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.
Some people believe that due to extra radio activity for example during a contest the radiowave reflecting layer around the world is more ionized. You can compare it with what the HAARP does in Alaska creating a artificial refelecting layer. Well is it science fiction or is part of it true? Sure it was a reasonable 10m band today if you compare it to the last few days. Index was not good at all, but do we care about that? So, what is the dodo bird doing on this page? Well, I worked a surprise ATNO which is 3B9HA from Rodrigues Island. The dodo lived on both Rodrigues and Mauritius. And this picture is on the QRZ page of 3B9HA. Propagation was on quite early and I worked a station from Ukraine first, his signal was real 57. Most interesting besides Rodrigues Isl. was a QSO with FR4QT from Reunion Isl. and 5R8IC from Madagascar. I had to leave the band and contest for some other things to do. In late afternoon there was a opening with South America in which I worked several Brazilian stations on both CW & SSB. In total 14 QSO, not as many but for a small station like me a whole lot I think. Not bad for the first day in the ARRL 10m contest.
