Height, propagation 3 ways in one day, and the Sliced Bread Theory.

After thinking about the conundrum of several receptions of a station while the mast was lowered, I tried to work someone reasonably close on meteor scatter with the antenna deliberately lowered - 5m elevation rather than 10m. I do this even though I suspect it was just random chance.

It was not a perfect test and on its own it means nothing. I would need to run a series of tests to prove anything. But the theory as I understand it goes that lowering the antenna will tend to raise the angle of radiation. So with this in mind I worked OZ3ZW in lightening quick time on 20 April. It is a short 867km path and the software suggests an 11 degree elevation is necessary.

I would need to do a lot of tests to make any headway on whether this really makes much difference from my QTH. The first example of this for me was on 2m, whereas this test was on 4m. So the proximity to the ground in wavelength terms would be different. Also, OZ3ZW is handily placed in a direction where I have no other obstructions - using a 5m mast beaming south would be pointing direct into the roof of the house. So how practical it might be to use lower antenna elevation is a bit doubtful.

Also, I have a bit of a nagging distrust of ground gain calculations. The ground here is always dry, and is exceedingly dry just now. We get terribly bad RF earths. That does not seem to be a great foundation to achieve much. But lets see.
===============================
23 April was a busy day.

With the Lyrids peak scheduled for the weekend of 22 and 23 April I had hoped to exceed my results on the previous weekend.

Not a bit of it.

22/23 April seemed like a normal period for MS, save that it was more annoying than usual. I am referring to the odd conditions where you get isolated, strong, reflections. Usually at a peak you get long enough periods of ionisation to conduct a QSO quickly and easily, at least on 6m.

With the isolated strong peaks conditions you get very strong CQs from all sorts of interesting places, in this case particularly from Italy, and then nothing more. If you reply to the CQ you spend 10 minutes transmitting in vain. Bah!

Always the optimist I planned an early start on 23 April and this splendid attention to duty returned a 6m QSO with PA0TCA in JO21 square. Nice as this is, it hardly justified me stirring from my scratcher at 05:00 to get this at 05:55. Eventually at 08:24 I made a scratchy 4m QSO with Jurek SP9HWY who is in JO90 square. The intervening two and half hours produced nothing at all. For an acknowledged shower peak period that was disappointing.

The previous day was a washout and the more sceptical amongst us might have concluded that the Lyrids came a week early. However, old Isaac Newton was pretty good at his physics and these things depend on solar system gravitational forces and they are very predictable events.

I wonder a bit whether some of our old familiar meteor showers are becoming exhausted and are basically not a good as they were. Perhaps new comets and similar bodies will heave into view and leave us new trails. This process happens over a long time period, but I was not expecting it now. Another effect is the relative angles of the showers, which is also predictable and which modulates the intensity of the shower over the years. Perhaps we have just been unlucky recently.

Leaving that aside, there was nice Es opening on 23 April.

10m Es WSPR at GM4FVM on 23 April 2017

This looked like a proper Summer Es type event. Gianfranco, IU1DZZ was a good signal over a two hour period. Later I even heard EA8, though that seemed to be part of a very weak F layer event.

I count the start of the Summer Es season from the first 6m (or 4m if it is first) contact. I did not get one on 23 April, though other GM stations did. Just the luck of the draw really, or my lossy co-ax?

So with Meteor Scatter and Es during the day, I was able to complete an Aurora contact too, in the evening. I heard Clive GM4VVX calling "CQ A" with serious AU distortion on his signal so I had to have a go. I could not manage to plug in the key, but I proceeded with the CW memory in the TS-590. I had a simple QSO programmed in, so it was slightly formal but it worked. So all three propagation methods produced a QSO on that day.
===========================
As I write this on 24 April there has been another Es opening.

10m Es WSPR at GM4FVM on 24 April 2017

Once again I had no success working anyone on 6m though other GM stations did. Personally I blame the white sliced loaf. Since bread production went industrial nothing has been the same.

Mrs FVM has taken up home baking and our bread has improved no end, but she cannot change the world single handedly.

Sorry about that, it was another attempt on my part to match the crazy ideas others have about radio propagation. They never seem to need a reason for good propagation (apart from their own operating excellence), but they can always be relied on for something bonkers when they turn on and there is nothing but white noise.

I (of course) am above such things.

The Es area showing on DXMaps on both days was over the North Sea and too close for 6m propagation from here, though GM stations further north and west did better. This is an alternative explanation, but I am sticking to the bread idea.

Lets hope all three aspects of VHF propagation improve further.

73

Jim

GM4FVM

The Mother of All Meteor Scatter Contacts (MAMSC)

For someone who could have won the All Ireland Waffling Contest in his youth, and who went on to get better at rambling sentences with age, I write very terse notes in my diary. You all know how easy it is for me to fill a blank page (several pages really) on this blog, but the diary entry last weekend simply said :-

Lyrids Starts

And so they did. Hooray!

15 minutes of 6 metre meteor scatter reception as shown on PSK reporter on 16 April at 13:39

PSK reporter as shown above does not report all the contacts available as many stations do not turn it on.

The Lyrids meteor shower is one of the top five of the year and often produces excellent results. Hence the diary entry.

