A little Christmas propagation present

Before I start, I went out on what is called "Boxing Day" round here (also "St Stephen's Day" or just 26 December), and I was unable to lower my Tennamast. The mast holding up the 2m and 4m antennas had frozen in the raised position thanks to a heavy frost. My usual trick is to shake the upper section of the mast to break the frost but it was frozen solid. So it just had to stay up all night. Lucky thing.

As compensation I took some photos of it

2m and 4m antennas at GM4FVM on 26 December 2017

If you click on the image to enlarge it you can see a faint star pattern behind it. There is no need to contact me once you have worked out what aspect that is, because it is not the shot I was after.

I did think that I had taken a better one than that. I wanted to show the antennas with Orion in the sky behind them and that worked quite well on that particular night. Sadly during the long exposure there was some vibration in the tripod so it did not turn out very well once I came indoors and looked carefully at the results. It is a pity as I had managed to get Alnitak and Alnilam on one side of the 4m boom, with Mintaka on the other side of the boom, but they are shown as elongated lines in the final photo. So this one will have to do.

Ah well, Orion's belt is for another day.

Or rather it is for another night.
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In my last posting on 24 December I suggested that it would be worth looking out for "Christmas Es" until early January.

Unusually, Christmas Es decided to make a showing near to Christmas this year.

10m WSPR spots at GM4FVM on 26 December 2017

Even more unusually, I went on 10m and actually worked a few stations ...

10m contacts (all FT8) at GM4FVM  on 26 December 2017

Then 6m opened and I turned to that band:-

6m Es (FT8) contacts at GM4FVM on 26 December 2017

Thinking that this could not last, 27 December produced even more 10m Es WSPR spots:-

10m WSPR spots at GM4FVM on 27 December 2017

.. and then even more 6m FT8 contacts:-

6m Es contacts at GM4FVM on 27 December 2017

Now it is grand to leave WSPR running and just observe the spots, but that map shows real contacts, all of which were logged. Eventually after a few hours I got "brain fade" and I stopped an hour before the opening ended. Not bad though for December Es, something that many amateurs ignore completely.

And of course, being a reasonable time for meteor scatter I have been there too...

Meteor scatter contacts at GM4FVM 22 to 29 December 2017

I would have been happy enough with those contacts if the Es had not occurred at all (OY being a new country on 6m, although I have worked it on all the other bands I use).

Nothing at all was heard on 4m (so there was no point putting up the mast for it just to get frozen).

The openings were very long - on 26 December 09:28 to 19:38, and on 27 December from 11:32 to 18:26. So my comment about these openings being short and localised was proved to be rubbish this year (so far). Well they usually are ... honestly.

OK, I was wrong.

So was it all worth it? It proves that in my business you can never let your attention waver or you miss things. New DXCC, new squares ... but the brain fade was a problem. Having let Katy the shack cat out into the garden, I got so caught up in the action that I forgot to let her in again. In weather cold enough to freeze an antenna mast she was not happy. I had to bribe her with a tin of tuna. But apart from that, yes, I think so.

Adding all the contacts since Christmas together (excluding WSPR of course) looks like this:-

All contacts at GM4FVM 25 to 29 December 2017

Frankly I am shattered by all this activity. But I did enjoy it!

Whilst the next couple of weeks promise more meteor scatter and maybe some more Es, a long winter lies ahead. So work them while they are there.

Might be a good winter good for photographing the stars though.

73

Jim
GM4FVM