2m record - almost

Best 2m WSPR I've had for ever, today. G8MCU bidirectionally (a distance of 137 miles) and G4SMX/FCD (what *does* FCD mean?) one way - he wasn't transmitting.203 miles. He heard me.

And decent antenna systems. I'm now using a 3 element delta, horizontally polarised about 18 feet up, with a reasonably good take-off to the south-east. That's about as good as it's going to get round here.

I distinctly remember, in SOTA days, a session from the High Willhays, Dartmoor. In those days, we drove down overnight. I'd left the family sleeping in the car to go for a walk with the dog:

Date:31/Jul/2004 Summit:G/DC-001 (High Willhays) Call Used:M0DEV/P Points: 4 Bonus: 0   

Time	Call	Band	Mode	Notes
07:10z	G0FGW	144MHZ	FM	Chippenham
07:12z	G4NRG	144MHZ	FM	Wayne, Kidderminster
07:20z	M3GLF	144MHZ	FM	Burnham on Crouch
07:25z	M3RBU	144MHZ	FM	Winchester
07:27z	G7RRQ	144MHZ	FM	Salisbury
07:28z	M3PBS	144MHZ	FM	Weymouth
07:30z	G0IMM	144MHZ	FM	IOW
07:31z	G4TKF	144MHZ	FM	Devizes
07:35z	GW1MCD	144MHZ	FM	Cwmbran
07:39z	G0DUQ	144MHZ	FM	Cannock
07:42z	MW0AIE	144MHZ	FM	Pembrokeshire
07:43z	M3FHI	144MHZ	FM	Essex
07:45z	M3RSF	144MHZ	FM	Dudley, W Mids
07:50z	M3VXR	144MHZ	FM	Northampton

 

At least one of these (I can't remember who) nearly lost his eggs and B in his rush to get to the mic. I was on a handheld. Ah, the power of lifts.

So, I'm expecting rather better than this, sometime.

Meteor Scatter

The recent Geminid meteor shower got me wondering whether I could hear anything with my current, rather lowly setup, having pretty much failed with satellites (that's another story...) so I set to to discover information on where the action is

It is not that easy to find, of course! http://www.astrosurf.com/luxorion/qsl-meteor-scatter.htm is quite informative on gear if not frequencies. So, having read and digested that I then went looking for where the skeds are arranged

Every web page points you to pingjockey, but as far as I can see nearly everything, if not everything, is US based. Then there's on4kst's pages. These are used by Europeans. Once logged in you'll find pages with QRGs on.

But in the end, I heard activity using the good old fashioned route of rotating the large knob on the front and listening. 144.370 seems to be used as a calling channel, certainly in Europe. Indeed, activity seems to be so sparse that the two calls I have heard so far have all opted to carry out the QSO on the channel, which certainly makes life easier

Then there's the mode. ISCAT seems to be the flavour used for 6m MS, because the bursts are longer. A slower mode is preferable. However, for 2m, FSK441 seems to be the mode of choice: it gets the entire message in several times in a short space of time.

So, I'm listening using FSK441 on 144.370. Fortunately, it's all recording what it hears and, much to my surprise, I have managed to capture a couple of CQ calls from foreign stations on my collinear.

The best so far is one from EA3AXV, captured at 16:02 on the 16th. Here's what I saw:

I wonder what power and antenna system he was using. he's about 1300km from me, so the capture is a good one

There is, according to the experts, no point in even trying a QSO without substantially more than 100W and a beam. The beam must be a mixed blessing, and I imagine one doesn't want too much directivity.

http://stardate.org/nightsky/meteors is a useful reference for when showers occur. But there is always activity.

The mysteries of propagation

G4VXE and I had another little play on 2m JT65. Same QRG (144.165.000 if you're interested in joining us), same kit, same antenna, just 24 hours different.

Completely different ballgame. We had to go up to 20W, and only just completed.

It confirms what we all know, of course: that when bands are open, you need no power. When they're shut, you need lots of power and it's still difficult- these two occasions were more than 22dB different! You can't make that up with a linear. Even a linear AND a beam. The interesting thing is what's different about the two times. I don't think last night's "opening" was forecast by anyone or anything, and the band wasn't crowded with DX chasers.

We followed this up with a short burst of JT9-2. Clearly, JT9-2 wasn't designed for a closed VHF band, but there seemed little point in trying JT9-1, with essentially the same "floor" as JT65. Anyway, it was a spectacular failure, despite being able to see the other trace on screen and, in G4VXE's case, measure it as -22 - well useable.

We put the failure down to version incompatibility - I was on v0.3, he was on 0.2

VHF JT65

Tim, G4VXE, and I had a short session this afternoon with JT65 on 2m, using the JT65-HF program, just because we both had it configured.

We started out on 144.165.000 using 10W each, into a collinear at each end. My collinear, just so you get the picture, is screwed to a shed wall. I can touch the bottom of it. The copy was, by HF standards, astoundingly easy - we exchanged -05 (him at my end) and -09. Tim dropped to 1W, and I still had very easy copy at this end, well above the noise floor.

A back of an envelope calculation suggested that we'd hit -24dB at 150mW. This is over 140 km, with "poor" aerials. I can't get that low with any of my kit - pout!

There is a lot of mileage to JT65 and its siblings on VHF. I'd like to try this on 23cm

VHF WSPR

During that interlude of "poor" propagation yesterday I decided to have a go at setting WSPR up on 2m.

The tricky bit was finding the agreed frequency. After a bit of searching, 144.489.000 seemed to be the agreed one (WSPR itself told me a dial of 144.488.000....)

Set it up and left it, and was very pleased to see G4VXE pop up, both ways

The intriguing thing here is that if you look at his screenshot of the same QSO here, you'll see that I am at the top of his passband, whereas Tim is at the bottom of mine. Somewhere or other, there's a discrepancy of around 100Hz (I was TXing around 500). I suppose that's not too bad for uncalibrated rigs at VHF, but it is a bit disconcerting. Mine is an almost new TS-2000. Wonder what Tim was using?

I will certainly be on 144.489 dial using WSPR again. Will you join me?