Even old GM4FVM got in on the act. It helped that I could not sleep very well and had some early starts. QSOs at 05:39 are not common hereabouts. Over the four days since activity suddenly picked up I worked:-

2 metres
OH6KTL (KP02 1505km) SM0EJY (JO89 1224)

4 metres
OK2BRD (JN79 1291), OZ2OE (JO45 742), OZ1JXY (JO46 732), OK1DIG (JO60 1228), SP9HWY (JO90 1539) LA9BM (JP40 798)

6 metres
S59A (JN76 1610), ON5PU (JO21 687)

All of these, except ON5PU, were stations I had worked before, but at least it was activity. And OK1DIG was a new square for 4m, as previously I had only worked Dan on 2m.

MAMSC, (the mother of all MS contacts) (why do we have these silly "mother of" things?), was working SM0EJY.

So here is the anatomy of a 2 metre meteor scatter contact.

Mrs FVM wanted to watch something on the television, called Broadband or something. Some sort of detective drama which is too dark for me to want to follow. It isn't the delightful "Brokenwood Mysteries" or similar comforting quirky series with flawed detectives and jolly macabre pathologists who are full of delight at doing another gruesome post-mortem. No, time for a bit of amateur radio for me.

With at least an hour to occupy I decided to call CQ for ten minutes each on 6m, 4m and 2m. It took a while to start, so CQ on 2m was from 20:42 to 20:52, beaming East. I had expected to be on for longer, but Mrs FVM emerged at 20:59 and said that she was tired and it was bedtime for her (almost 10pm local time). Not having seen any response to my CQs I decided to go outside and wind down the antenna and turn in.

On returning to the shack I found this on the screen:-

21:02         PJY 26 26 GM4FVM SM

Hmmm. This looks like SM?PJY, but there is no sign of that callsign in QRZ.com, so maybe something else. Nothing else for it but to go back out and put the antenna back up.

I turned the beam towards SM and started calling QRZ? GM4FVM. or QRZ? SM? GM4FVM.

Nothing.

Until this:-

21:21        26 26 GM4FVM?

The question mark was probably an invalid character. So who is this? Where to point the antenna?

Going through the listings, there was no SM callsign ending in PJY. There is, however, an SP3PJY, a Polish club station. I tried turning the beam a bit more South of East and tried calling QRZ there.

Nothing.

I decided to call beaming East until a hour after the initial CQ, which would be 21:52. Two metre meteor scatter can be like this. It can take a hour to get one piece of information. During the peak meteor shower, in the morning, you can complete a QSO in minutes. In the evening it can take ages. As the beams are far more directional on 2m, it is hard to know which way to beam.

In this case, almost an hour in, I had no idea of the callsign of the station calling. Nor did I know which country it was in. Plus it was getting late, and it was even later in clock time in either Sweden or Poland, or anywhere to the East.

This is getting like my two longest QSOs which each lasted about 3 hours. Both were in the evening, but in those cases I had been alerted by email so I knew that the station was standing by. This one might have gone to bed by now.

But still, the neurosis of the amateur digs in. This is the only time I feel any connection with Tony Hancock's spineless "Radio Ham". Waiting an hour to get the other guy's callsign creates amazing thoughts in the mind. Could this be a real DX station? Is this the QSO to set a record? It must be, if it takes an hour.

So at 21:52 I went out to lower the antenna and give up. On returning to the shack I found this:-

21:55    GM4FVM SM0EJY 26

I had been wasting my time looking for SM0EJY in QRZ.com, as Andy isn't even listed in it. However, I had worked him before, so the logbook provided all the details I needed.

Nothing else for it but to go back out for the fourth time and wind the antenna back up again. At least now I know who it is. I can point the beam the right way. But is he still there? Has he now gone to bed? After all, he has been sending the same message for over an hour himself. Is anyone else determined enough to spend so much time to complete a repeat QSO?

If it takes a hour to get the callsign, how long will it take to get the report?

Well, at least I can now change my QRZ? message into SM0EJY GM4FVM 26 26. So that is what I did.

The reply came after just 24 minutes!

22:19    PCR8 RRRR RRRR SM0E

Now you might think that this is not enough. It is only a partial callsign. The question is, how many SM0E.. stations might there be on 2m meteor scatter to confuse it with? I doubt if SM0EUI has decided to pop up here. If it was a contest I might take a different view, but in these circumstances this is good enough for me. Me, in a contest? Time to send 73.

And then of course we get into the 73 dilemma. I need to receive a 73 because it lets me know to stop sending my 73. It provides "closure". He needs to receive my CQ for the same reason, but he is under no obligation to send one. It is not an essential part of the QSO. It would be nice if he did because it would end it for me and it might provide some more characters to confirm the last reception.

For once I need not have worried too much as the reply came at 22:30

22:30    ,CM0EJY 73 SAP

There is a sequence there M0EJY 73 S which is a slice from the repeated SM0EJY 73 which was what I was after. Time to turn off and wind the antenna down, again.

So what is to be learned here? Well, outside the peak morning session, MS QSOs can take a while. This one was not quite up there with Father of All Meteor Scatter Contacts (FAMSC) or even Uncle Terry of All Meteor Scatter Contacts (UTAMSC), which were three hours each. But they were skeds, pre-arranged, and I knew at the start who they were with. This was a random contact coming from a CQ. That is the way I like it (no KST chat room here). At 20:52 to 22:30 it was only 98 minutes (or 108 minutes maximum, as I am not sure when Andy heard my first CQ). A mere split second in the great scheme of things. I mean, which HF DX champion would spend less that an hour and a half on one single QSO?

