened? Well, I suddenly saw EI2KC Anthony on 6m FT8. He was just finishing a QSO and I though just to call him. After a few calls he came back to me, or at least the JTDX software made it appear so. I didn't see Anthony again so I apologized we couldn't finish the QSO via fb messenger. Anthony responded that he was not aware we were in QSO, he didn't see me at all and so it couldn't be him answering. I send him this evidence:

I've experienced this kind of decoding a few times before. And I know some HAMs did even complete a QSO that has not really happen. This is quite annoying. I use JTDX and I think this has something to do with "hint" decoding. You could switch "hint" off in previous versions but the button is blocked now.

If you're using JTDX like me I warn you to not believe everything you see...

Anyway, Anthony decided to swing his brand new 5 element LFA into my direction. What happened next was pure magic. We were both having quite a strong signal.

Actually that strong that we were confident a SSB QSO would be possible. So we quickly agreed a frequency and indeed we had a reasonable copy. And although there was a lot of QSB we managed to exchange reports and some words.

A little too late I decided to make a recording, I only catched a few words unfortunately. It gives a impression though...

Bas Lev · 20210617 231140 EI2KC/PE4BAS 6m SSB

Congrats Dutch Novice license holders

 Congrats Dutch novice license holders. It took about 5 years to get some more space on the amateur radio bands. Besides that you don't have to reduce power to 25W anymore and can use full power from a 100W radio.

Starting today this is what you get:

• Use 100 watts PEP for frequencies below 30 MHz

• Use the full 40-meter band (7.0 – 7.2 MHz)

• Use 20-meter band (14.00 – 14.25 MHz)

• Use full 10-meter band (28.0 – 29.7 MHz)

• VHF and UHF unchanged

• No minimum age limit to get a license

However, there seems that they made a mistake. Originally the N-license holders would get access to the entire 20m band. Agentschap Telecom is trying to solve this mistake.

I've been a novice license holder in 1998 for one year. If you look for my PD1AKZ call on QRZ you will be redirected to my PE4BAS callsign site. We only had access to VHF/UHF with 25W max at that time. If we had HF access at that time I would still have the PD1AKZ license I guess. For people that are just getting into this hobby this is a great improvement.

Update:

Good news for F-license HF operators as well. From today we are officially allowed to do FT8 on 30m at 10.136 MHz. Previously we were only allowed to do digital modes above 10.140 MHz. This was no problem when PSK31/64 was populair. But till now we were restricted to FT4 only. From today on we can finally try to hunt for DXCC with FT8 on the 30m band.

Official document:

https://zoek.officielebekendmakingen.nl/stcrt-2021-31799.html

#6m RX Japan, 3A2MW worked, the XE2JS case...

 

Already bored by the maps? I can't help it since 6m DX is very addictive. 

This morning I was able to see Japan first time in 2021. You don't hear it these days, the computer listens to the audio and displays through software a callsign and signal on your screen. Some signals are not even audible......I realize this does sounds strange for someone that is not into this HAMradio hobby. Anyway, I was able to get my signal into Japan but PSK reporter does not show it, the station receiving me probabely didn't report. Unfortunately fading was fast today and we couldn't finish the QSO.

The weather here is cold and wet and so I had time to play radio. I managed to work another new one this afternoon. 3A2MW from Monaco. Not the biggest DX but though it is rare to work one of the few HAMradio operators from that DXCC. Imagine propagation should really be good since receiving radio signals in Monaco is hard. Since Franco's call is used by pirate stations you always have to check his log...

About pirate stations. Many received XE2JS on 6m today with strong signals. I even received this station with -4dB. I was surprised and turned my beam to the west-north-west towards Mexico. Unfortenately XE2JS's signal disappeared.....turning the beam back to the south gave him a big signal again. Other stations reported the same thing on the KST chat. Most likely a pirate station transmitting from France or Spain...

#6m middle east magic did happen

 

Exceptional good propagation to the middle east today. Unfortunately I was a little late and missed a 9K2 station on 4m. I need to be more attend I guess. Should program HamAlert for stations on 4m.

Luckely signals became extreme in the afternoon and worked A92AA Bahrain and A71CT Qatar for new ones on 6m. They were pretty strong, sometimes into the +db figures. When listening on SSB I also heard A71VV with signals till S7, unfortunately had no QSO with him.

