Actually, I've not been feeling that great! I won't go into details, but had a rather painful occurrence involving a trip to A&E at the end of May and I've been recovering since. Hopefully making some progress now. So, I haven't been as active as normal.
But this morning there was an excellent 2m Es opening when I worked around 35 stations. I was very happy about that as I missed a good opening last night!
Later on in the day there was a brief opening into the Baltic area and I was delighted to work UA1ASA (KO48). 25 new squares on 2m in a day. That's not bad!
It's been a busy few days here! We were able to collect a swarm of bees from the garden of a lovely family close by. We've now settled the bees into the hive and all is well so far.
Had a bit of fun and games with the TS-590SG. When I went to transmit, the rig reset and rebooted, even at a 5W power level. I tried two power supplies and the same thing happened. I tested the power lead and it had a low DC resistance so I was getting ready to send the rig off for repair. Somehow, though, it felt like a power related issue. Rob MW0RLJ a mile away has a TS-590SG and I asked him if I could take my TS-590SG over there and see if it worked on his power lead. Of course, he said, but have you tried re-seating the fuse? I said I hadn't, but didn't think that was the issue as the DC resistance of the lead was so low. But nothing ventured, nothing gained, I took the fuse out and re-seated it. And, that was the problem - no more rebooting rig.
So, that's great. I'd missed the ability to monitor 2m and 6m simultaneously! Not much doing on 6m over the last few days, but this afternoon, I was pleased to work several VO and VE1 stations as well as HI3T.
Pete MM9SQL's Oscarwatch program continues to develop and it's been fun to make a few satellite QSOs again. No real DX worked, but it all seems to be working well. I've been on RS-44, JO-97 as well as the ISS so far, with CW and SSB on RS-44, CW on JO-97 and of course, FM on the ISS crossband repeater.
Not much in the way of Es today on 6m and certainly not on 2m. Just the occasional decode.
Pete MM9SQL has written some new satellite tracking software and he's kindly allowed me to test it. I've got it hooked up to the FT-847 and although I only have a poor antenna for satellites (ie the dual band vertical) I've had some fun today on RS-44 with a few QSOs. Pete's software sorts out doppler control, so for the first time in a very long time, I can actually tune around on the transponder and have a fairly reliable sense of where I need to transmit!
Missed both the CWTs today - the band was very noisy with static crashes this afternoon and then we went out to Abercastell in the evening.
First things first! I was completely wrong about the opening to JA on 6m. No sign of anything. Although, in my defence I did see mention of some people having heard XW on 6m this morning. Certainly not here! It was a good Es day though and had just under 50 QSOs. Nothing really unusual, but just a nice day of waiting for signals to build and calling them. Quite intense Es this morning on 6m and I'd guess that 4m opened up. I didn't see anything on 2m.
Why, oh why, do people use these filters like 'hide stations I've worked before' on VHF? This morning, there was a station calling CQ on 2m FT8. Tried calling him and I know he heard me because I could see it on PSK Reporter. He didn't reply to me. He'd even gone out portable and I didn't see him work a soul. Was it finger trouble having left the filter on? Or some other reason. On FT8, a QSO takes little over a minute to complete. Is your life so busy that you can't spare a minute to work a station you've worked before? Are you too important to be bothered by people calling you for repeat QSOs? Perhaps you are only interested in QSOs for an award and not VHF propagation and how it varies from day to day. Well, of course, we're all entitled to operate as we wish, but I. JUST. DON'T. SEE. THE. POINT. OF. THIS.
Sigh! Rant over :-)
The Es seemed to fade in the late afternoon.
With 6m quiet, when we got back from a nice evening at the harbour, I went on 15m and was pleased to find the band open quite nicely into the USA.
I'm typing this up at the end of the day as it's been a busy one. Two cruise ships in today, so we were at the port for most of the afternoon.
6m seems to have been open all day! It was open when I got to the shack and it's still going at 23:!5 as I write this.
I saw EA5MY on 2m Es as well, around 1815-1830 UTC. Not too strong here most of the time and I couldn't get him to hear me. Having said that, I just checked PSK Reporter and EA5QA heard me at -6, so that's great.