Sometimes I sit and listen to HF contests. I hear stations using CW so fast that it puts me off even trying to listen beyond the callsigns, never mind actually coming on and giving them a point. How many QSOs do they get into 98 minutes? On the other hand, I judge a QSO by how difficult it was to complete, rather than how fast I can cram it in to my busy schedule. You may come to your own conclusion. And of course there is room for both.

It is a contact like this which gives rise to habits. If I cannot get a reply now, I know that the thing to do is to go outside and wind down the antenna. Maybe not.

Could it be that lowering the antenna might have raised the take-off angle and made the contact possible? I doubt it, but you never know. The software suggests a 6 degree take-off angle as the optimum for this contact.

I have been ranting on for ages about how easy it is now for anyone to have a go at meteor scatter. This is still true. On 6m you can find your feet. On 4m it gets a bit racy. On 2m you have to become a deer stalker, using your patience to catch the prize. Even if the prize is working someone you worked before.

By the way, if I had not installed the quiet lights, I would almost certainly have missed this QSO. I put them on when I go out to wind down the antenna, and the old ones would have created quite a bit of noise while I was doing it. And the key decodes in this contact happened while I was out there.


If only people on 2m used MSK144 instead of FSK441 life would be easier. I bet the contact with SM0EJY could have been done in half the time or less on the better mode. And if we had been using WSJT-X, we could both have gone to bed after the exchange of callsigns and left the software to finish it (only joking, I would not do such a thing - and anyway, who would be there to wind the antenna up and down every quarter of an hour or so?).

But hey, I have had my fun, and that's all that matters (as Father Fintan Stack famously put it in the wonderful "Father Ted" TV series).

Other diary entries:-
22 April "Lyrids"
23 April "Lyrids"
25 April "Lyrids ends"

I suggest that to maximise results and to prevent very long QSOs, call CQ in the morning. So my message is "do as I say, not as I did".

73

Jim

Two metre rigs, mast up, computers down.

The February 2017 edition of Practical Wireless magazine has a review of the Yaesu FT-891 HF rig. Nothing wrong with this rig, but it is not something I would be interested in.

As part of the review, G3WYW, who works for Yaesu UK, was asked why the rig covers only up to 50MHZ and does not include other VHF or UHF coverage. He is quoted as saying:

"Yaesu see the VHF/UHF market nowadays as being driven by their Fusion offering of a combined FM/digital voice capability."

In other words, future "offerings" for the VHF/UHF market will not be "driven" by SSB, CW or machine generated modes.  

This may indeed be true. Marketing is a matter for Yaesu and they are quite entitled to come to that conclusion. No doubt their cash box is telling them to do this. However, I think it is sad and a reflection, not on Yaesu, but on the radio amateur fraternity.

If there is a demand for equipment, somebody will make it. Some people will make their own, and some of them will sell it too. I believe that Adam Smith (1723 - 1790, the Scottish originator of the social science we now call Economics) go it right when he said that the "hidden hand" of the market would provide what we need. He was talking about pins, but rigs and components work the same way. But it is also true that if there is little demand there will be little supply.

I believe that the reason why the radio trade is backing off making high quality SSB VHF radios is that the demand is tiny and getting smaller. You do not have to look far to see the results of that, and the cause of it. Lack of activity breeds lack of activity.

When the RSGB tried to encourage VHF activity in Scotland by tweaking the UK Activity Contests there was a howl of complaint from those living in the South. Yet if you listen to 2m SSB here you may not hear any station call CQ all day. In Scotland, at least outside the Central Belt, activity is tiny to non-existent, unless someone whistles someone else up on the dreaded KST jungle drums.

There is no widespread enthusiasm for VHF DX-ing any more. It has become a tiny niche in the market. In the 1970s through to the 1990s it was alive with activity. Not now. I am not going to carp about Class B licences, because I do not believe that had too much to do with it. There are far more possible explanations than just that one.

A recently qualified amateur told me that he was taught on his training course that VHF was only for "line of sight" communication. Indeed he believed that VHF meant FM, that only FM was used on VHF, and when I suggested otherwise he did not believe me.

The evidence is that VHF use for low signal strength contacts is declining. In this part of the world it is already virtually non-existent. The number of regularly heard data or voice stations operating on any of the VHF bands within 50km radius of me is one. It cannot get any lower or it will be zero.

It is not Yaesu's fault that they see no market for VHF or UHF outside the FM/digital voice world. That is their experience. I am sure that the other mass producers feel the same. If we neglect the older range of Yaesu gear, only the FT991 features VHF and UHF. Icom have the expensive IC-9100 and Kenwood the TS-2000 which is rather old itself. That is it. Each of these three have their "issues".

We have been sleepwalking onto this for years. Soon, the paucity of activists will bring about a paucity of equipment. That will mean that there will be even fewer active and then .... ?
===================
Following on from my previous post, I have now had the chance to crank up the MM0CUG mast. Not quite fully as I have not organised the cable correctly. Still it went up to about 9 metres which seems like plenty to me.

