Good propagations

From 5.54 UTC till 9.04 UTC I let WSPR run on 40 meter with 5 watt. Good propagations! My DX reporters are: VK2DDL, W2OL, ZL2IFB, AI4WV, WB8ELK, VK1FOTO, VK1MAT, VK2BTS, K1HTV and N4DR.

UBA DX Contest

This morning I feel like to do some SSB with the UBA DX Contest. I rarely work SSB, but now I gave it a try. It is remarkable how well they listen when it's all about points. I was running 15 watts. I was forgotten to write down the exact frequency. Anyway, in between I worked GWØWVL on 40 meter SSB, but I lost him in the QSB. On 17 meter I heard a station calling with the call sign: CNNK. I think it's a pirate. At the moment I am running WSPR on 10 meter (I was only reported by PA0O)

Blackberry

I came across this video, oh boy, wonderful. I had a good laugh on the Saturday morning.

Finally more activity on the sun. A huge blast yesterday, not heading our way, so no HF black out expected. Today's sunspot number is 26.

For north west Europe: there are tropospheric conditions expected this weekend on VHF. So keep a eye on 2 meter.

60 meter WSPR

Conditions were pretty good yesterday. On 20 meter I worked RX9CBS both with 5 watt CW. I also did hear a VK4 station on 14060 KHz. With JT65A I was reported by VK4CMV and ZL2VF (18.497 km). Last night I worked Bas PE4BAS with JT65A on 80 meter.

Yesterday I tuned for G4ILO on 60 meter. Unfortunately, we (Dutch) are not allowed to work on 60 meter, but I can listen. Though, I could not tune my antenna, but I did receive some signals with my dipole. Finally I heard Julian two times.

50 mW vs 5 watt WSPR

Last week I was operating with 50 mW and 5 watt on 80 and 40 meter. Bert PA1B made a wonderful analyse. See for yourself, 5 watt or more is not really needed with WSPR. I think 1 watt or 500 milliwatt will do for 'normal' WSPR transmissions.

Last night I was monitoring 80 meter with JT65A. It was very crowded on the band. Many stations were QRV. I also heard PE4BAS Bas with JT65. He was in QSO with RA6HMS. I called twice, but nobody came back. Too many stations.

JT65-HF 1.0.7 - new release

What's new?

1. Fixed improper formatting of saved ADIF file for logging.
2. Updated PSK Reporter DLL to latest version.
3. Added support for controlling PTT via HRD.
4. Moved menu items from buttons at bottom of window to a menu bar at top.
5. Added some new code and cross checks to help kill phantom decodes
6. Added copy of PDF manual and placed a link to it in the installed menu items.

Download link

Me and my old keyer

It looks like I am only been busy with digi modes. But I do work with other modes too. Yesterday was a CW day. The ETM-2b electronic keyer still does its job. 35 years old now. I think about a new paddle, but was is the best? Can anybody give me a advice about it? I worked EW7TA on 14060 KHz and DK7IF and S520SLO on 40 meter. Conditions were very poor yesterday. It was very hard to make a QSO with QRP 5 watt.

On 40 meter this morning I made a 2 way CW QRP QSO with HB9AXG Tony, near Geneve, Switzerland. frequency: 7032 KHz. On 20 meter: YU1CA and IT9QAU with 5 watt CW. UA3IAJ on 17 meter CW.

WSPR

You can read in the side bar of the WSPRnet.org that: QRP for our purpose means 500mW or lower. The last 2 years I thought that 5 watts was QRP, and in the beginning I thought: will anybody ever hear me with 5 watts. But I did, in one year I worked 76 DXCC, most of them with SSB. Everything is relative. Since I work with WSPR and JT65A I know that I can work with 50 milliwatt the same distance as with 5 watt SSB. A discrepancy of 20 db. Thanks to Joe Taylor K1JT for his fine software. Because without the WSPR software we weren’t able to ‘hear’ signals -25 db or lower. I even decode signals with -33 db. I began to think in terms of 5 watt is QRO.

