Another Morning Tropo on 1296MHz.

This morning around 0500 (0300UTC).

SR1KOL , again. It has been there until now, with some QSB.

LA1UHG, it was gpone when I checked later.

Morning tropo is definitely a thing.

Early Morning Beacons on 1296.

This morning around 5AM local time, I woke up and made a check of the beacons on 23cm. 

The Polsh one was there again (no surprise), and also the two Swedish ones near Gothenburg were just audible, along with OZ1UHF in Northern Jutland.

The best signal was LA1UHG in JO59.

Yes, morning tropo is a thing on 23cm, for sure.

This afternoon the Polish beacon has been up and down, at some time stronger than the local OZ7IGY, only 26km from here.

More Beacon reports on 1296MHz

 The other day I heard the German beacon DM0UB in JO62KK at 360km. This was at a nightly check at 4 AM. The signal was easily readable and quite visible on the spectrum display of the 9700. This is still with the vertical antenna, so the signal must have been very strong. Distance: 360km.

Last night between midnight and 1 AM, LA1UHG in JO59FB came through, also with a visible trace on the spectrum display, at a distance of 394km.

Yes, the Polish beacon SR1KOL has been coming through several times during these hot days, and I am not surprised any more. I wonder how often I can hear it with horizontal polarization. 

Impressive signals with the vertical, I am guessing they would have been near S9 with a small horizontal yagi.

1296MHz. Beacons, Beacons, Beacons.

 This morning at around 7 - 7:30 (5:00 - 5:30) I heard a plethora of beacons up to about 400km away:

Two beacons near Gothenburg, the one on 1296.800 I heard, cut could not catch. The other one, 

SK6UHI in JO57TX was up to 559

LA1UHG in JO59FB was fading in and out, up to 539

OZ1UHF in JO57FJ was quite weak, but audible.

SR1KOL in JO74TE was as strong as the local OZ7IGY.

All this with a monoband vertical. Yes, I do have a preamplifier at the antenna, that helps a lot.

I am impressed, and looking forward to getting a horizontal yagi up.

1296 Tropo.

 I am reorganising my station, so the activity level is not so high.

Yesterday, however, 1296MHz was open up to a few hundred km.

I didn't make QSOs, but with my omnidirectional vertical monoband antenna I could hear 9 beacons during the day and evening:

OZ7IGY (of course, it's local at 26km, and always audible) - Everyting else is over about 200km

SR1KOL at about 270km

OZ1UHF at 222km

DB0XY at 438km

SK6MHJ at 229km

SK6UHG at 261km

SK1UHG at 416km

LB2SHF at 369km

LA3SHF at 372km

I am pretty sure I would have heard more beacons with a horizontal antenna, but this tells me that propagation was very good.

Yes, a horizontal antenna system is in the planning, probably for spring next year.

Some Tropo on 1296MHz.

This is interesting.

The last few days we have had some good tropo over the Baltic.

Yesterday the SR1KOL in JO74TE came through a good deal of the afternoon and evening. It did fade in the late evening, and it may have been there through the night.

Distance from JO65CP is close to 270km. Given that I am using a vertical omnidirectional antenna, I am impressed of the signal coming through.

Today, I started listening in the early afternoon, and it was already there. Through the whole afternoon until writing this about 2230 (2030UTC), the signal has been there consistently. Many times with S5.

I am still impressed. Others around me with horizontal antennas hear it S9 a lot of the time, not surprising.

I checked on the map. It turns out that I have an excellent path from my antenna, sloping down to Koege Bugt, then more than 250km across the Baltic Sea. It may not be so surprising that I have heard this beacon quite often. Only a tiny low lying piece of Sweden (Falsterbo) is "in the way. When I get a horizontal antenna up again, I will monitor this path on a more regular basis.

In another direction I have the DB0VC beacon in JO54IF, I have heard it once or twice with the vertical with a more obstructed path. When I had a small horizontal yagi up about 7m, I heard it regularly at just over 180km.