The antenna on the left is the 4 metre vertical. I am not exactly sure that it justifies its place as I only work one or two people on it on a regular basis. On the other hand 4m FM has brought me 11 DXCC over the years!

On the CUG mast is the 3 element 6m beam (which still has a 4m driven element) and a Diamond x30 vertical. It was a fairly calm day and even then I was somewhat concerned by the movement of the upper section of the mast. Unlike the Tennamast it does not inspire me to raise the mast in a strong wind. So far my 5 element 6m beam has remained in the garage.

In all probability I will not raise it very often. The real purpose is to make the mast tiltable. My various 6m antennas were at its lowered height for years. However, why buy a mast which can be raised and not raise it?

So with this in mind, and with an eye on the wind chart, I cranked it up a couple of metres during the RSGB UKAC 6m contest. Before it was raised I worked one station, GM4JJJ, and after I raised it I worked ... nobody. I have to say that working nobody is quite common for me during 6m contests. I have given up coming on for them, but Mrs FVM was out and therefore I had the time to come on in between searching through my parts boxes (!). However, I heard several stations, including a few who otherwise I had never heard before. Even a couple of metres elevation helps a lot with tropo.
============================
I have mentioned a couple of times that my PCs are not fast enough to work MSK on WSJT-X 1.7.0. Further investigation reveals that they are not really fast enough to use MSK on MSHV either, so something has to be done.

As part of this I decided to try to restore a rather nice Asus motherboard with an Intel processor. Most of my computers are AMD powered, and this may be something to do with their dislike of MSK or heavy loads. Anyway, I do know that even rather simple Intel powered computers will power MSK quite happily.

This old motherboard was part of a computer which died thanks to having a power supply unit which blew up. This is in part why I dislike switch mode power supplies. It went down sending a large spike through everything, ruining most of the peripherals. The board limped on for a while before it stopped. As it seemed to survive the initial blast I hoped I might be able to breathe new life into it now.

As part of the exercise I decided to clean the heat sink and fan on the processor. I took it all apart and cleaned it up, cleaning off the heat transfer compound at the same time.

There is no room in the shack for this type of work so I do it in a small room called "the utility room". I have to bring parts and tools from the shack, but I am closer to the tea bags and the kettle. In the shack I have general parts boxes for little used things, and a set of labelled bags for more commonly used parts.

I know I have a tube of heat transfer compound. I even got it out when I worked on the 6m linear last year, but I did not use it then. There should be a full tube.

Now, I was not in good form at this stage. Earlier I had tried to get my car out to take a load of tree branches to the local "civic amenity site" (i.e. dump). I loaded the trailer, attached the trailer to the car in the drive, and then I found that the car battery had failed. It started when I wanted to move it, but when I wanted to leave the premises it died completely.

It was 2C, snowing, and the car and trailer were stuck in the drive. Mrs FVM was in Glasgow, and the spare leisure battery in the garage did not have enough charge to start the car. Given that the dump would close later, I only had 90 minutes to use my 5 amp charger on the car. The mains voltage socket and plug for the charger would be out in the snow. Nothing else for it but to try.

It was during those ninety minutes that I noticed that the heat sink compound was not in the box marked "computer parts".

Surprisingly the car eventually started, but I had to keep it running for the whole time I was out and for that  reason I could not get to the shops to buy any food for tea. So when I got back and got the car back on the charger (now fortunately with the mains connections out of the snow), I had another hour or so to search before I had to walk through the snow to the village shop to buy some (frozen) food.

After tea there was another 90 minutes or so of searching for the heat sink compound.

In total this involved three searching sessions during which I tried:-

1) searching the box marked "computer parts", which is where it should be
2) searching the box marked "radio parts" just in case
3) searching the box marked "audio/video parts" in desperation
4) searching the box marked "radio bags" with 26 individually labelled Jiffy bags
5) searching the box marked "general bags" with 11 individually marked Jiffy bags
At this point I ordered another tube using eBay, just in case I never found it.
Repeating stage (1)
Repeating stage (2)
Repeating stage (4)
Repeating stage (5)
6) searching the 6 smaller boxes marked variously "microphones", "PSUs", "PDA" (?) etc
Repeating stage (1)
Repeating stage (2)
7) searching the box marked "Stationery" (found a cork screw and some Blu-Tack)
Repeating stage (1)
Repeating stage (2)

At this point Mrs FVM returned from Glasgow and ordered me out of the shack. By this stage the floor was littered with boxes and cables and I was in tatters.

After a few minutes I returned to the shack and repeated stage (1) again and then Mrs FVM appeared again and commanded me to stop. She said that if she made me a cup of tea and I settled down to watch "Australian Masterchef" I would remember where it was within ten minutes. I objected to this but decided the best bet was to give in. Anyway, I enjoy watching Australian Masterchef, especially on an elimination night. The compound would, inevitably, turn out to be in the box marked "computer parts", which is where it belongs.

After 5 minutes distraction it occurred to me that the tube might already be on the bench in the utility room and I might have set the computer in front of it. I went in and, yes, the tube of heat sink gunk was sitting right beside the computer.

