There is so much debris and other material around our globe, that it must be possible to reflect radio transmissions. We don't need the sun in the near future. What do you think?
This morning I worked on 40 meter with BPSK31 LA2JEA. Also DF1GB, SP7CKU, DL4VAQ and OK1DOZ. And last night OE7SBH on 80 meter.
I do not have time for a complete contest. Tomorrow I have a family meeting. So this afternoon I join the CQ WW DX Contest, to give points away. I was running low power 45 watts on 15 and 20 meter. I made 64 CW QSO's. We don't have to worry about CW, there is plenty of them using it. I worked also a new DXCC country C5A - DX Expedition Gambia 2010 of OM0C Contest Team. I worked a lot from Russia And Asiatic Russia, also stations from the USA and Canada. Other nice countries: Turkey, Georgia, Albania, Madeira Island and Cyprus. It was a good rehearsal to pick up so much CW stations with 32-35 wpm. It is enough for today. Have a nice weekend.
Yesterday it was QRP day for WSPR on 80 meter. Results are satisfying. Up till now 13 DXCC on 80 meter with 0,5 watt. A few years ago I thought that it was not possible to accomplish such distances with low power on the lower bands. But it is. Best DX was OH8HTG 1794 km.
This are the results of WSPR on 80 meter this morning. I started with 5 watt. After a few cycles to 50 milliwatt. Best DX was OY1OF Faeroe Islands. 1250 km = 25000 km per watt. Not bad for 80 meters. I had no success with BPSK31 on 80 and 40 meter. The same with JT65A, no qso. Although I was reported by K3DCW, KN3A and KC2VKD on 40 meter.
Winter is coming. They expect night temperatures of minus 7 Celsius at night. And Saturday, it will snow for the first time this winter season. Different sources say that it will be an extremely harsh winter. A Polish source said that it will be the worst winter in a thousand years. I hope not. For the children it is nice to be riding on the sled. And I can still remember the last winter. Oh boy, I think I should go emigrate to a warmer country. Read more about it #1 #2
This morning I worked HGØWFF on 20 meter with CW. Also ZA/HA1ZN from Albania. I liked that, because Albania is very rare on the amateur bands. On 40 meter I worked DL7UAB with BPSK31.
I have long noticed that many new-time and old-time amateur radio operators alike hold the idea of low SWR (standing wave ratio) for antenna systems very near and dear to their hearts. High SWR has been blamed as being the cause of TVI, poor transmitted signals, burned finals and antenna system problems. Low SWR has been the most sought-after and trusted measurement among hams for antenna system adjustment and monitoring. So let's consider what SWR measurements are, why we make them in the first place, and how we can best interpret the readings we measure. The whole story here.
The higher bands were disappointing. I tried 15 and 17 meter with WSPR, but nothing. I am happy that I can work on 40 and 80 meter. Now there is always something to work on the lower bands at night. I worked on 80 meter DF7IS/QRP with BPSK31 on 80 meter. Also IW5ELL and DL2IAD. Enough for today.
I have responded to the call of PE4BAS to turn on WSPR on 80 meters for the night. Soon I saw Bass and Julian G4ILO on my screen. That's always fun to see and hear friends known by radio. The usefulness of WSPR is particularly propagation purposes. I was curious about the signal fluctuations during the night. The advantage of PE4BAS is that he lives relatively close to me (164.9 km / 102.5 mi) and I received almost all his transmission cycles. Bas was running 1 watt on 80 meter. 
This was not the case with G4ILO Julian's signal. I assume he has all night broadcast. But I miss some transmissions between 4 and 5 o’clock UTC. I think his signal is below the -30 db. This does not properly reflect the graph. It was unfortunate that no ZL and VK stations were QRV. What is not QRV cannot be heard. Based on the graph of PE4BAS I can determine the best propagation is around 23 hour UTC and in the early morning (grey zone) which of course was already known. It makes no sense to come out of your bed in the middle of the night for DX-ing on 80 meters. After 5 o’clock UTC it will be interesting again.
The grey zone period on 80 meter is very interesting for catching dx. For a lot of radio amateurs is the 80 meter band a local rag chew band. I hardly work with phone, so I like WSPR and JT65 for the lower bands. This morning I got a new DXCC with WSPR (5 watt) on 80 meter and I was reported by ZL1JA, distance 18.649 km. I was really thrilled. New Zealand is my antipodal location. I can make more miles, but then via long path. I presume this a short path propagation. I always look at qrz.com for the bio and location of the radio amateur. And with Google maps and street view you can search for antennas. 
