I know. This isn't a big secret. Monday is Memorial Day, which is very widely talked about as being the unofficial start of summer; those in school (or with kids in school) are getting out for the summer, families are planning vacations, all that stuff. It's just under a month until it's officially summer, but that's just formality.
In the world of ham radio, a sure sign of turning into summer is better propagation on VHF, resulting in hearing many more stations than without that propagation. Sporadic E (Es) propagation turned on stronger than it has been so far this year, when I was starting to get concerned that it would be pretty lame, like most of the last couple of months have been. I didn't turn the station on until around 1830 UTC (2:30 PM ET) expecting it doesn't really get going until after mid day and it was pretty wide open. I didn't think to grab screen captures until quite a bit later, so this is as it's starting to settle down or taper off for the day.
In that red blob are so many reported contacts that you can't even read all the calls on both ends, let alone see most of those red lines.
I've written about Sporadic E many times, but I can never tell how many people
have seen this and care or not. As you can see from the clipped screen
capture, this diagram is from a site called DXMaps. Over on the right
end of the array of settings buttons is one called "Select Options" that can
completely change the looks of this display. This link seems to get you to the settings I've been using. Probably the one I use that
makes the biggest change is that I want to see only reports in the last
15 minutes. Default is an hour (I think...). I also choose to look
at reports from another app called PSKReporter - originally developed when
"the new hotness" in ham radio digital modes to run on your computer was
called PSK31. One thing PSKReporter can do is allow me to set my
computer and radio to tell them whom my station is hearing. I downloaded
what my computer was telling me it heard in the previous 30 minutes - this
plot was grabbed about 0115 UTC.
Don't get me wrong: Sporadic E can be fun but there are other kinds of propagation that help keep the 6m VHF band interesting. Back in early May (6th) I saw a Caribbean island I wanted to work (Saint Martin) had been spotted on DXMaps. I went into the station and instead of hearing that guy, I heard and contacted a guy in Angola, southwest Africa. An hour later, I heard and contacted a guy in French Polynesia. From a couple of thousand miles to the SE over to more miles farther to the SW. I didn't hear and contact the guy on Saint Martin for another 2-1/2 hours. A few days later, I was hearing nobody but three or four guys all under 100 miles from me, until suddenly I heard a station on the island of Fiji - southwest Pacific. Thousands of miles away. Called him once and worked him easily.
Do you remember watching over the air TV, maybe with an outside TV antenna? The old analog TV channel 2 was just above the 6m ham band. The analogy isn't perfect, but hearing and working Angola, French Polynesia or Fiji on 6m would be like watching broadcast TV from those places.
Geez....I just GOTTA get my 6M dipole back up!
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid in the 60s, my father had a small B&W TV with rabbit ears antennas. Certain times of year we could watch a TV station on channel two that was in Mexico. We were in the middle of the Texas Panhandle. It would often be there for several days in a row.
ReplyDeleteUsed to hear low band VHF (around 37MHz) two way radios stations, usually law enforcement this time of year on scanners that were several hundred miles away also in the mid-70s.
Wow thats really cool! Fiji, awesome. How long do these last would you say or are they random and your going to talk till it fades?
ReplyDeleteHave little experience in this wonderful radio gig. Bought a 2meter mobile and a couple icom hvydty handi talki's, and a copper pipe J-pole, for when i study and take the technicians license test.
Live in very rough steep WV mtns, figure on a verticle skywave antenna at some point, cause it seems the best for getting range around here. Though there are 2meter repeaters, quite a few actually, the coal mining company's and loggers are on those, every coal mine I worked at had a company channel and repeater, (though for talking between mining equipment everyone uses CB, with designated channels for each mine, and mining regs, require every other piece of equipment plus boss's trucks must have a 2meter mobile, its for calling the ambulance outfits who are on 24-7 for mining and logging.
So i figured because there are many 2meter citizen access freq's and line of sight is like 1/4 or less near our property, its what it seems everyone I know of uses, might as well begin with 2meter. Got to start someplace.