While I had been standing beside the computer earlier I felt sure it would be in the shack, and I did not look around me. My excuse is that I was dealing with the car battery and anyway  ...

I have no excuse.

I hoped to get some sympathy from MM0XXL on the radio. He said helpfully that this is what happens if you do not put things back where they belong.

ARRRGGGGHHHH !!!!!

The (spare) tube of heat sink compound is due to arrive on Wednesday.

Then I will have two to lose.

The previously lost tube of heat sink compound now located on top of the heat sink in case I lose it again.

The computer still is not working, by the way.

While I was hunting about I did find the microphone for the TS-590 in the "computer parts" box. Just was well as I needed it for the UKAC contest. I did wonder where that had got to. It certainly was not in the "microphone" box when I looked the previous day.

The sooner propagation improves and I have someone to work, the sooner I can forget about repairing things.

73

Jim

More indignity, MM0CUG mast and what to do in February

I like to illustrate this blog with suitable photographs.

The image I just took perfectly reflects the latest developments here. Sadly I am not going to show it as it may trigger the "skin tone" decency filters in some systems. Yes, I know you have your filters set so that you should not accidentally see an image with too much flesh.

The photo in question shows a hairy FVM leg with a nasty gash in it. You should just imagine how gruesome that would look, even without the injury.

Yesterday I managed, again, to fall off the steps during an antenna swapping exercise. Not far to fall, only a three step height, but enough to cut, bruise and strain all sorts of things. I ended up in the flower bed and unable to move. I eventually had to use my mobile phone to ring Mrs FVM to come and pull me vertical again. At least this time she was here, last time I got stuck she was in London.

This was a silly fall, and was basically due to the damp conditions. Grrr.

I'll spare you the photo. It reminded me of my first proper job, working in a photo-finishing laboratory for £7.00 per week. I was in charge of the interneg machine, a device which copied transparencies. We did work for the pathology laboratory and the coroner, and I spent many happy hours re-photographing photographs of dead and mangled bodies. Wonderful grounding in the art of photography.
====================
After the previous unwelcome intervention of gravity I decided to convert my second mast to tilt-over so that I could work from the ground. As a result I should not need to climb very far, but of course I still need to get the co-ax fed through into the house.

The MM0CUG mast has not been without its issues. To some extent I blame myself for not specifying a steel mast. I went for aluminium which tends to flex rather a lot in the wind. He gives the option of either steel or aluminium, but aluminium is cheaper.

Gary set it up as he usually does, with a lot of slack to allow the mast to be tilted sideways when lowered - apparently that is important for some users. The snag is that here is it so windy that the mast had a habit of tilting whilst being lowered. Then the cable got stuck on the pulley. At that point everything ground to a halt with the mast at a crazy angle and nothing for it but for me to climb up and apply heavy blows with a hammer whilst supporting the mast with my other hand.

After a lot of tinkering that problem is under control but I need to do more tightening and adjusting to get it entirely right.

Then the other pulley, which feeds the wire which raises the inner section of the mast, broke. Fortunately that happened with the mast fully lowered. Gary called in at some stage either late last night or early this morning and left a replacement pulley at our front door.

Broken pulley, left, replacement pulley, right

Gary has explained that he thinks he received a faulty set of pulleys. He tells me that the new ones are now welded in four places rather than two, and now painted to resist corrosion. Apparently after seeing my pulley, which at the time had been here for 2 months waiting for the installation, he had already decided to improve the weatherproofing. Certainly the new one looks better able to resist the conditions here which include both high winds and salty air from the nearby North Sea.

It only took me half an hour to install the new pulley. I was then able to extend the mast for the first time. The 6 metre band antenna is at about 6 metres above ground when the mast is lowered. I raised it a few metres, and in theory it should go up to about 11 metres when fully extended. Rest assured, a photo of that event will be featured here when it happens.
=====================
Ah February. Statistically the coldest month of the year here. As I write it is 8 degrees C, and scheduled to be 11C tomorrow. So it is unseasonably warm this year. There is still plenty of time for snow and gales this Winter.

It has been said that February is the worst month of the year for the VHF enthusiast too. Certainly, seasonal Es is a long way off, and Meteor Scatter is at its weakest. Meteor Scatter QSOs are possible all year, but they are harder and take longer at this time. We might get some tropospheric lifts or auroras, but that is unpredictable.

I read a book which suggested that February should be the month for getting your antennas ready for the season which is about to start. I have been shuffling the antenna pack, or at least when I can keep my feet on the ground I have.

Amongst other things I moved my 2 metre band vertical, leaving my Ecoflex co-ax hanging. I could bind it up and weatherproof it until I was ready to make more use of it, or just give in and put the 2m yagi back. So I put the 2m yagi back up. Take the line of least resistance.

The thing is, the arrival of the Kenwood TS-590 shows I am moving nearer getting the 2 metre band sorted out. That rig has not only fulfilled my HF and 6 metre needs, it is standing ready for the 2m transverter which would complete the process. But the treasury is empty and I cannot afford to take another step yet. At least the 2m antenna is up and ready.

I am getting there. Using February to get the antennas sorted out is a good plan.

Whether you are considering using a long wire or combating radio frequency interference, or just trying to feed in some co-ax while standing on some steps - please stay grounded.