Spoke to Allan GM4ZUK this afternoon who said that HF had been good this afternoon with west coast US on 15m. I listened to 3G0Z (Robinson Crusoe Island - is that really a name for an island...) on 10m this afternoon while looking at VHF. Will have to try and work it over the next few days.
Just as I was about to switch off, I noticed a couple of SM2s on 6m FT8. Now that's interesting. Sometimes that path late at night suggests that it will extend to JA in the morning. Probably not for me - but maybe for others. Let's see!
I read that last night, 6m was open to South America. I had the vertical on at the time and didn't see anything, so presumably it wasn't that strong here. People worked CE, PY, LU etc - the. usual suspects!
6m was open with Es quite early this morning into OK and it's been open most of the morning on and off.
Pleased to work G4LBJ (JO02) on 2m FT8 around lunchtime. I see Len quite often. He's a fair distance from here and like me just using a vertical. I should call him more often and see how easily we are able to complete.
Six metres got quite busy in the afternoon. Saw a comment from John G4BAO in the VHF chat about 70MHz being open. I tried a couple of aerials - the V2000, the 40/80m dipoles and the HF vertical. The HF vertical had the best match - I got a few weak decodes from OZ, SP and EA. Tried a CQ or two and was heard weakly in EA7. I'll come back to 4m over the Es season and see if anything is possible with a simple setup.
It's now 1030 local time at night and 6m is still open to the south. Incidentally, this afternoon, I saw a decode from 'XX9ET' - I assume it was someone in EU fooling around, but I guess we'll see. This evening very pleased to have a QSO with Colin G0XCF who 'came' to the Zoom talk for Appledore the other evening.
At 1009z I had a weak decode of IK3VZO (JN55) on 2m. I'd have normally put it down to meteors, which it might be, but at that same time, G3YDY in JO01 reported 2m Es to Italy.
A few OK, DL, SP stations around on 6m with the odd extended decode from 4X.
Seems like 6m was open pretty much all day, around Europe. I didn't see anything from noticeably further off, although I left the rig on the vertical.
Around 1530z I got into the shack from the garden and noticed that there had been some 2m Es to Portugal. Not a major opening, but a couple of stations from IM58/IM59.
Well, the K's 2, so let's plump for there being a bit of Es today.
Woke up to mist and the first thing I heard on the Marine receiver this morning was Falmouth Coastguard. When I got to the shack, I tried a few CQs on 2m FT8 and it was nice to be heard by GM0HBK up in IO77, so the tropo is obviously good up and down the Irish Sea this morning.
I have the Moonraker Luna 2m/70cm FM 'mobile' here for a RadCom review. Connected it up for the first time this afternoon and the first QSO was with Des EI5CD near Cork on 2m FM. It seemed to work fine, I'll obviously play with a little more. It's got two receivers and puts me in mind of an FT-8800 or similar.
Oh - and so far, no Es! So much for the earlier prediction!
Seeing the K had dropped to 2 first thing (it's 1 now), I wondered if we'd see some Es. Certainly this morning saw some quite intense Es on 6m including some quite short distances, so presumably the MUF went quite high as I was seeing stations as close as IN97 at one point. Mostly Spanish and a few French stations on 6m with CN8NS who's becoming quite a regular.
13z CWT was pretty poor to North America - couldn't work John VE3EJ! I listened for Jim K6AR, but he was obscured by loud EU signals, as was VK6T. Nice to say hello and congratulations to Doug KR2Q who was inducted into the CQ Contest Hall of Fame at Dayton last weekend.
Late afternoon I could see one or two stations working California on 6m. Nothing here. Others were working Iceland, but the TFs weren't heard here which was interesting.
19z was average to the west coast on 15m - nice to catch Jim K6AR and a couple of others. Harder going to the east coast, although VE3EJ was easy to work but AA3B and K3WW weren't huge signals. 20m was noisy and North Americans fairly weak.
Didn't make it to the shack until after Welsh class.
Doesn't look like 6m has done much today (which with the K at 4, would tie in with expectations). I can see there have been one or two decodes of French stations and similar through the day, but nothing sustained.
Heard HC8M on 15m mid afternoon but couldn't attract his attention - he didn't seem to be working many. I did work 3B9G on 17m though, which was a nice surprise.
