HF again seemed poor! Some 2m tropo across the Irish Sea with some big signals fairly locally.
Pleased to work 3B9G from Rodrigues on 15m CW this afternoon. It's always nice to work 3B9 and brings back happy memories, well over 20 years ago of operating from 3B9C. Of course, that was the follow up to the D68C trip. I still need D6 from GW!
Had a near miss on 2m FT8 with M7EMH in Gloucestershire - via aircraft I imagine. Reminded me of Ernie G0EMH who used to be very active in the mid 1980s on 2m SSB from the west of Gloucestershire. I seem to remember putting an aerial up on a Scots expedition in perhaps 1986 and Ernie was the first station we heard up there.
Pretty busy day, so didn't get much radio time until the sked with Roger GW5NF in the late afternoon. Good signals although the bands have been noisy today which of course was worse on phone than on CW.
The 19z CWT was better on 15m than I'd expected, given conditions through the day. Managed to work a few west coast North Americans including Jim K6AR on 15m and a couple of the other usual suspects. At the start, good signals from AA3B, N3RD and VE3EJ in quick QSOs before the contest started. 20m seemed poorer into North America than last week.
Justin G4TSH messaged to remind me of the 80m SSB session going on this evening, so popped on there once I'd had enough of the CWT and worked a handful of stations including Justin, Keith GW0ARK ,Roger G4BVY and Andy G4PIQ.
Some nice feedback from the talk last night. One of the guys had already got his Quansheng going on 2m FT8 and had a QSO with it. Fantastic!
Not a lot of time to look around the bands so far - Welsh lesson today and I've a VHF talk to give to the Yorkshire Mesh Radio Club tonight. I'm looking forward to that but haven't had a lot of time to prepare for it! So, there's been hasty updating of slides today when I've not been in Welsh.
It was an enjoyable talk with the Yorkshire Mesh group - at least it was enjoyable for me. A nice group who seemed genuinely interested.
Not much doing on 10m today though I did manage to work XQ6CF.
Bands noisy here today. I changed from the DX Commander to the home-brew vertical in case it was something loose on the DX Commander. I didn't really think it was and it's not. It's fairly windy, so I guess it's a power line/tree thing or similar.
Really pleased to work VP9KF on 20m CW this evening. He's Paul G4BKI, old friend from the GW8GT days and we haven't worked in years and years - probably well over 20 years.
The lack of 10m FT8 spots made me question whether the SDR/loop was working ok. It's perhaps worth explaining how this works. It's an indoor active loop given to me by John G8CQX. This goes into a SDRPlay RSP2Pro receiver running on an old laptop which, amongst other things, runs SparkSDR. SparkSDR is the nicest SDR program I know for decoding FT8 and FT4. It calls an instance of WSJT-X, so it decodes everything that WSJT-X would.
Anyhow, a quick test of the loop on 20m showed signals coming through and when I powered off the loop, the signals disappeared. So it's propagation rather than a problem - which I thought it probably was, but for so long, I have seen signals coming through on 10m FT8 regularly, it was unusual to see so little.
I shouldn't have worried. Around lunchtime, 10m FT8 seemed to liven up again, with signals from Africa and South America. I couldn't say the bands were brilliant, but nice to work TZ4AM on 17m CW and RI0SP up in the Arctic (now in HR27) on 20m CW.
MM contest still going on this morning. I'd put the DX Commander back up this morning as the wind had really dropped over night. Tuned around 20m working a few stations that 'caught my ear'. Best DX was VK1A who sounded fluttery - not surrprising looking at the A and K this morning.
A new PSK Reporter alert on DXChrono means I can readily see stations I'm hearing on any band, but I've set it up to monitor for 10, 6 and 2m. That's already helped provide a contact with Keith G8IXN on 6m and David MW0UAA in Brecon on 2m. The path to David is always full of aircraft reflections.
15m had pretty much had it by the time I got to the shack in the evening - but 20m was still ok to South America and a few North Americans coming through.
The 10m FT8 SDR has been very quiet for the last few days with only a handful of spots. Pretty sure it's still working ok!
Conditions seeming very poor on HF again today. The K up at 5 won't help.
Made a handful of QSOs in the CQMM contest around lunchtime; EK/DL2JRM was about the only signal I could hear (barely) on 15m at one point.
The latest in the '145 Alive' series took place around lunchtime. I worked MW7ABS/P on Foel Cwmcerwyn not far away. Could hear a couple of stations further north in Wales - around Pwllheli but didn't get involved in calling. I did later work a club station in Holyhead, mostly by aircraft scatter as I could hear the flutter.