Extremes with WSPR

Extremes in WSPR on 40 meter
What about making no miles? Huh?
What about DX with 0,000 Watt QRPpp
Or what about QRO? 1000Watt!
Or what about working the other side of the globe?

Go QRPp with attenuators

Bert PA1B requested to put this picture on my blog, how to build a attenuator for e.g. FT817 to go QRPp. Julian G4ILO also gave attention to this item already, but OK, we spread the word.

Bert PA1B wrote: I have the 20 dB attenuator for an input power of 1 watt, designed with the PowerAttenuator Calculator. For this calculator you need to have Excel or Open Office on your computer. This calculator has been developed for calculating 50 Ohm attenuators to 20 dB, 10 dB and 3 dB. You can specify the desired input power and maximum power per resistor. It is a excellent Calculator, for it gives resistance values available from well known E12 series. And of course, the more power, more resistors are required.

More info about QRPp and attenuators see PA1B website.

If you don't like building yourself or not been able to do it, you always can buy a attenuator at Wimo, Germany. Wimo gives a good service. I ordered several equipment there.

NanoSail-D deployed

The little cubesat that was thought to be lost has now been found, and now today, Friday, Jan. 21, engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center confirmed that the NanoSail-D deployed its 100-square-foot polymer solar sail in low-Earth orbit and is operating as planned. The sail actually deployed late on Jan. 20, and it was quite interesting to see how ham radio operators were helping the engineers monitor the critical beacons sent out by the spacecraft — with communications also being sent back and forth via Twitter. The video above is from Henk Hamoen (PA3GUO) who operates a ham radio station in the Netherlands. The NanoSail-D sends an beacon packet every 10 seconds, which contains data about the spacecraft systems operation, and Hamoen and others were able to help make sure things were going as planned. (Read more: Universe Today)

Ten Tec Argonaut 509

This was my first QRP rig in the seventies. Oh, I regret the fact that I sold it. It was a wonderful transceiver. It had a very sensitive receiver. I am glad EA8AY made this nice video, so I can drown in my nostalgia.

Venus

I like astronomy too. I saw on Peter's G4NKX blog that he made photos of the moon. I did the same this morning because I saw Venus in the Western sky, very bright. So I took my camera outside on tripod and a long shutter speed and took this photo. When you click on the second photo you will see a web site www.neave.com/planetarium, very neat to know where the planets are. On the first photo you can a piece of my sloping 20 meter end fed wire.

Zoom 18x. With my Panasonic FZ38. Shutter speed 8 seconds. Venus looks big, but that's because of the low angle at the horizon.

WSPR 50 mW

Inspired by Roger G3XBM I run 50 milliwatts on 80 meter with WSPR. I 'worked' 10 DXCC so far with 50 milliwatt on 80 m. Best DX was tonight, LA2XPA 1209 km. That's 15.021 miles per watt or 24.180 km per watt.

Today I worked with 10 watt BPSK31 the following stations: on 20 meter HA8QJ, RZ9OK, HA6ZX. On 40 meter F6CBA, IW2KOY (YL) OM5MZ and YO8RSL.

QRP on 80 m JT65

Tonight I wanted to do QRP on 80 meter with 100 milliwatt. I was only heard by a Dutch SWL station PA11134, distance 191 km. Then I tried 1 watt. I made a QSO with Ed SP3IY with JT65 on 80 meter. Ed was using 5 watt and a dipole. Distance between us 739 km. I was also reported by MØDEP 494 km, G4BYM 465 km, ON5DC 242 km, PAØOCD 32 km and EI1DG 747 km.

Earlier I was calling on 80 meter BPSK31 with 30 watt. PE4BAS Bas, came back for me, but I could hardly decode his signal.

This afternoon I heard stations on 20 meter JT65 with 90 and 100 watt. Oh boy, I hope not that the QRO guy's will take over that small bandwidth for digital mode. It is absolute not necessary to work with so much power on JT65.

Tuesday morning I worked SP3VAQ on 80 meter with 0.5 W JT65, he was using 5 watt, so a two way QRP QSO. Distance 737 km.