73

Jim

Seasonal Sporadic E

What  I like about operating on VHF is the opportunities it brings for sudden long distance contacts.

The down side of this is that you need to sit around for long periods in between bursts of activity.

This is especially true for what is sometimes called "Christmas Es". I fact it is more like "late December and early January Es", but that does not trip off the tongue so easily.

In fact it is very unpredictable, may not happen at all, and if it does come, it can arrive any time between the beginning of December and mid January. It is usually weak, short lived, but for those reasons, great fun if you happen to find it.

This year there was a sudden opening on "Boxing Day", known in many other places as St Stephen's Day, i.e. 26 December. This is close enough to Christmas to make the title just about accurate.

Most of us had been watching for a while, more in hope than expectation. In my case this involves the usual WSPR study of the 10 metre band. This is where Es springs from for me. If there is Es on 10m I look at 6m, if it is there is Es on 6m I look at 4m, and if it is on 4m I look at 2m, with each step getting less and less likely, but better in outcome if it does occur.

So on 26 December once 10m WSPR started to get very busy into the "near Continent", mostly PAs and DLs to start with, I moved up to 6m JT65.

10m WSPR activity from GM4FVM on 26/12/16. The more distant stations came at the end of the event.

6m JT65 was proving hopeless, with no takers at all. Then I noticed that Gianfranco, IU1DZZ, had posted on the WSPR.net site that 6m was open at his end. GF's posting got me thinking. Perhaps WSPR would work better than JT65 (which would happen if the signals were weak but steady). So I switched to 6m WSPR to find out.

6m WSPR activity from GM4FVM on 26/12/16.

As it became clear that 6m WSPR was well established I turned again to 6m JT65, and eventually to 4m SSB too.

4m and 6m log entry, see map below.

I was a bit surprised that this unseasonal Es lifted the MUF as high as 70MHz.

So this was a classic late Es opening. The good conditions lasted from 11:20 to 15:14 on 10m (around 165 spots), 12:00 to 13:20 on 6m (10 spots and 5 QSOs), and 12:57 to 13:29 on 4m (2 QSOs).

6m JT65 and 4m SSB activity from GM4FVM on 26/12/16

Hardly much to get excited about really, in the sense that nothing new was worked and these events do happen from time to time. But I really enjoyed the opening.

What does excite me is the unexpected nature of it all. Yes, I do get steamed up about these things.

4m was, as so often, very interesting. I worked 9A1Z fairly easily, though strong winds meant that my mast was lowered. Then I could hear GM4JJJ working some stations on CW, including what sounded like an OM or OK station, but I could not hear the other station at all. I called CQ and then, suddenly, SP6RLA popped up, worked me 5/9, and vanished. The event was over on 4m.

Es openings are always best just before they end. To work a station like SP6RLA (JO81, 1368km) out of the blue like that is typical. It combines the joy and pain of VHF working perfectly. I had thought that the 4m opening was over (wrong), but I was still calling CQ just in case. He was very strong. I heard no other SP stations, though I know other stations around me were working other stations in SP. I did not hear him working anyone else.

At times it feels as if VHF propagation provides a unique pipeline between me and the other station. It is so selective, especially as you move up the bands. By the time you reach 2 metres, where Es is fairly rare, you might just hear one station but none of the ones around that station, and nobody but you can hear him. Then the propagation moves on, and you might, or might not, hear another one.

It is this "either you work it right now, or it is gone" aspect of VHF which fascinates me. I suppose 20 metres must have similar attractions but I cannot see them.

So here I am on 27 December, with WSPR again running on 10m. Nothing is happening. In my experience of this type of Es (well, all Es really) the same thing does not often happen on successive days. But it might. You never know.

Why is there often Es activity in the depths of Winter, near the Winter Solstice? I do not know. Could it be ionisation from the Southern Hemisphere spilling over? I have never seen a satisfactory explanation.

Who cares about the explanation, it is fun to work.

73

Jim

GM4FVM

PC crashed, PSU blew, and a core melt-down for me.

It's been a funny old month - and it is not quite over yet.

On Friday (it all happened on Friday!) the PC crashed. Finally, after loading more and more on to it, it just stopped. Nothing fatal of course, it just turned itself off.

My fault really as I have been loading more and more onto it. At one stage in the past I had two computers, one for what would now be the Internet programmes, and the other, faster one, ran the Flex SDR and data modes. This would have been fine had not the best faster one made slight but annoying noise on VHF. My numerous attempt to solve this failed.

Usually noise gets out of the computer via the connecting cables. This is something I am well versed in trying to deal with. I have established that some cables are reliable, and ferrite rings and clips are very effective. But with the fastest one nothing I changed outside the computer seemed to matter, and even the cables inside could not be silenced. It seems as if the noise is coming off the motherboard itself, though how it gets out of the computer case I cannot find.

So, I went over to one quiet computer driving two monitors. One monitor covers the Internet and email, and the other shows the data modes. This looks like two computers but of course all the processing falls on just one. I have worked like this for a couple of years.

Constantly adding work to this computer finally pushed it over the edge. I should have realised, because I was watching the processor load climbing higher, but somehow I kept putting off doing something. I seem to be good at that.

Nothing seems to have been harmed, though of course it might have been. In the past I have broken disc drives in crashes like this.