Every now and again, the dash paddle won't send on the FTDX-10. Until this morning, I assumed it was something to do with the paddle - a bit of dirt got in the contacts or something. It happened mid QSO this morning leaving me sounding like I couldn't send! Played around a bit and couldn't see any dirt in the contacts. But it was odd, it felt like I was getting a bit of a dash and then it was stopping. Decided to switch off the radio and switch it on and - sure enough, back to normal. So it seems like a software glitch. I can see some reference to similar issues on the web.
There's a similar issue on the receiver of the FTDX-10. Once in a while, signals on the receiver suddenly sound all raspy. When it first happened, I thought oh no, what's happened. Turned the radio off and back on again and it was fine. Subsequently, I've found that all you have to do is to go to transmit and back again and signals will sound normal again.
I'm still very fond of the FTDX-10 - these issues only happen once every few weeks and as soon as you recognise them, it's easy to deal with.
Conditions didn't seem great today. Really enjoyed a 17m CW QSO with Cap W0CCA in southwestern Colorado. It seems we share an interest in the old Kenwood hybrids such as the TS-530 and TS-830. Cap's also interested in SOTA operating and I have worked him on a couple of European trips that he's made.
Just after 2000z I could hear Steve N6TT on 17m CW talking to one of his locals on the west coast. Tried a call after they signed, but no luck, but I did have a nice chat with Bruce N6NT instead - Bruce being in North Carolina.
Nice to see swallows in the yard for the first time this year. We first saw one about a mile away a week ago.
Pleased to find V85NPV on 17m CW this afternoon with a good signal. I've heard him on a few bands recently, but not made any headway in working him! It wasn't the easiest QSO this afternoon, but Didier pulled me out ok and that's a nice new country. I haven't worked Brunei often. I remember working it years ago as G4VXE when Nigel G3TXF went there and I'm sure a QSO or two with others, but that's about it. A few minutes later, an email QSL appeared! I don't really need any confirmation although LOTW is always nice - but in this case, it's quite fun!
My QRZ page says that I don't really do QSL cards which I don't. I get the odd card which I'm happy to reply to with a local postcard or something. One arrived today from F8IJV for a QSO on 10m FM about 3 years ago! Lovely note inside saying I was his only GW, so will sort that out in due course.
Arrived on 17m CW just in time to sneak a QSO with Pete V47EM as he was saying 'QSY to SSB'....noooo!
Conditions must have been a little better this morning as when I called Graeme VK5GG on 20m CW he could hear me. Not well, but well enough to swap reports and say a quick hello. Tuned down the band a bit and could hear ZL1HJ again, in conversation with a French station. ZL1HJ, interestingly, seemed a little weaker than yesterday, I heard him say he was beaming over the North Pole.
Had a bit of a play in the 13z CWT. It was fairly poor towards the east coast of North America and I stayed on 20m - 15m was devoid of any activity as far as I could tell. It was nice to work Jim K6AR, who I'm guessing was coming through long path. Also interesting to work Alex RU0LL who's over on the Pacific Coast of Russia.
A short sked with Roger GW5NF today. Initially he was struggling to hear me, but I think that was down to static crashes and noise at his end. There was a thunderstorm over Devon and heading towards south eastern Wales at the time. We chatted for a few minutes until the flashes got brighter at Roger's end....
Saw that Darrel AA7FV had been on 17m in the late afternoon here and tried a CQ call where he'd been and was delighted to hook up with him. It was our first QSO since he'd joined FOC, but it was just nice to catch up and swap news. It's been a while since I heard him with decent signals with the conditions as they've been.
The 19z CWT was a bit of a surprise! Conditions on 15m were considerably better than I was expecting! The band was decent into Arizona and California and HD8R from Galapagos was totally unexpected.
I must have been catching the band just right in the morning to hear the ZLs. This morning, just before we had to head out for our Welsh lesson, I heard ZL1HJ. I did try to give him a quick call around 0825z but perhaps fortunately, because we needed to go out, he didn't hear me.
By the afternoon, conditions certainly didn't seem that great, but as ever, it was nice to work Joe AI0Y from North Dakota on 17m. Things are bad if Joe's on 17! I often work him on 10 or 15m. V47EM was coming through on 15m, but decidedly weaker than yesterday.
Pleased to work 3X3A on both 20m and 17m FT8 around 1930z. PSK Reporter showed me reaching KL7 and west coast USA on 17m when calling 3X3A, so decent propagation at that time.