USA on 80 m

This photo shows the antenna of K4KV Glen from Moultrie, GA, USA. I worked him on 80 meter this morning with JT65. Also KT1B James from Haverhill, MA, USA. A few years ago I thought that USA on 80 was only a dream for me. Only as a SWL I could remember USA on 80 meter. Hi. But now with JT65 it is possible.

With BPSK31 I worked on 20 meter this afternoon: IW5BAX, CT1BNW, UA3ON and LA4CW. On 17 meter: UT9LC. In the early evening: I5AKQ on 40 meter, and DF9OO and DL3KOG on 80 meter.

DXCC no. 90

Conditions were very poor today. Only on 17 meter I heard Chagos Islands with CW. But too many stations were calling. There was a LZ station who didn't notice that they were working split. That happens many times. My keyer throw out suddenly a CQ call. Aaargh. On 20 meter also very poor, but suddenly I saw 9J2KK calling CQ with JT65. He did hear me, so Zambia is my 90th DXCC country with QRP/Low Power, since August 9, 2009. This weekend no radio, because we meet family and friends. So I wish everyone a nice weekend. Hopefully less rain. It's raining the whole week now. 73 Paul.

ROS QSO

Today I made my second attempt to work with ROS. I installed the newest version 6.1.5. beta. My first QSO was last year with IW8WSR February 10, 2010. After excluding hams who has critics on the new digital mode I decided to stop with further experiments. But time passes and hard feelings slipped away. I like to experiment with all kind of digital modes and ROS deserves a fair chance. ROS has developed as a nice piece of software. Though the bandwidth is 2000 Hz, but still smaller than SSB. ;-) I have heard that it has the capability to decode signals that have a Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) of -35dB, that makes ROS very interesting. My first 2 QSO were: IK7XTG and TA1BM on 14.103 KHz this morning.

Latest JT65-HF 1060 download

You should not be hasty when you want to work with JT65. You need to be patience. Information transfer is slow. And a low amount of information will be given. Only Call, QRA Locator, reception report in db’s, 73 and that’s all. It is possible to give information not more than 13 characters long. E.g. name or power, etc. It looks like a DX QSO, only slower. A JT65 QSO takes about 4 minutes. On the photo you can see what happens when I am 4 minutes QRV doing a QSO with S51AY on 80 meters this morning. Fast CW QSO’s make me nervous in a way. It goes too quick. Some DX QSO’s takes only 15 seconds. Operators are sometimes impatient, because every second counts. With JT65 you can laid-back. No hurry. For JT65A I use the software JT65-HF by W4CQZ. I think it’s the best. Here you can download the latest version JT65-HF1060. Enjoy another aspect of our wonderful hobby.

JT65A is better then PSK

After a problem with my computer, I needed a system backup. I tried PSK on 40 meter... nope. I tried PSK on 80 meter... nope. All with 5 watt. Nobody came back for me. I could crank up the power, but I didn't. Then I tried JT65A with 5 watt on 80 meter. Yes, immediately a QSO with UR4LQ (see photo) distance: 2188 km. My second QSO was with DK6CS (using 90 watts). After 30 minutes I was heard in 11 DXCC countries. Reported by: ON6KE, SP3CMX, GI8HXY, SM7UFR, SA7AGE, SM0MEM, SQ8MXR, RA6HMS (2835 km), EIDG, OE1DRB, M0LRE, DL4DNW and M6DRS. So my conclusion is that JT65A is better then PSK.

I placed a shoutbox on my side. Just a try out. I place for short messages e.g. where I am QRV, or someone wanted to say hello.

5 watt DX phone with the FT817

I like this video because it shows that it is possible to work DX even with 5 watts SSB. Phone is not my favorite mode because I don't like the shouting and pile ups. I do not chase awards, so I don't mind that rare, special call. In principle I like every QSO. Last night I worked on 40 meter: RU3SX, YO5OQH and IK5FKB with BPSK31. On the video you see that this FT817 has another dial knob. It is bigger then the usual dial knob. I like this one.