#6m magic did not happen

 For many here in Europe the 6m opened yesterday and especially in the evening towards north, central and south America. The FT8 frequency (50.313) was so full of signals that you couldnt find a single empty spot. 

PSK reporter didn't even show what I saw. I saw many stations from Ecuador for instance. And many PA stations from the western and southern part of the Netherlands made QSOs with them. Unfortunately, like almost always, it is and was very difficult from the northern part of the Netherlands. It seems I was just at the shoreline of propagation and waves would just not get here. Only for a few with very big antennas and a lot of power it was possible from here. However in the end I managed to work one station from Brazil and one from Dominican rep.. I almost had a QSO with US Virgin Island, but in the end we couldn't exchange the RR. I did send Brad K0BZ a mail and he answered he saw me many times. But every time he called there were at least 20 stations coming back to him. So it was just a matter of luck....and luck didn't happen from my QTH this time. I noticed however my signal did get out. I saw spots from Canada almost every 2-3 minutes on hamspots.net from my signal in Canada. Stations seen last evening came from Bonaire, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Dominican rep., US Virgin Isl. and Puerto Rico.  I've been looking at CW/SSB but not much DX there. I heard only one Spanish station on SSB.

Next time the magic will happen...

Just to remember the rules on intercontinental DX:

https://pe4bas.blogspot.com/2019/06/ft8-intercontinental-dx-code-of-practise.html

PE1BVQ SK

  Some sad and totally surprising news arrived today. Last Sunday PE1BVQ Hans left us far too early. Hans was my most loyal blog reader in the past. Till a few years ago he commented on almost all my posts and a friendship formed. Although Hans lived far away from me we met quite a few times attending various radio rallies. Hans also visited my QTH a few times when he was on vacation nearby. We did various experiments with antennas and digimodes together. It is a great loss for the amateurradio community and for me personally.

Carreer

Hans did have a professional carreer in the radioequipment business. He owned his own telecom company for years. Selling, maintaining and repairing communication equipment. Because of this job he knew quite a few people that are also into amateurradio. I noticed that when I was attending a radiorally in the center part of the country, he was often occupied by people that knew him and wanted to talk to him. 

Hamradio

Hans was specialized in VHF/UHF communication and especially working satellites. You can read that on his QRZ page. When that got boring he was triggered by reading this blog to try QRP HF portable. He enjoyed going out with the dog, taking his FT-817 and various antennas to experiment and make contacts. He told me that he developed a special interest in tracking weatherballoons last year. His technical knowledge was far beyond mine, but he didn't show that to me. It became clear to me when he repaired an amplifier which I gave to him for free and returned it to me without any costs. He also send me a excellent working 3 band endfed, which I used a lot, just as a present. Various books about amateurradio were also given to me...I'm very grateful for all of it. I know I was not the only one that got free equipment from him. He told me some time, travelling to a radiorally, he provided equipment and help to others that didn't have the money to buy HF equipment for instance. In the last e-mail from Christmas 2020 I got from Hans he told me he was busy building a mcHF QRP HF TRX from M0NKA. Then things went very quiet...

Health

Health was a big issue. Hans was cured from cancer years ago. However after that he got a serious back problem and went through several surgical operations because of hernias. If that wasn't bad enough he became addicted to the medicine that surpressed the pain. He also had a lot of trouble walking because of all this. I understood that lately it went a lot better and he was almost off the addiction. However last year his daughter died from cancer. You can imagine how sad he was. After this happened I didn't have much contact with Hans anymore since he was busy moving house from Duiven to Sliedrecht. We exchanged e-mail occassionally till last Christmas when he told me he was reasonabely allright.

Today I received the funeral card. It really shocked me. From what I read on the card his death was quite sudden and by surprise. May he rest in peace...

My last QSO's with Hans can be found here: 

Portable from Borkum Isl. (DL) and Hans on the bicycle from nearby his vacation address.

https://pe4bas.blogspot.com/2018/05/cq-from-dlpe4bas.html

In 2018 via the foxhunt ballon

https://youtu.be/PuPMn2g0oZM?t=245