Josemi, EA2TZ, informed me about the new setup of his beacon EA2TZ/B on 1,296.855 MHz.
The antenna is a stacked 2 x big wheel now, omnidirectional and the power is 10 W. The location is in about 630 m asl in IN93BF88CP, east of Bilbao.
Reports are welcome!
Last night, when I was going to switch off all the stuff in my shack, I saw an email from Malte, DE7LMS. I opened it and found a link to a video he recorded of my recent presentation in Weinheim.
My presentation “Let´s Bounce” will be given on two more dates:
Short version of the lecture with focus on aircraft scatter and ISS bounce.
We meet at 15:00 MEST on the car park at the town hall. There will be a flee market for GHz stuff and the opportunity to test own equipment or to have QSOs with other participants.
Gaststätte “Ratsschänke”
Oppenröder Strasse 1, 35463 Fernwald-Steinbach
Locator: JO40JN33VG
Full Version with overview of propagation modes, aircraft scatter, ISS bounce and visual moonbounce.
Deutscher Amateur Radio Club e.V.
Ortsverband Miltenberg, B24
Gasthaus “Goldenes Faß”
Kirchstraße 13, 63920 Großheubach
Locator: JN49OR64JJ
If you like to attend or need further information, just send an email to dj5ar (at) darc.de
After my complainments about using the ON4KST chat in March Contest and the response I received from Claus, OZ1FDH, and Kjeld, OZ1FF, recommending the KST2ME tool, I added my homebrew prototype of a selective ON4KST client extension to my station control software. It communicates via telnet with the server. While working satisfactorily under normal circumstances, it was a desaster under contest load. When the software didn´t crash, it at least slowed down, by computing hundreds of posts in shortest time. Between 300 and 400 users have been logged to the microwave chat during contest time. During the first contest hours I tried to solve the problems with certain bug fixes, resulting in a huge loss of contest time. So I had to return to the classic style in using the web client of the chat.
QSOs on 23 cm
In total I logged 73 QSOs on 23 cm to 12 DXCC countries, spread over 39 grid squares (results). ODX was HG7F over 817 km. The use of the AirScout software, written by Frank, DL2ALF, has been essential. Most of the QSOs have been completed by assistance of aircraft scatter.
A nice example is the one with DJ5BV in JO30KI. The distance isn´t really far enough to do it via aircraft sctatter, but it seems, both antennas were pointing west and that resulted in effects of aircraft backscatter with significant dopplershifted reflections.
Dopplershifted reflections of Gerd, DJ5BV, caused by backscatter of aircrafts.
Short talk about reception of space probe ISEE-3, moon bounce and radio astronomy with radio editor Udo Langenohl, DK5YA, on german radio station HR1 in a Sunday morning program “Lust am Hören” (fancy listening).
Jürgen, DK2AN phoned me tonight, to tell me, the new beacon DB0XY will be transmitting on 1296.910 MHz. It is located on the Bocksberg in the Harz mountains in JO51EU, about 750 m asl. The power is 10 W into a 4 times double quad, omnidirectional. The keying is in A1: callsign, locator, carrier, dashes, carrier….
In a first quick try it could be received here with 519 to 539 via tropo. When Planes crossed the path, the signal increased up to 559.
Another beacon will be installed on 13 cm soon. The intention is to provide beacons for monitoring via aircraft scatter.
Please spot any reception in the DX cluster.
After giving the presentation in english language in Clonbur, Ireland on August 25th, there will be two more dates in Germany:
September 13th, 2014 at the VHF/UHF/SHF Convention in Weinheim as a short version.
September 27th, 2014 at the “Distriktsservicetag” of DARC districts K (Rhineland-Palatine) and Q (Saarland) in Saarbrücken.
I will talk about how to surmount the horizon on VHF and up.
After giving an overview over the classic propagation modes Es, Aurora, MS and Tropo, I will explain, how aircraft scatter and ISS bounce work. EME will be subjected too and the presentation will be completed by an introduction to “Visual Moonbounce” as performed by Daniela de Paulis.
For the short version in Weinheim the overview over the classic propagation modes will be left out.
August 17th, 2014
Despite a lot of work in the garden and at the house I found some time to setup my old 16 element F9FT yagi. In the night from August 12th to August 13th and in the morning I logged at least 16 QSOs.
The list of sked requests became longer and longer during the night. Although I did my best to work all interested stations, it wasn´t possible to make QSOs with all of them. Sorry! The conditions weren´t too good, but improved a little during the morning of 13th.
I worked: 8 x DL, 2 x I, 1 x LA, 2 x OK, 1 x PA, 2 x S5 in 15 different squares. ODX was S51AT in JN61GW over 2,075 km.
I am located at the southern shore of Lough Mask with the mountains of Connemara to the south and the west (IO53HN).
EI8HH in IO53hn
My best take off is to GM and LA.
Please QSL via DJ5AR.
At present the HAM TV transmitter aboard the International Space Station performs blank transmissons until August 6th, 2014. No camera is attatched, so only signal levels can me measured.
This was an opportunity for me to check out the FSTV-equipment, I set up during the last months. So my very first attempt last night was successful. I used the pass at 23:50 UTC on July 30th, 2014.
I am looking forward to see some pictures in near future.
For quite a while now I try to catch a signal of ISEE-3. Because of severe thunderstorms, there was no opportunity to check out yesterday. But today (July 30th, 2014) is the day to listen to this 36 year old bird.
The signal of the beacon on 2,270.414 MHz isn´t too strong, but clearly audible in the speaker. The actual distance is about 1.6 million km, the furthermost man made signal I ever received!
The downlink transponder A on 2.270.4 MHz uses an antenna array with a gain of 7 dBi, a beamwidth of 12° and circular polarisation. The nominal TX power is 5 W.
The equipment I am using, is just a FUNcube Dongle Pro with a 13 cm ATV converter (LO 916 MHz, IF 1,354 MHz) and a 13 cm LNA near the 23/13 cm dual band ringfeed at my 3 m dish.
Frequency calibration is performed on ordinary 13 cm beacons like DB0UX. The dish calibration is done by optimizing sun noise on 23 cm or the levels of SIRIUS satellites on 13 cm.
The rhythmical fading of the signal seems to be caused by the space probe´s spin of 19.76 revolutions per minute.