Kenwood TS590 air test

The Kenwood TS590 looks very nice. This impressive video shows a good working noise reduction. Though the TS590 is a bit too expensive for my budget, I am very satisfied with my FT450 and FT817nd. But when I win the lottery, I know what I will buy. There is nothing wrong with daydreaming, isn't it?

Weekend QRM

A lot of RTTY QRM on the JT65A frequencies. I managed to make 2 BPSK31 QSO's. I worked SP6LUP (see photo) and OK2PDH, both on 20 meter. With JT65A I worked RU3KS on 20 meter. To much QRM of RTTY stations. I was reported by stations outside Europe: VK4CMV and PY8ELO with JT65A this morning. With SSB I worked 9A2UZ on 20 meter.

Japan on 14 MHz

In worked JA1DEQ this morning on 14076 KHz with JT65A. A good start for the Saturday. There are several contests with all kind of modes, so it will be busy. The MUF is already above 21 MHz, so maybe on 15 or higher is DX possible. I changed my template again. I was fed up with the red colors. ;-) On 20 meter SSB I worked YT3PL and on 17 meter 9H4RJX. Have a nice weekend.

DX on 80 and 10 meter

I was QRV on 80 meter this morning with JT65A. Best reported DX was KØPT Paul from King George, VA - USA. On photo his very neat shack. My shack is always a bit messy. Other stations who reported me on 80 meter: F5RRS, OY6FRA, OY3JE, S51AY and G4ENZ.
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When I checked the ionogram (see my sidebar) I saw a MUF of 29 MHz. That was good news. 10 meter was open at 11.00 UTC I worked RA6FCX, UA6AVA, RN6AG, TA1BM and UA6BJY with PSK31. Around 12.30 UTC the MUF dropped to 21 MHz. On 17 meter I worked URØEW, SV2HXV, RD3AAD, RZ3ANY, UTØIV and US6CQ.

Donner's Digital Interface

I have all sorts of considerations for the hobby this year. Will I go for the digital modes this year? Or more CW and sometimes SSB. Or both? QRV on all bands (almost) or only a few e.g. only 20 meter for HF and 6 meter VHF (and 2 meter local)? One thing is sure: the power will be limited (low power < 40 watts or QRP 5 watts or less) I still work old fashion. Though I managed to work digital modes, I use the K7AGE method. Very simple with PTT / VOX and mic. One audio cable and a simple computer mic for reception. Why? I couldn’t get the rig CAT controlled. Blue screens, unstable OS. Ham Radio de Luxe would be fine, all automatic, but not for me. I have a ETM-Digi-1 interface but I can’t get it work for me. I have no description and a few jumpers... aargh. But now, I came across the video of K2FR. He shows how to set up a Donner’s digital interface for his FT-450. Finally found! So I ordered a Donner’s Digital Interface for only 52,22 euro’s including shipping costs. So I hope that this will work for me. eHam gives a good review about this interface. I think it will take awhile before the interface is in my shack. I think a week or 6. But I don’t mind. I started the year slowly. I made some SSB and JT65 QSO’s. Nothing special.

Partial Solar Eclips

The first partial solar eclipse 2011 is scheduled for January 4th, 2011, and will be seen in Europe, Africa and Central Asia. This eclipse will begin at 06:40:11 UT (Universal Time)) and culminates at 11:00:54 UT. The greatest eclipse – the point of time when the distance between the Moon’s shadow axis and Earth’s center is the minimum – will happen at 08:50:35 UT over northern Sweden. If you live in northern Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, you will be able to witness this eclipse. [More at Universe Today]

I was surprised when I came back from holidays to see that the solar flux is above 90. Hopefully this year the solar flux will go to higher levels.

eQSL I received from Manuel. We made a JT65A QSO last year.

I am back from holidays

We are back from holidays. We were in the east part of the Netherlands, we had still winter there. On photo my XYL and kids with the little dog are skating. I wish every one a happy new radio year! I took my hand held with me but I was out of range for any voice repeater. I heard the first day PI3MEP on 2 meter but later on it was hard to hear the repeater again. No radio for a week, no computer for a week, no internet for a week. Just having fun with the family, watching movies and reading books.