Radio Is Odd

I'm perpetually surprised by what keeps me coming back to this curious pastime of ours. I've blown hot and cold about it for years, but today has been an interesting day. Not because of the log - five or so entries, and no great DX - a CW with G3SES in Chester on 80m being memorably because we had a chat. And an attempt at 70cm WSPR with G4VXE being memorably because we didn't.

Working with cheap wires means what whilst I'm playing with CW on 80 and WSPR on 70cm I can leave the 817 (ex-SOTA, battered...) with the Very Long Wire Across End Of Garden running on 160m.

I had thought that 10m would be interesting today. It looked that way about 09:40z, when the continent had an opening to VK land. That didn't metamorphose over to the UK and, byt he time I got home from work at 1PM, 10m was dead.

160m yielded this this afternoon:

I've been on my usual 500mW, and the two DX contacts are "heard me" and, in the case of OZ7IT, it worked both ways - almost a QSO.

What's really interesting is that I have started to use WSPR to look at propagation. Instead of the International Beacon Project. It looks to me as if 10m prop, for example, is much more granular. The opening to VK this morning was quite a small footprint on the map. And the key thing was, there were enough of the WSPR dummies doing all the legwork to produce the map.

Utterly brilliant. Thanks Joe! And the JT9-1 QSO on 17m with OM5NA was a nice catch. He was buried under QRO RTTY. Didn't stop JT9-1 working.

And today's log contains 6 entries. Content!

JT9-1 success

I downloaded v0.5 of the JT9-1 experience from Joe Taylor's Website - you want WSJT-X - and it's a MUCH better experience. It all seems to work nicely.

I've tried it relatively low power (around 10W) on 160 metres, and have worked my way up to middle europe on it. The QSOs are reliable, it tunes well, and it's acquired some of the enhancements that HT65-HF has - the red and green bars, the click to continue the QSO. And it is MUCH more spectrum frugal than JT65 - and yes, it even gives positive reports sometimes

All good. I look forward to working you :-)

Why WSPR is so interesting

I'm beginning to realise why a lot of us post WSPR screenshots. Basically, WSPR breaks all the rules that you and I have been taught about dx, antenna systems and power.

When I read the received wisdom about "DXing", it tells me that I need to have a Very High Antenna. My RF-oriented friends will tell me that I need to use Power

I know we're on the top of a sunspot cycle, but regular readers will realise that I am deliberately hobbling myself here: my WSPR 10m setup is an 817 running 500 mW, and a bit (I mean a bit) of wire, draped carelessly over a shed end, with a few metres in free space. It gets up about 2.5m at the highest point.

Hence my surprise this morning to discover, after its first TX cycle, that VK2UB is hearing me. I am, well, gobsmacked. VK2UB is on the eastern edge of Australia, 16,800 km from M0DEV.

One of the things WSPR is teaching me is that propagation matters far more than I ever thought before. When a band is "open", there is absolutely no need for Power. QRM apart, the connections just work, like VK2UB above, and a session on 2m with G4VXE a few days ago, when milliwatts did 140km on 2m. When it's closed, it's closed.

I'm almost thinking of "Power" as trying to force something that isn't going to go. It's not really a solution.

I think that's an argument for QRP. Oh, and a nice email from eqsl to tell me that they have enabled JT9 as a mode :-)

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

"poor"

The propagation tools all describe band conditions today as "poor", and most people seem to have taken heed and disappeared to polish their antennas, or some other diversionary activity.

I turned WSPR on, on 40 metres, and picked up a couple of stations running 50 mW beacons - DL1FX and EA6FG, both pretty regularly throughout the afternoon.

I often intend to drop power but forget - once one beacon has gone off at 2.5W (my normal power) there's no real point in dropping it. Dropping the 817 to 500mW will have to happen soon, just to see what 500mW and a bit of wire in a gutter can really do!

JT65 on 20 metres was eerily quiet. But through the murk, a Taiwanese station closing with a Thai station, then a BX (mainland China) working someone else. I guess this DX would normally be drowned out by the cacophony of QRO European operations. I didn't manage to work them, but was pleased to see them

On a slightly different tack, I worked someone on JT9-1 last night. The conversation went thus at the start:

CQ M0DEV IO82
M0DEV G1AAA XX00 (I've changed the callsign)
G1AAA M0DEV -07
M0DEV G1AAA -10
Now ok, he's missed acknowledging my report, but he's sent a report. Maybe he just clicked the wrong text to send.

G1AAA M0DEV RRR
MY REPORT PSE?
What? Sorry?

I sent the report several times, and the reply was REPORT PSE
and finally RRRRR 73 73


So, I think we're in the bag. An email arrived from him this morning to ask why I never sent a report. He claims I was sending "G1AAA M0DEV"...with no digits on the end.

If you can work out how that happened, I'd love to hear it.

The exchange also underlines the importance of sticking exactly to the agreed protocol when we can't have a proper conversation. If he didn't get my original report, he should have pushed on with

M0DEV G1AAA XX00
until he got it.