Disappointment, again.

I swept the bands a few times yesterday and I could not locate any more museum ships that were on the air. In retrospect, what I should have done, and will do next year is to place a bunch of appropriate call signs in Ham Alert. I had NJ2BB in there, but band conditions were never good enough for propagation between South Plainfield and Camden. The distance between us is only 78 miles. I tried listening for them when they were spotted on 40 Meters, but even then, there was no groundwave propagation. 80 Meters would have been my best bet, but I doubt they have access to space for an 80 Meter antenna. I also kept looking at DX Summit and some of the other clusters, but I never saw anything in comments to indicate whether or not the spotted station was a museum ship or not.

The other disappointment for the weekend was the 4 States Second Sunday Sprint. I worked exactly one station and that was Mark WB9HFK, who had a terrific signal into NJ.  I also heard Chas W2SH on 20 Meters, but he was very weak. I tried calling him several times with no luck.

I called "CQ 4S QRP" a lot, with no success on both 20 and 40 Meters. On 40 Meters, I tried the 7.030, 7.040 and 7.120 MHz neighborhoods. Nada, zip zilch. In situations, like these, as unlikely as it would have been, I tend to thing maybe there's something wrong with my antennas. Afterwards, I plugged my call sign into the Reverse Beacon Network to see if I was being heard. This is what came up:

And for the most part, I was getting double digit dB numbers above the signal to noise ratio level, so I was not only being heard by the skimmers, but would have been audible to the human ear, as well. Even some of the skimmers in Europe were hearing me in double digit dB figures. That made sense to be as I had had that QSO with England just the day before on 17 Meters at only 5 Watts.

The timing for the Second Sunday Sprint is not ideal as that's the same time the weekly K1USN Slow Speed Sprint also occurs.  All you hear on 40 Meters is wall-to-wall "CQ SST". I may try another time or two before I decide whether or not it's worth attempting to participate at all.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

What a difference

a week makes!

I'm talking of propagation and the 40 Meter Fox Hunt which occurred last night. I was tired after a long day at work, and I wasn't going to ...........but then my Polish stubbornness licked and I headed downstairs at about 8:45 PM.

I turned on HamClock (I don't like to leave computers plugged in and running while I'm not home)  and I saw that Dave AB9CA was spotted in the POTA box, so I tuned to the frequency and was able to hear him at about 449-559. He was in Oklahoma and after a few tries I was able to grant him a QSO towards his activation.

Was that a portent of things to come?  Sort of.

When the clock struck 0200 UTC, I was able to find Jim N0UR rather easily. I didn't even have to look for his pack of baying Hounds, He was in the clear and the Minnesota to New Jersey pipeline was in full function and I worked him at 0206 UTC. I went back and worked him a second time closer to 0300 UTC because for some reason, I wasn't showing up on the live QSO map that some of the Foxes use. A look at his log this morning confirmed the 0206 UTC QSO and he deleted the dupe. Sorry for that, Jim!

Randy NC4RT was a whole different story. I worked him last week when I was the Fox and he was the Hound, so I expected that would hold true last night. You know what they say about making assumptions.

I found the chasing Hounds easily enough at about 7.0325 MHz and tuned down 1 kHz, where I expected Randy to be. Nothing. I think I may have heard a whisper of him once, but that was probably just my mind playing tricks on me. What didn't help at all was a slow speed QRO rag chew taking place right on the frequency! I thought I might stand a chance when the rag chew was over, but the one station started calling CQ again, so I just gave up a little bit after 0300 UTC. I was beat and tired and I didn't think propagation was going to improve enough in the last 25 minutes to make it worth my while. BUT, before I left the shack, I did fire up RBN to see where Randy had planted himself and I was right! He was being spotted at 7.0315 MHz, just where I thought he'd be. I just couldn't hear him at all .......... and just last week he had a decent signal into NJ on 40 Meters. Go figure.

I've said this so many times that it shouldn't surprise me.  When you think you have this whole propagation thing figured out? Think again!

On another subject - I removed the little globe -visitor map widget from the right side of the page. They hadn't renewed their security certificate and Google Chrome (which I use) won't display it, so rather than leave a hole, I deleted it. When I get some time, I'll look for an alternative.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Maps a lot

No. Not the Monty Python musical Spamalot - this is Maps a Lot. A comparison of RBN Maps vs. QSO maps from my POTA Activations last week. Just to see if and how they differ.

First - Keewaydin State Park, US-2088:

The Reverse Beacon Network Map

Actual QSO Map including the Alaska QSO

Closer look at just the Continental US QSOs

And now Kring Point State Park, US-2091:

The Reverse Beacon Network Map

The QSO Map

The QSO maps (courtesy of Log Analyzer 3.2 by DL4MFM) pretty much gibe with the skimmer maps, just as you'd expect. There are some discrepancies, though. From Keewaydin, I made it to Alaska, a bit farther than the skimmer in the Canadian North West that picked me up. Also, the RBN map didn't show me as getting out to the South West, but I did have a QSO with Oklahoma.

