46 and counting…

I’d been looking forward to this event because I was hoping I might get on the bands for a few hours for the first time since a 20m CW QSO with K9OM on the 15th of August, over 5 weeks ago.

In three sessions I made approximately 60 contacts spread over the 40, 20 and 15m bands. Conditions seems pretty good overall (sunspot number up at 57) and I was particularly surprised to find how late into the Saturday evening 15m remained open down to Central and South America. Very different to earlier in the year when I was hearing very little on 15m much after 5pm local time (16:00 UTC)…although I’m prepared to accept that my antenna will always be a limiting factor. However, same antenna then and now so things certainly seem to have improved with Argentina, Brazil, Aruba, Galapagos Islands, Kuwait and the Dominican Republic all worked on 15m on Sunday evening.

Although no new countries were worked during the contest, in spite of my best efforts to get through a minor pile-up trying to work a Chinese station (yes, I still need China despite having already worked most of the surrounding countries), I did work two new US states towards my WAS award, New Mexico in the form of WA5ZUP and Wyoming in the form of WY7SS. That is now 45 of the 50 states worked with just Louisiana, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska and Utah still needed.

It was nice to get on the bands again and nice to hear so many strong RTTY signals (on 15m in particular). I’ll be hoping it’s not another 5 weeks before the next time and not too long to the next new one!

Dean Amateur Radio contest, DX, RTTY, WAS

One mans DX is another mans chip-shot. Your equipment, conditions, the frequency in use and any number of other factors all contribute to making certain contacts worthy of the term ‘DX’.

Case in point my attempt at a 2m SSB contact with Simon (2E0HTS) some 87 miles north of me. How hard could it be? After all, I’m a HF DX’er and I regularly work stations thousands of miles away. This should be easy, right? Wrong!

I embarked on this little exercise because I’m interested in working a bit of 2m SSB up into Burton-on-Trent where I’m getting to know a few of the locals through the Burton Amateur Radio Club. To that end Simon and I arranged a sked (a pre-arranged contact for all you non-hams out there) to see if we could establish a contact on 2m SSB.

We agreed that he would call me as he was likely to have the ‘bigger’ signal (50 watts into a homebrew IO loop beam he uses for working amateur satellites with great success). I waited and listened…and waited…and waited. At times I could tell he was there, down in the noise, but it just wasn’t readable at all. If I wasn’t hearing his 50 watts he was never going to hear my puny 8 watts into a simple 3 element beam!

We gave it our best shot but it wasn’t to be. We moved to 80m and had a quick chat (which was nice…thanks Simon!) and I’ll look forward to chatting with him again soon. For now though it seems that 87 miles on 2m, for us at least, was ‘DX too far’. I’m certainly gaining a new found respect for all the VHF/UHF (and beyond) DX’ers out there. I’ve also learned that DX need not be the other side of the world. Sometimes it isn’t even the other side of the country! It’s all relative.

Dean Amateur Radio 2E0HTS, antenna, DX, G0RIF, SSB

In case you have ever wondered, as I have, just how long it takes for sunspots to affect shortwave conditions here on earth, this is currently the subject of a discussion thread in the DXing forum over at eHam.net. Interesting!

Dean Amateur Radio, Totally random DX, propagation, sunspots

We live in a connected world where many people have permanent broadband access to the internet and to spotting clusters. Many hams use these DX clusters to assist in locating and working DX on the bands. I am one such ham and I would certainly not have worked all the DX I have done over the past few years without an ocassional helping hand from DX clusters. I do wonder though to what extend they can be considered a hams friend…or foe.

The reason I pose the question is this - for an amateur radio operator with a compromise antenna (such as I have) it is unlikely you will hear all of the stations spotted, even if others in your part of the world are reporting them as “loud here” or “59+20dB here”.
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Dean Amateur Radio, Life... DX, DX cluster

No disputing it, it’s a fact. With my compromise antenna, in marginal situations, it is very likely I’ll hear him better than he hears me (working on the basis he probably has a better antenna than mine). So, if I want to work him, I need to radiate enough of a signal for him (or her) to hear me. No antenna means I radiate no signal.

I hear and read a lot of comments from hams in antenna limited situations similar to my own lamenting the fact that they can’t put up the kind of antennas many other hams are using. To all of them I say “do not despair and just put up something…anything!” It will radiate a signal and you will work people. Granted not as many as those other hams with the big fancy antennas but you will make contacts.

