True HAM spirit

The link below points to the blog of Josep EA3AKY.

http://ea3aky.blogspot.com/2014/04/visit-to-c37ac.html

I believe Josep was approached by some locals to see what he could do to get C3 - Andorra active on 6m. Andorra is very rare and has not been heard or worked during this solar cycle.

The blog explains clearly why 6m activity from this tiny country is somewhat of a problem.

During this activation I spent the entire time from 0700Z to 1900Z listening out for them. During the late afternoon the South African operators were rather desperate. It seemed as if the band was not going to cooperate, then without any warning there was a brief opening and three of the northern stations managed to work C37AC. The best I got was a feint trace from them on Spectran and that was it.

Unfortunately, I did not have a QSO with them, but sincerely appreciate the time and effort Josep and his father made. This clearly shows that there are still a few very adventurous and unselfish radio amateurs around.

Thank you Josep

Andorra C3

Mapungubwe trip feedback

Monday 24 March

We arrived at Leokwe camp at around midday 1000z.

I Immediately set to work erecting the mast and assembling the 6M3SS  M2 antenna.

The antenna was installed and equipment all connected by 1200z. But there was this uncanny silence. The noise level almost nil. On CW the S meter only intermittently illuminated the S1 LED on the K3 and this was with the preamp switched on. On SSB there was about 2 LEDs illuminated. I was worried, was the antenna working? The SWR was nice and low, all seemed to be OK.

The 6m band was dead quite, not a hint of any activity. Then some two and half hours later the band opened up, much to my relief.

First station heard and worked was ER1SS 1443z
During the course of the afternoon and evening I made some 60 QSOs.
I don't think there were any new countries worked.
I was rather tired and called it a day fairly early. This might have been a mistake I subsequently see that a EA9 was worked by my friends down south. Oh well, maybe I will get lucky and work him before I leave.

Tuesday 25 March

The band opened up at 1215z and I worked some 20 stations. The band reopened again at 1620z and lasted until 1748z, but did not yield much surprises and signals were generally weak.

At 1817z the band opened up this time It behaved differently. I worked many stations from EA8 Canary Islands and worked a new station in TR8 Gabon and worked TJ3SN in Cameroon. During this time I worked Ian ZS6BTE and Braam ZS6AYE via back scatter. This most certainly was not a common occurrence.

Total QSOs from Mapungubwe National Park now stands at 163.

I hope I am able to include the image of what my antenna sees. I tried to show the constraints of my location.

Pointing due north is OK. In fact if one looks carefully you will see the confluence of the Limpopo river and the Shashe river. This is where The borders of South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe meet.

If I beam 15 degrees either to the west or the east I have a problem with close in rocky outcrops some 50m higher than my antenna.

Some have asked if I will be operating from A2 Botswana. Unfortunately not. The actual border might be some 3 km away, but the border post is not that close. Then there is the issues with licensing, border formalities, safe venue etc.....

 Maybe in the future I will consider planning a excursion to this 6m RF devoid country.

Such expeditions require substantial time, effort and expense. All this, only to rewarded with facing a rude, undisciplined and unruly  pile up?

Wednesday 26 March

Started monitoring the 6 m band at around 1000z and called it quits at 1900z.
First signals heard was from IT9 and 4X at 1650z followed by a short run up to 1739z
Only the usual Mediterranean countries were worked. A total of 25 QSOs of which two were QRP and there was one mobile station.

I worked several EA stations, but still no illusive EA9 :-(

Thursday 27 March

Wow !! What a afternoon.

The band opened up early and was open for a very long time, some 210 QSOs were made. Most, predictably most were from the Mediterranean area with a few countries slightly more north: Germany, Switzerland and Belgium.

I worked several QRP stations and including one station that was using a simple dipole antenna. Just goes to show that it does not take much when the band is open.

At one stage there was a pipeline into Spain, with many stations giving me S9+40 reports, but still no EA9 in the log :-((

Managed to work: 9K, TK, HB9, OE, DL and ER

At times the action was fast and furious. For the most part running the pile was a exciting and rewarding experience, but sadly there were a few LIDs that made me very angry. Calling out of turn and ignoring the instructions given. I some times wonder why I subject myself to this. This poor behaviour is simply not acceptable.

I was very close to calling it quits and returning home on Friday i.e. Returning home one day early, due to the pesky LIDs, but this would have been a huge waste of money and effort. So I decided to stick with the plan. I will be QRV until Friday night as planned.

What is the best way to deal with these despicable operators?