And yes, here it is. The antennas of ZL1JA. I hope I will not infringe his privacy with publishing his QTH picture. You can't see my antennas with street view because at that time when they shoot the pictures I had no antennas so far. Anyway, the information is free available on the in internet. I only republish.
My ISP has increased the download speed. And the upload speed. Acquisition of files is very easy now. With 5 minutes I get a DVD movie inside.
On 80 meter I worked MU/F5CWU with CW. (See photo taken from qrz.com) With BPSK31 I worked YL2KF on 80 meter.
Good propagations direction USA on 80 meter. I was using 5 watt WSPR between 5 and 7 o'clock UTC.
Dit weekend heb ik mee gedaan met de PA Beker Contest, zaterdag met CW en zondag met SSB. Zondag met SSB had ik last van het regenachtige weer en moest ik de antenne op 80 meter na elke 5 KHz tunen. Dat was een beetje lastig en kost tijd. Op 40 meter ging het wel goed. Ik doe altijd rustig aan, ik ga niet stressen. Ik vind het meedoen mooi zat. Totaal 99 QSO's gemaakt. Op 40 meter totaal 32 multipliers en op 80 meter 40 multipliers. Uiteraard heb ik meegedaan in de sectie QRP met de FT817 en inverted V dipool. Ik heb een log gemaakt in Excel, nu maar hopen dat dit geaccepteerd wordt, anders wordt het alleen als checklog gebruikt.
An active sunspot (1123) erupted early yesterday (Nov. 12th), producing a C4-class solar flare and apparently hurling a filament of material in the general direction of Earth. Coronagraph images from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and NASA’s twin STEREO spacecraft show a faint coronal mass ejection emerging from the blast site and heading off in a direction just south of the sun-Earth line. The cloud could deliver a glancing blow to Earth’s magnetic field sometime on Nov. 14th or 15th. High latitude sky watchers could see auroras on those dates. We can't use a HF black ou tomorrow because of the PA Beker Contest. Ugh...
Probably you already noticed that DX sherlock is now available for HF also. Especially for WSPR reports. You can find out very quick what conditions are on HF. First I thought it was necessary that I put in all the WSPR reports myself, but somehow they show up automatically. I wonder for a long time what we are doing with the enormous pile of WSPR data? It would be fine if there were stats, so that we could check how many DXCC is reported for instance. In the beginning I keep on track the reports on a spreadsheet. But I stopped. It's too much work. Is there someone smart out there who could make something for Excel to import the data, so that we can make stats? When I let run WSPR for a day or so, I got hundreds (maybe thousands) of reports. Maximum to view is 200 reports. So it's only possible to see only the last 200 reports. (If I am wrong, please tell me) The question is: do we really want to know all of the data? Or is it like 30 years ago, that I told someone "I worked most all of the world" (QRO of course) and that's it? I am afraid so. (DX Sherlock 20 m)
It just happend that I came across the 12 meter for going up to 10 meter. I did hear KP2ED Luis from Puerto Rico. So we made a qso. It's my first contact on 12 meter ever. On 15 meter I worked RZ3OA, RN4HW and UA4CDM. On 17 meter: RA1AY, RN6AJ, RV3UQ and UR4UT. 
Today it's St. Maarten for the kids. They go with lampoons along the houses and will sing a song, hoping for treats. I hope the weather will not be a killjoy.
OM1ADX was my first station on 80 meter tonight. I worked him with BPSK31. I like his QSL card, (photo taken from qrz.com) I was rather busy today on HF. I made a lot of qso's. Today I received a bunch of QSL cards, send by the QSL manager of my region here. He send it by mail. He knows that I am not visiting the club evenings once per month. It should be possible because for my region the club events are in my village. But... most of the time I forget. I will send him some stamps in return and will thank him for sending the cards by mail to me. 
Quite a list, isn't it?