If all this sounds like I should learn a lesson, here is part 2.
=====================================
I have ordered a 5 element 6m PowAbeam yagi from dxshop to replace the Diamond HB9CV. This should be here in a few days.

In the meantime I dug out my old 3ele/4ele 6m/4m dual band yagi. This was stored in the garage for some undefined portable operation at some distant future date. It was a simple matter to make a 3 element 6m beam out of this and it seems to work well. It will do for a few days and it immediately proved to be more effective than the Diamond.

So I have been busy on 6m. The set-up is that the 6m linear shares a 50amp switching power supply with the 2m linear. This does not matter as they are both connected to the same rig and therefore cannot transmit at the same time. The PSU is a MyDel MP50SWIII, but you may recognise it as something else, as it appears under various brands in different markets.

The MP-50 photographed last year in happier times

Having had some success  on 6m for a day, I noticed the PSU making a noise. This was a rattling type noise, which became louder as the current drawn rose. This PSU has been making noises for some time, which did seem odd. I had intended to have a look inside to see if I could work out what was happening. I sat watching the ammeter at 32amps pondering the amplifier efficiency and maybe the rf power meter could be wrong, when the power supply blew.

Current had fallen to 6 amps, the noise stopped and I quickly turned it off. Quickly in my terms, but the damage was done.

I am aware that they can fail with a spike of voltage or current. I disconnected the linears and nothing changed, so it does appear to be the power supply at fault rather than the linears. I hope that the linears are not damaged.

The MP-50 - now in disgrace.

In an attempt to test the linears, I swapped things round and put in an Amperor 25amp supply instead. Both linears seemed to be working up to about the 100W output that was all I would risk.I do not want to blow something else.

I should have had some other 50 amp power supply to back up this one. Yes, I can juggle about my linears and get back to almost full power on all bands, but that is not really the point.  Any of the 25amp PSUs can fail and I have a spare. But if this one fails, 6m and 2m output drops considerably. You might think that the rig runs at 100W for 6m and 50W for 2m and that should surely be enough. Yes, when it comes to SSB that is true.  But for the data modes I use so much, the rigs simply cannot supply that sort of power on a prolonged basis.

I have linears, not so much to raise my power overall, but to provide a buffer to allow the same power to run on the high duty cycles of data modes. I do not run legal maximum on VHF: generally I only send 100 - 200 watts from the linears, from which you need to subtract line losses. On HF, I run a fraction of that.

Hey, I can live with this. Just find a new power supply and then fix this one. Then I will have a spare. In fact, I have a Sharman 23amp one which has died and been fixed twice. But during the downtime things are far from perfect. I think I should have thought that the strange sound coming from the PSU was more important than I did.

Why does a power supply make a strange sound? I had some inkling that this was coming and I did nothing about it.

Erm, a bit like the computer crash.
========================================
I have been very busy with antennas, masts and domestic duties. So, there are only 15 entries in the log book for the month to date (I do not log repeat contacts in GM or G-land). There certainly have been interesting things, but I will leave that for the end of the month.

The new addition to the skyline, the temporary 3 element 6m beam is working well.

Note the 4m element, which is carried over from its previous life as a dual band beam - it was too difficult to take off! Also, lots of spare coax for the yet-to-arrive 5 element.

I was surprised to have a call from Bo, OZ1DJJ, whilst beaming West on 6m meteor scatter. At the same time I was doing all sorts of domestic things and I committed the cardinal sin in amateur radio or replying to the wrong callsign (OZ1DZZ).

Thanks to David GM4JJJ for pointing this out. David saw that Bo was calling me on the KST chat page to tell me I had made a typo. I had indeed made a typo.

I should explain that I am not on KST. Yes, it would have alerted me to using the wrong callsign, but following KST just adds one more layer of complexity to my already crowded life. KST is both a solution to the complexity problem, and a cause of more complexity.

I suddenly realised that I was overdoing it. There were signs that I was trying to absorb too much information, process too many operations at once, and generally, trying to produce too much power from limited resources.

I should have seen the warning signs. I should have closed a few brain programmes and let my central processor cool down. Instead I battled on and got my callsigns mixed up.

Not that I actually mixed the callsigns up, I just did not think about it because I was thinking about something else at the time. Not a deliberate act, a loss of concentration. Trying to do too many things at once.

Is this sounding familiar? Did I ignore the signs, just as I did with the PC and the PSU, that I am overcooking everything? Yes probably.

I am not about to give up radio, but I do need a reminder sometimes that I tend to over-complicate everything, to the point of overload. You will all be surprised to hear that.

The PC crashed and the PSU blew after I lost track of that QSO, but on the same day. So I cannot say that there was some deep spiritual connection between all this, the warnings of which I had ignored. But it all shows that everything has its limit.

This is only a hobby. It can become an all-consuming passion which fills the mind, empties the wallet and causes you to forget what is important in life.

I am off to let my internal fan reduce the temperature of my overheating regulators.

(IRONY WARNING): There must be a lesson in all this, but maybe I will just ignore it. That strategy has worked for me so far.

73

Jim
GM4FVM

More antenna work, introducing MSK144 and streetlights

This mast has turned out to be quite a struggle. It has needed a lot of tinkering, tightening and adjusting. More of that later, no doubt. But I will get there eventually. It may be built down to a price, but I still reckon it is the best solution for me right now.