The RBN Map for Kring Point had no skimmers in the Western US pick me up, but yet I had a QSO with California. And I had a QSO with Arkansas, where the RBN map showed no skimmers picking me up. But even with the discrepancies, the Reverse Beacon Network is a great tool which allows you to get an idea of how your RF is getting out.

 

Just for reference, I was located in NY State right at the border with Canada, pretty much opposite of Ottawa. The RBN Maps are showing my signals as originating from my home QTH in New Jersey, so there's a bit of inaccuracy there.  The QSO maps show the origination point accurately. I think RBM goes by your call sign info, not where you're actually located at the time.0

Lesson learned from all this? You're definitely getting out and being heard to where the skimmers can capture you, and if your snr figures are in double digits- probably a lot farther.

A week later and I'm still astounded that the AX1 table top antenna completed QSOs with Alaska and California. As Craig WB3GCK says, "It defies logic."

Final thought - with all this geomagnetic activity happening right now, I'll bet the Northern Lights are quite pretty up in Alexandria Bay. Sigh. Seems I'm always a day late and a dollar short.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

More Experimentation

We made it up here! We arrived yesterday at Alexandria Bay, NY - the land (or water) of big ships and spectacular sunsets.

Those cargo ships travel up and down the St. Lawrence Seaway, carrying tonnage betwwen the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean. And as you can see, the sunsets are breathtaking.

This afternoon, while Marianne took a nap, I set up the QMX and the AlexLoop on our balcony, overlooking the river. 20 Meters was a snap. I was able to get a good enough match quite easily, which kept the QMX happy. I even figured out how to get my pre-programmed messages to transmit, and I called CQ several times, just to see where the Reverse Beacon Network would pick me up, I was happy wiiith the result:

The locations of the spotters was great and the s/n db ratios were pretty darn good too. I had double digit s/n figures for a lot of the spots, indicating that I would have been heard by Hams near those skimmers.

On the other hand, 40 and 30 Meters were disappointments. I could not tune either band in well enough to keep the QMX happy. The procedure is to tune the Alex Loop's capacitor for loudest band noise. Once you do that, you're normally close enough for a decent match, No go on both 40 and 30 Meters, No matter what I did, the QMX's SWR circuitry kicked in and the unit refused to generate RF.

Luckily, the QMX is happy with the AX1, as I have previously successfully tried. That and the Buddistick will have to be the mainplayers for 40 Meters if I get the chance to do some POTAing later this week. Of course, if I decide to stick to 20 Meters solely, the Alex Loop is a more than viable alternative.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

A Tale of Two Maps

I thought it would be interesting to compare a couple maps. First map is a repeat. It's the Reverse Beacon Network map from Sunday's FOBB outing.

Now this is where my signal was being picked up by skimmers. Basically, computers that can detect signals, even those beneath the noise floor, that other ops might not be able to hear.

This is a map of my QSOs made with K2DSL's QSO Mapper:

A wee bit different, wouldn't you say?  I did not work any stations as far as Arizona or Western Canada. But I did work a few stations where the skimmers did not pick me up.

Moral of the story - RBN is a good guide, but it's not gospel. Just because you're being picked up by a skimmer doesn't necessarily mean that a pair of human ears at the same location would be able to pick you out of the noise. As they say on TV, "It's for entertainment purposes only."

Rule of thumb that I picked up from Joe N2CX. If you're going to go by what you see on RBN, pay attention to the s/nr levels. If it's double digit dB numbers, a good receiver and a good set of ears should be able to pick you out of the mud.

That all being said - that's for QSOs between humans. If you're working the digital modes, or just testing out a new antenna to see how it gets out, you'd have to interpret the RBN results a little differently. In those cases, what you see is probably what you're going to get, especially with FT8 and the like.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Skunk for lunch

I headed outside again today with the QRP gear, to try some stuff.

1) I wanted to try a different method for tuning the magloop capacitor
2) I wanted to try a little more Reverse Beacon spotting.

Although I made no contacts, I did have success (more than I thought) with the new method of tuning the magloop. Instead of listening for the loudest receive noise with my ears, I keep my eye on the KX3's S-Meter and watch for the most bars.  Once I get there, I tweak very slowly for the loudest receive noise and then use the KX3's SWR Meters for the lowest SWR.  I was surprised how much better and quicker this worked.  It was markedly faster than my older method of just listening. I guess in my old age, the KX3's S-Meter reacts more quickly than my ears do.

The second "experiment" involved sending out CQs with the primary purpose of wondering how RBN would pick me up.  I certainly would have answered any calls, as that would have been icing on the cake, but even though I got no takers, I fulfilled my primary objective.

17 and 20 Meters got me the most distance - no surprise there. 40 Meters got me the most hits.

While it would have been more fun to have actually had a QSO, it wasn't a totally wasted effort. Tomorrow, I'll spend more time actually trying to nail down a QSO.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!