#10m propagation 12-Jan. - strong ES

Wow, there was strong ES again. Signals were booming. No real DX though FR4OO spotted me on PSK reporter. I expected south america at least but it didn't happen. Others had more luck as I saw several stations contacted VP8LP from the Falklands.

It was fun and besides my robot contacts I was on the radio myself in both FT8 and SSB/CW.
Results 58 FT8, 1 CW and 10 SSB contacts in the log.

Today was certainly good into the east direction till early in the evening. When OY (Faroer Isl.) stations came in strong (9+30dB) I tried voor north america but no luck. From the map you can see that I didn't hear much from Spain or Portugal. I wonder if others did?

#10m Saturday 11-Jan.+ 60m new one...

As you probabely know now I have my radio on 10m at daylight in the weekend. Running with a FT8 robot most of the time so I can do other things at the same time but keep an eye on the station once and a while. Waiting the whole day for some opening on 10m would be very boring but a robot has endless patience. Normally I gather about 10 QSOs over a day.

But today...

10m was exploding. ES propagation all around. I even made some SSB contacts on 10m with Croatia. After diner I made 2 QSOs with Brazil. ODX received was CX4CD from Uruquay (11521km). This was really a great day on 10m...60 QSOs were gathered in the log.

Remember my SSB QSO with V51WH from Namibia in December? Well, Gunther finally has FT8 running and is active on 60m as well. But these days everyone seems to have 60m capabilities and more and more countries have access to this band. Besides that I'm shure my blogpost about 60m DX did trigger other HAMs to try it on 60m. You're all welcome of course but the frequency gets very busy now. It really was a challenge to work Gunther since every time he is on the pile-up is huge. I have been trying for 6 days and don't know how many hours, but finally got my signal recieved. At first he lost my signal but I kept holding on sending RR73....and finally:

And no, this was not the FT8 robot. The robot is smart but cannot yet detect a empty spot in the waterfall to call on. And it does not have the capability to endless send RR73....

Portable digital with Raspberry Pi concept

KI6NAZ from Ham Radio Crash Coarse has made a great video of his ultimate portable setup with a Raspberry Pi. A different concept with the same goal. Doing digital modes with the freedom of connecting a laptop or tablet wireless with the radio.




I really like these videos. If my bluetooth concept will ever fail to work this is absolutely a good alternative.