Case in point, my current antenna which is (as previous posts have mentioned) a compromise multi-band wire that seems to work quite well (despite the losses recently identified in the previous blog entry) on 20m, 30m and 40m and that will additionally tune and work on 80m, 17m, 15m and 12m. I suppose 7 band coverage on 12 metres of sloping end fed wire isn’t too bad and with this antenna I have worked some nice DX in the past 18 months (116 countries) including:

Alaska, Anguilla, Argentina, Aruba, Australia, Barbados, Bermuda, Bonaire (Curacao), British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Cuba, Desecheo Island, Dodecanese, Faroe Islands, Grenada, Hawaii, Iceland, Iraq, Jamaica, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Martinique, Mauritius, Montserrat, New Zealand, Nigeria, South Africa, St. Maarten, St. Vincent, Sudan, Suriname, Svalbard, Tajikistan, Tanzania, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Venezuela and Western Sahara.

This includes 15 all time new ones taking my DXCC total from 162 to 177. Not bad for a pretty simple compromise antenna!

I hope that this blog entry will illustrate to many of the newer hams out there, who are similarly limited in what antennas they can erect, that simple compromise wire antennas can work. I know that there are better antennas and I know that many will always say that “more…higher is better” but the simple truth is that not everyone can get “more…higher”. In those circumstances always remember that something is better than nothing so put up what you can and work some DX!

Dean Amateur Radio, Life... antenna, DX, DXCC

I like chasing DX and I’m always interested to see what DXpeditions are planned for the months ahead. A good resource for this information is provided by Bill Feidt, NG3K, on his website. The ‘Announced DX Operations’ page lists most of the scheduled DXpeditions.

I regularly scan the listed operations to see if there are any scheduled to DXCC entities I need. There usually are! I then break this down into those I ‘expect’ to be able to work and those I don’t expect to be able to work, based on my setup and my experience of relative strength (or absence of) signals heard from those parts of the world.

I then also consider which modes the respective operations prefer because I know I’m unlikely to work many on SSB, due in large part to my operating mostly at night when the rest of the house is asleep, but also due to my relatively poor signal. I find that CW really is my best option most of the time!
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Dean Amateur Radio DX, DXCC, dxpedition

The annual BARTG RTTY contest took place this weekend just passed. Plenty of RTTY activity on the bands and conditions were pretty good.

Highlights of the weekend for me were working AL9A in Alaska for a new one on RTTY and WX7P for a new WAS state (Washington), both on 20m.

Other DX contacts of note were YB4IR, HZ1PS and CO8LY all on 15m and P40YL on 20m. I also heard 6W2SC on 10m but he was fading in and out quite badly. I called him a few times (more in hope than expectation) but no QSO resulted.

Less impressive was my 40m effort which amounted to a meagre 3 contacts. The band was surprisingly devoid of RTTY activity (at least during the times I was able to listen in). A shame really as I’d hoped there might be some rich pickings late into Sunday evening but it just wasn’t to be.

Looking forward now to the CQ World-Wide WPX SSB contest next weekend.

Dean Amateur Radio BARTG, DX, RTTY, WAS

Another sunny Saturday afternoon found me (G0RIF), Richard (M0SNR) and Luke (M3VVB) at Barr Beacon for what might have been our last portable operation from there this year. I was working a bit of HF (20m and 17m) while Richard and Luke worked VHF (2m) and UHF (70cm) with a SOTA beam on an 8m pole.

I set-up on 20m with my FT-857 (80w SSB) and one of the Par Electronics EndFedz in a vertical configuration. I found 20m to be quite busy and the band seemed to be in decent shape. Unfortunately the Scandinavian activity contest started at 13:00 local time after which the band was very busy. In a little over an hour on 20m I worked stations in Ukraine (EM0WFF), Switzerland (HB9VELO), Hungary (HA6NW), Belarus (EV6DX), Finland (several including Greg, OH2FFY/m with a full size 20m vertical), Sweden (several) and Japan (JA7NVF). Greg has posted a video he made during our 20m QSO which you can see here.

Eventually, due to the number of contest stations, 20m got a bit too wall-to-wall with big signals so I switched to 17m, again with an end fed vertical dipole (another of the Par EndFedz). Conditions on 17m were pretty good and I worked stations in Cyprus (5B8AP), USA (long chats with Andy, KB1KYN on Nantucket Island and Frank, K0FPL in Kansas City), Madeira Island (CT9/SP9CTT) and the Canary Islands (EC8AVA) before the DX catch of the day. Calling CQ at about 13:40 UTC I heard a good solid 58/59 signal come back to me in the form of Des (ZS1ZY) over 6000 miles away near Cape Town! We had a nice chat before QRM at his end overwhelmed my reported 33 signal. I think this demonstrates what can be achieved with a modest portable station and I was very pleased to work down into South Africa with my simple vertical dipole antenna and 80 watts of single sideband transmitted signal.

All in all we had a good afternoon in the sun. My little bit of HF DX was supplemented with some nice continental catches for Richard and Luke on 2m (Germany and The Netherlands). We’re all now waiting and wondering when we might next get out…and wondering whether or not conditions will be as favourable next time. I sure hope they are.

Dean Amateur Radio antenna, dipole, DX, EndFedz, FT-857, Par Electronics, portable, propagation