Waarom ben ik gestart met het schrijven van een blog? Allereerst omdat ik het leuk vind om te schrijven wat ik heb gewerkt op de amateur banden. Ten tweede wil ik mijn ervaringen met QRP delen. In het begin had ik niet veel lezers, maar gaande weg is het aantal lezers gegroeid naar 60.000 page views. Ze komen uit 135 verschillende landen. Dat is niet gek. Maar zo bijzonder vind ik mijn blog zelf niet. Ik schrijf niet over technische hoog standjes, of zelfbouw. Het is meer een virtueel logboek dat ik deel met andere zendamateurs in de wereld. Nu ik gepensioneerd ben heb ik daar alle tijd voor. Geleidelijk aan zijn er ook vaste lezers bijgekomen, die zelf ook een blog hebben. Zo ontstaat er een soort van kring. Het worden geleidelijk aan virtuele vrienden die een deel uitmaken van mijn dagelijks bestaan. Als ik mijn stats bekijk zijn er ook vaste lezers bij die meerdere keren terugkomen op mijn blog. Dat vind ik ook niet erg. Nog steeds neemt het aantal lezers toe. De groei is gestaag. Meer dan 3000 bezoekers per maand. Afijn, ik vind het nog leuk om te doen, dus ga ik ga gewoon door. 
My latest activities. Most of them with BPSK31.
“Tuesday (11/09) is Carl Sagan Day — a chance to remember the legacy of one of the great spokespersons for science. The folks over at the Kepler spacecraft website held an essay contest, inviting the public to submit writings inspired by the imagery that Sagan created in his allegory of The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean. The essays — which also include guest essays by notables such as Jill Tartar and Seth Shostak — are now available to read, and are all well worth the trip over to the Kepler website, especially if Sagan had an impact on your thought processes (as he did on mine). I hope you’ll check it out.” (Source)
For 45 minutes WSPR on 17 meter with 5 watt. As you see conditions are good for over the pond. No European stations, only DX.
Saying of the day: “SWR have absolutely nothing what so ever to do with an antennas performance as a radiating entity.
Conditions were poor this morning. I didn't hear too much on 17 and 20 meter. Though I worked a special station IR7WFF with CW on 20 meter.
Normally I didn't have much time to work in Weekends. Today it was different. I worked most of the time with PSK31 on 20, 17, 15 and 40 meter. On 15 meter I worked N1QEH Al from Peabody MA, USA. (see photo taken from qrz.com) best DX was CO8LY from Cuba. Maybe late tonight I will be qrv on 80 meter with PSK31. 
And... When you can't discover the cause of a breakdown, all of the free advice you get will be for things you've already checked.
Today I worked P43JB Joop from Oranjestad, Aruba on 15 meter with CW. It's a new DXCC for me. On 17 meter I worked AD4EB Jim from Tennessee, USA with CW. Also R6AF Vic on 17 meter.
On 17 meter with 5 watt a lot of stations from the USA, average distance was 7000 km. 
On 40 meter with 50 milliwatt, average distance 700 km.
Vanmorgen heb ik afgestemd op CW qrp frequentie van de 20 meter band. Even later hoorde ik QRL? Het bleek RN4NZ te zijn (see photo taken from qrz.com). Zijn signaal rapport was 549 en door qsb zelfs niet altijd goed te nemen. Ik kreeg een 569 rapport van hem. Ik hoorde ook HB9DAX die CQ riep. Ik heb hem al paar keer gewerkt en om steeds dezelfde stations te werken is ook saai. Ik hoor ook heel vaak dezelfde stations op 14076 KHz met JT65A. deze mode leent zich helemaal niet voor uitgebreide QSO’s. De condities zijn ook niet bijster geweldig en de Solar Flux komt niet boven de 80 uit. Misschien is er vanavond nog wat te beleven. Vanmiddag laat WSPR lopen op 17 meter met 5 watt. 
Ik las dit bericht gisteren en het verbaasde mij niet. Al enige tijd bij het monitoren van de amateurbanden viel het mij soms op dat sommige PDØ stations wel erg hard binnen kwamen bij een bepaald DX station. Ik dacht: het kan best zijn dat iemand met 25 watt en een goede beam een heel eind kan komen. Toch had ik wel eens twijfels over het gebruikte vermogen. Ik ga absoluut niet als band politie optreden, dat laat ik over aan de daarvoor bevoegde autoriteiten. Ik kan me de gedachtegang van zo'n amateur wel voorstellen. Op 20 meter of hoger zit je toch vaak voor Nederland in de dode zone. Het valt toch niet op, moet zo iemand denken. En aangezien iedereen een HF zender of zelfs lineair kan kopen via internet zonder dat om een licentie wordt gevraagd zit je voordat je het weet op de korte golf te blazen. Afijn, de novice is gewaarschuwd. En wat mijn betreft: ga lekker QRP-en. Is veel leuker en geeft meer voldoening. 