So the long distance stuff your doing sounds like its a lot of fun.
"Wow thats really cool! Fiji, awesome. How long do these last would you say or are they random and your going to talk till it fades?"
DeleteThat depends. The propagation modes vary; on 6m it can be a couple of minutes but that can stretch out. Not long ago, I worked a guy in the Falkland islands - off the SE tip of South America - and heard him constantly for about an hour. This was a mode where my computer called his regularly and I just watched. I think that went on for around 20 to 30 minutes before we just exchanged signal reports. Which took all of about one minute.
Very often (if not always) when a faraway "rare" station gets on the bands, it's rather difficult to just have a conversation. It's pretty common for the band to suddenly get crowded with other people trying to contact the faraway station. (The general term in ham radio is he's the "DX" guy that everyone is chasing).
Mountains can block signals but I understand they can channel your signal along the valleys. A popular sub-hobby in radio these days is backpacking a low power station and batteries to mountain peak. It's called Summits On The Air or SOTA and stations line up to go to the summits while others line up to contact the SOTA stations. A similar sub-hobby is Parks On The Air and the same general concepts apply. Some folks line up operate from the parks, others line up to contact them.
I've put in many hours on 2meter Single Sideband (SSB). There are interesting aspects of 2m SSB that don't show up on 6m SSB. At the moment, I don't really have a working 2m SSB antenna. I have a couple of 2m FM radios.
Interesting! You nudged my memory, seemed to happen during summer evenings, we would be in our equipment at the mine, and we would pick up people from Arizona and New Mexico on the CB's, sometimes it was very loud, be an echo to it sometimes. There was a particular fellow who had a program talking about another revolution and what needed to change in big ways in the US. Pretty good show some of them. Always began at sunset, of we had clear weather.
DeleteI heard mentions there are like 7 private run 2 meter relay stations across WV, plus of course the commercial operated ones. yeah your right about the 2 meter running up the hollows. Couple nights a week would volunteer ti run the water truck in the hail roads so the dust could be kept to a minimum from early day on. The 2 meter mobile we had in the cab would pick up other mines and ambulance companies when going thru a hollow, sounded funny though, like strange, weird sci-fi movie background noise.
Find the NVSW antenna very interesting, have a flat, highest point ridge line on my land, with handy trees both ends.
Dad was an instructor at the Army Signal School. When we lived in Augusta he had a dipole antenna on hand crank mast. He was an assistant scout master. Everybody in my boy scout troop knew Morse code and had a keypad. He was big into the Ham Radio world. In my case the apple did not fall far from the tree. I was an Air Force Ground Radio/Satcom tech.
ReplyDeleteAs an old school greybeard I was wondering about your use of digital modes. Me, I have not succumbed to it, other than if and when I get an EME station assembled. Of course AM is still in my blood.
ReplyDeleteI use WSJT the vast majority of the time on the radio. It just works pretty darned well. I'd say that my on air time is 80% FT8, and I have a few FT4 contacts, mostly on 40m. I've done a few MSK144 contacts on 6 and have tried to hear people's signals bouncing off the moon but just seem to be a dB or two (or 20 for all I know) short of what I need. I operate all bands from 80 to 6. Well, except that oddball 60m thing. On most days when 6 is nowhere near as good as this post (like today, 5/25 and into 5/26 UTC) I'll drop down to HF, usually the "new bands" like 12 or 17m in the day and 30 at night. I also go down to 80 at night, and sometimes 40.
DeleteI'm not completely sure of this, but I'd SWAG I've had no more than 5 SSB QSOs in the couple of years since I won this Icom 7610 at the Orlando Hamcation.
Virtually no phone operation is not unusual. I used to prefer CW and this weekend was the CQ WW DX contest, CW weekend. I listened in a bit at the start (Friday night) but most people run about 25 or 30 WPM and that was too rusty to try it. Maybe if I had thought to do some practice last week or the last month, to get smoother at CW it would have been different.