1296MHz Tropo.

The past week end made for some surprising propagation on VHF/UHF into my area (Greater Copenhagen)

I did not work much o 144MHz, apart from what I call "local tropo) propagation. That is distances up to about 300km (200mi). We had some good contacts within that distance, running FM with a vertical.

The more interesting band for me this time was 1296MHz.

Both Saturday and Sunday provided beacon reception (by ear), from several countries.

Of course, the local OZ7IGY is always audible here., then 2 other OZ beacons, further away.

3 German beacons were there.

The Swedish SK1UHF, on the island of Gotland at quite a distance.

The Norwegian LA3SHF at 370km (230mi)

The Polish SR1KOL at 270km (170mi)

Finally, the Czech beacon OK0EKL at 580km (360mi)

The only antenna available at this moment is a monoband 23cm vertical with over 10dB gain. All beacons transmit with horizontal polarization, so the attenuation is considerable. With a good horizontal antenna (yagi etc) I estimate the signals would have been 10-15dB stronger, and I would likely have heard several more beacons.

Best 2-way DX was DC7QH in Berlin at 345km (216mi). This was unusual. I heard him call CQ in FM and called. When he heard "OZ" he pointed the antenna in my direction, and the signals disappeared.

Then, when he pionted the antenna about 180 deg. away from me, the signal went to S9+. Probably a reflection. He was working with 200W into a 1.5m (5') dish with horizontal polarisation. ( am running only 10W, at the antenna about 4W.

During all this there was a lot of noise from radars (at least 3 different ones), sometimes wiping out most signals. I had good use of the narrow CW filter (250Hz) when listening to the beacons. The radar peaked far above S9.

On Sunday afternoon I decided to get my radio running with WSJT-X, so I can run some DX tests. That took a few hours, but it finally worked.

Best distance "heard" with FT8 was UR5WCE at 1029km (about 600mi).

Come spring, I need to mount a (small) yagi on a tiny rotator I have available. It will be very interesting to see the improvements, including raising power to about 40W at the radio. Perhaps later a PA/preamp near the antenna, raising the power at the antenna to about 100W, also running digital modes like FT8.

This was a spectacular week end on 1296MHz, let's see what's in my future.

23cm DX With the Vertical.

 This evening I had a bit of fun.

Listening on 23cm, well, I was simply having the IC9700 stand by on 1297.5 FM, and nothing.

Looking at the spectrum display (waterfall) I noticed a line around 1296.912. I had not heard any signals on that frequency before, so I checked, and out of the speaker I heard the DB0XY beacon in JO51EU. The signal was easily readable at the other end of the room, so actually quite strong at times.

I was a bit surprised, as this was with my vertical 23cm antenna, and most beacons work with horizontal antennas.

Distance 438km. Not bad with such a simple setup.

I need to get a horizontal antenna up again, and also getting a power amplifier up and running.

2m Tropo Over The New Year's Period.

Though I have had the cough and not too much energy, 2m has been good to me, mostly via FT8. When the voice is not good, it is a much better mode, and it is excellent for monitoring the propagation.

2m:
Coming back home on the 27th (I think) I noticed a cluster of spots from Southern France, all within a period of 10 minutes and in a relatively small area. This I consider a sporadic E opening, as other stations i Europe were working Es via a reflecting "cloud in the same area. My first experience of 2m Winter Es.
In the same opening LX1JX was worked as a new DXCC on 6m.
28th provided QSOs with 3 G stations and a PA. Not spectacular, but not too bad.
2nd January, just a single QSO on 2m with LY5P
5th gave me quite a surprise: I saw EA2XR in my FT8 display, only 17dB S/N, but I tried anyway. Much to my surprise he answered my first call, and the QSO was made. The surprise is more so, because he gave me a better report than I gave him: -6dB S/N. My guess is that I must have been lucky that he had his antenna precisely in my direction, and that his receiver is top notch (EME system?)
On 10m S01WS was worked.