Actually putting an antenna on it turned into farce, of course. The idea was simple. Just transfer the rotator and 6m antenna which used to be on the temporary mast onto the new one. Then put the Moonraker 6m/2m/70cms vertical on top. Job done. Well, for course it was not like that.

I have written a complete report, but I will spare you the details. Trying to get it done before the RSGB 6m UK Activity Contest was a target of course. An excellent test. Two days work, in freezing conditions, rain, wind. I am not asking for sympathy. You can just be amazed by my pig-headedness.

I should say that the TV rotator can only take a 35mm pole, so everything was organised around that fact.

It took a day to get the previous set-up onto the mast and get a photo of it before I put the mast up.

It is not much of a photo due to the lack of light, but note the frost on the ground. I had just lined the HB9CV with North, by turning rotator and lining it up level with the ground with a small correction for the fact that the house is a few degrees off East-West.

So I put the mast up and the rotator failed.

At first I thought it was the cable, but more work proved it had just given up. TV rotators are not made for a long life. They only fail when you rely on them.

It did not take long to see that I had to give up the plan to use the previous set-up until next Spring, when I planned to put up my Yaesu rotator and a better 6m antenna. So I had to face doing all the work again, but this time with the Yaesu rotator, 6-core cable, and a 50mm pole above the rotator. That should be OK, as the vertical was bought to fit 50mm pole. Plus, all the other kit was in the garage ready, waiting for Spring.

After another day, I was standing in the gathering gloom, with frozen ground under my frozen feet, almost ready with the new set-up. Just time to fit the vertical before it gets dark.

Then I discovered that the vertical does not fit a 50mm pole. Nothing else for it, I had to dig out my Diamond X-30. Half the length of the tri-band vertical, and as it turned out, it works better too. And I fitted it, helped by the torch on my mobile phone.

It looks the same. But everything has been done twice. Two lots of cable pulled through, and one pulled back. Two verticals fitted, one removed, two sets of waterproofing PL259 plugs and sockets done, one pulled apart. Two beams fitted and lined up, one removed again.

Another hour's work in the house got the rotator controller as far as my desk and I was ready for the contest.

This was one of the worst contests I have ever listened to. I only heard two stations, and neither was calling CQ. Total result = NIL.

Well, it is not all bad. After the contest I worked DM2ECM on 6m meteor scatter MSK144. More about MSK144 later. But it is all working now, and I can turn the rotator.

So what is this long tale meant to convey? Well, that I am a determined old toad, ready to get cold and wet. It shows that this hobby can drive normally sensible people to do mad things in the winter, and then do them again the next day.

BUT, it also shows what I can do now without climbing. It was all done from the ground or from a three-step handy folding stool. Hooray! I'll get as cold as I need, so long as I don't have to climb to do it. I am too old to climb.
=====================================
MSK144 is a new mode from the Joe Taylor stable. It is designed to improve upon the performance of FSK441 on meteor scatter. There are new versions of the WSJT-X suite including this new mode.

MSHV has been updated to include the new mode.

There are other new modes for Earth-Moon-Earth and other propagation methods too.

At the moment the latest modes are still in the process of completing development, and new versions are being issued as bugs are identified.

I do not have space here to say more, so I will leave it for later to cover it in more detail. But it is clear now that things we used to think were really difficult, like meteor scatter, have been revolutionised. This revolution continues. Nowadays the average amateur with moderate power and fairly simple antennas can communicate efficiently using the WSJT-X suite, whether it be in HF with JT65, or EME with QRA64.

The days of using tape recorders to speed up morse are long gone, the days of building massive linears and huge antenna arrays are coming to an end. WSJT-X and its clones are remarkable.
=======================================
Scottish Borders Council, our municipality, has started a programme of replacing sodium street light elements with LEDs. This has obvious advantages for the council. The new lights have longer lives, need to be maintained less often, produce (almost) white light, and consume a lot less energy for a given light output.

For an amateur, the prospect of have a street full of LEDs outside the shack is a bit scary. That is why I asked the maintenance team about two months ago if we were due to get the new fittings. No, they replied, they are busy elsewhere and it would be a year or more before the change-over happened.

Thus it came as a complete surprise when they fitted the new lights, completing the whole street using the existing lamp standards in a day.

This photo shows the street now looking like daylight. The new lights are VERY effective.

I suspect that they used some of the reduction in power consumption to provide some headroom to raise the light output level too.

I was in fear of the consequences for noise on my radio. I have a very dim view of LEDs in general. We have very few, and those that we do have are either far away from the shack or rarely used at the same time as the radio. So having a street-full outside my control was a worry.

I need not have been concerned. There may be a slight increase in background noise. I cannot measure it, so it must be very low. I can cope with that. There are no terrible consequences on the bands that I use. Or at least none that I have found yet, and I have looked.

Even the sodium lights caused noise, but only for ten or fifteen minutes when they were starting up each night. This actually seemed to be better.

Lets hope that I see a reduction in my local taxes to pass on the savings to me. I am not as troubled by noise as I thought I might be at this stage.

I know that LEDs need not be a problem if they are properly installed. It is good to find some that are.

73

Jim
GM4FVM