Friday 28 March

This was my last day and the band opened up briefly on several occasions, but the openings were pretty poor for the most part.

At one stage there was a pipeline into Azores - CU this was most peculiar especially so early in the afternoon. Quite a few CU stations were worked.

The highlight of my day was when I was called by EB9SCW he was very weak and I sure hope I have his call correct.  Conditions at the time was very poor and moments later the band closed.

This single QSO will make my trip worthwhile if I have it correct, since it is a new DXCC entity for my 6m log.

Total of 455 - 6m QSOs were made from Mapungubwe national park.

All said and done this was a interesting few days and I am looking forward to comparing notes with the other 6m friends (down south) when I get home.

The venue is interesting, we came face to face with a Leopard yesterday during one of our game drives.  The chalets at Leokwe are comfortable, air-conditioned and well equiped.

Leokwe chalets

Shack visitor

Antenna view to the north (Europe)

Image showing the 144 grid squares worked

QSOs VS. Date and Time

Another great 6m opening….

Today we had another great surprize on the 6m band.

We had a short (30 minute) opening to China. Quite a few South African stations made several QSOs into China.

I managed to make only one QSO and that was with Li BA8AT on CW

So what is the big deal? 

It appears as if this is a first. According to the info at my disposal there has never been any prior QSOs between South Africa and China on 6m.

Now I understand why it is called the “magic band”

Mapungubwe - 6m expedition

I have made plans to operate 6m from a place as far north in South Africa as is practically possible.

The venue is Mapungubwe nature reserve. It also happens to be the spot where South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe borders meet.

Operation will commence on 24 March and will end 28 March 2014.

The grid locator: KG47qs

Main focus will be on TEP using CW and SSB; I will however try and assist with local MS skeds using FSK441 if there is a requirement.

I plan to run an attended beacon on 50.103 MHz calling with a very short ‘CQ’ followed by a 30 second pause. I will be within earshot, please call if heard.

As far as I know there is no internet access at this venue. I will endeavour to drive to a spot where I can access the cellular network once a day, to check my email to see if there are any special requests or messages. Email adress is OK on QRZ.com

My DXCC wish list for the trip: 

1A, 3V, 5A, 7X, C3, E4, EA9, ES, GD, GI, GM, GU, GW, HB0, HZ, LA, LY, OD, OH, SU, T6, T7, UA, UK, UN, YI, YK, YL

Another killer tool....

I have discovered another 6m DX killer tool embedded amongst all the other useful functions of Clublog.

https://secure.clublog.org/index.php

Select “Propagation” on the left menu.

Select the DXCC country e.g. Australia and click on “Run propagation report”.

The very first graph is for 6m. With this one can see at a glance if the country has been worked and how frequently and what the prime times are. One can also refine the search by selecting the month.

Using this one can clearly see based on the uploaded logs the best month by far to have a 6m QSO between South Africa and Australia is April and the optimum time is 0600Z and 0800Z.

Then as a reality check select Italy and run the test again.

The data is accurate, but to be really useful it needs the buy in from all the regular 6m users. I suspect that only a small percentage of the regular 6m DX’ers use Clublog.

This powerful tool can only deliver if we all upload our logs to Clublog.

6m activity derived from uploaded logs

Blast from the past: TEP Research ZE2JV

I found this gem of an article in the QST archive:

Transequatorial Propagation of VHF Signals

By RG Cracknell ZE2JV

December 1959

This article dates back to the peak of solar cycle 19; it was the best solar cycle in recorded history.

Considering that this was written in 1959 one can surely assume that 6m equipment was a rarity and not too many radio amateurs would have been equipped with 6m gear. The equipment that existed most likely was insensitive and noisy not nearly as capable as the equipment at our disposal today.

Amongst other things the article shows the TEP footprint as show below. Today we have hundreds of keen 6m enthusiasts and we have great tools at our disposal including electronic logs which can be “mined” to extract data such as grid locators information from, which in turn can be plotted on maps.

Unfortunately we still don’t have many 6m enthusiasts in South Africa, but I believe that we do have sufficient experience to believe that the foot print appears to be accurate.

I will re-read the article carefully to see if there are any anomalies. The one thing I did notice is that what has become known as afternoon -TEP (a-TEP) is not accounted for. The article refers to openings occurring after 16:30 UTC, we often have openings starting as early as 12:00 UTC.

The research done in 1959 is simply awesome; it is a pity that the research seems to have stagnated.

6m TEP Footprint EU - ZS