All through this, I am surprised of the results using an omni-directional (Big Wheel) antenna on 2m, a long, lossy cable, and ... no preamplifier. There is plenty of room for improvement.

This is not a bad start of 2020.

2020 Has Started, And A Brief Look Back On 2019.

For me, 2020 started in the sign of the cough. It stared e few days before the New Year, and is still there, though it seems to be subsiding now.

2019 was a year of travel, and not too much radio activities.
The QO100 geostationary satellite was activated, and the amateur radio transponder went on line in February. I got a decent system up and running for receiving the narrow band transponder down link. This is actually not too complex, as a TV satellite LNB is sufficient for converting the 10GHz down link signal from the satellite. A bit of modification, and adding an external reference oscillator placed indoors proved necessary, was constructed and has been in use since then. An improved version is in the making.
Next step is - still - getting to transmit on the 2400MHz up link for the satellite.
Also on 10GHz, a simple experiment has been running: Using a LNB for reception of terrestrial signals, via rain scatter and tropospheric propagation. I am still impressed that I receive a beacon about 36km from here, certainly non-line-of-sight. It is there all the time, received with the LNB alone, no extra gain from a dish.
Also, a fair amount of sporadic E openings over the summer on 6m and 4m, with a few new countries worked on each band, and getting a fair amount of components for projects (mostly via eBay).
Not too many projects finished, and many more ideas appeared. It is a fact of life that getting ideas is easy, putting them into practise takes much more time.

2020 should probably see me finishing just a few projects, like:
- QO100 uplink capability
- receive antenna system for monitoring several frequencies simultaneously
- some QRSS activity, mostly grabbing (receiving) QRSS signals  and other weak signal modes

The beginning of 2020 (and the end of 2019) has seen some spectacular tropospheric propagation over the Atlantic.
On 2m the European distance record was broken for tropo signals, with a spectacular QSO between Cape Verde and Northern Scotland.
On 70cm the world record was broken with a QSO from Cape Verde to Scotland.
All this has been made possible by using weak signal modes, like FT8. I would not be surprised if those records will be broken again later this year. Exciting times on VHF and UHF, and possibly the microwave bands.

Happy New Year to all from here. Hope to work some of you guys.

Local Beacon Monitoring on 10GHz.

I recalled that I had a "free" cable to add another LNB.

I found one of the inexpensive ones I had, a single IF output version, unmodified as yet.
I mounted it with duct tape, just below my 6/2m/70cm vertical, about 6m above ground, and just the feed horn pointed in the direction of the local beacon I have heard earlier. Yes just testing without any substantial gain.
Of course, it drifts with temperature, but I found the OZ9GHZ beacon easily, at a distance of 36km (just around 23 miles), and without line-of-sight, but the landscape has a downward slope from my antenna, down to a part of the path (about 20km) over water.
I am aware that there may be some tropo involved, but I can, at least test that now. The signal strength varies from S3 to S7, as estimated by ear.

Now I just have to wait and see if I can hear it at all times, and see if other beacons in a similar direction will pop up at some time.

Tropo and a Bit of PA Trouble

Last Friday there was a bit of tropo propagation on 2m. With FT8 I worked stations at up to about 800km distance.

Further, there is a report of someone not too far from me in Denmark (I did not get the call) heard the 10GHz beacon from the Faroe Islands (OY6BEC), at about 1200km. This is, as far as I know the first time this has happened. The beacon uses a horn antenna directed to Denmark, but this was still a surprise.

One of the fans in my Gemini PA seems to have developed a fault, making a rattling sound. It sounds as if a piece of wire, or a cable strip is too close to the fan. Time to contact the dealer, to see if he has problems with me looking into it. It is still under warranty.

Oh, yes - the ups and downs of amateur radio.