Tag Archives: VHF
ISS Bounce News from Poland
June 14th, 2015
Michal, SQ5KTM, has been successful in receiving reflections of the french GRAVES radar from the International Space Station.
The radar system is used for space surveillance tasks, located in JN27SI and operating on 143.050 MHz. Karl, DK5EC, has written a very informative article about monitoring GRAVES.
Presentation “Let´s Bounce” IIa
October 21st, 2014
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.
Presentation “Let´s Bounce” III
My presentation “Let´s Bounce” will be given on two more dates:
October 25th, 2014 on the 4th Hessian GHz Meeting in Fernwald
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
November 7th, 2014, 20:00 MET on the monthly meeting of DARC OV Miltenberg, B24
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
Presentation “Let´s Bounce” II
September 1st, 2014
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.
EI8HH – Active in the Perseids
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.
Presentation “Let´s Bounce”
June 22nd, 2014
On July 24th, 2014 on 19:00 CEST I will talk about how to surmount the horizon on VHF and up at the local DARC Club in Bodenheim near Mainz.
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.
Location:
Deutscher Amateur-Radio-Club e.V.
Ortsverband Bodenheim
Haus der Vereine
Laubenheimer Str. 22
55294 Bodenheim
The admission is free, but please register via email to
DK2FQ wolfgang.beer (at) gmx.net or to me dj5ar (at) darc.de
Article in “Funkamateur” magazine July 2014
June 22nd, 2014
German Funkamateur mgazine has published my article “Abenteuer Bakenbeobachtung von 144 MHz bis 10 GHz” in its recent issue July 2014. As many topics are related to posts on this website, some of them are compiled here. Links to certain other websites can be found in the link list to the right.
Weather, rainscatter:
Rainscatter on 23 and 13 cm Impressive ThunderstormWeather, troposheric ducting:
Another strange constellation (Update) Strange Conditions Opening September 21st 2013Aircraft scatter (video):
PI7ALK via Aircraft ScatterList of beacons, heard by DJ5AR in Mainz, JN49CV
My new beacon listMeteor Scatter: Back in Business!
May 8th, 2014
Since I will be back in Ireland in August, I plan to be QRV for the perseids on meteor scatter, activating my irish callsign EI8HH. The location is in Clonbur, Co.Galway, IO53HN. My equipment will be a FT-897 with 50 W into a 17 element yagi (F9FT) on 144 MHz.
My last MS QSOs dated back to 1989, when high speed CW was state of the art. To gather some experience with WSJT and FSK441, I watched the 144.370 MHz and worked YO9MN and GM6VXB randomly.
Another test with GM4ZJI couldn´t be completed, because we had to leave for QRL. But I got a nice burst from him at the end of our try:
065730 12.5 260 13 27 -158 FO5AR GM4ZJI 26 26 DJ5AR GM4ZJI 26 .9C$H
065730 12.8 840 10 26 -151 DJ5AR GM4ZJI 7 DJ5AR GM4ZJI 26 26 D
065730 13.8 120 2 26 -158 J AR GM4ZJI #6 / ,C
Later I worked Dermot, EI7IX, from Westport, very close to my irish QTH (a compilation of his bursts):
094000 17.7 340 13 27 -43 73 EI7IX 73 EI7IX 73 EI7IX 73 EI7IX 73
094100 11.9 520 6 26 -58 NX/73 EI7IX 73 EI7IX 73 EI7IX 73 EI7IX
094100 25.3 440 11 27 -41 YX 73 EI7IX 73 EI7IX 73 EI7IX 73 EI7IX 7
VHF-UHF-SHF Contest March 2014
March 3rd, 2014
Many thanks to all enthusiasts on 23 and 13 cm, who spent up to 20 minutes to complete a QSO with me. Tropo conditions were not too good this time and especially 2320 MHz it seemed to have an additional attenuation on all signals. But never the less, quite a lot of QSOs filled the log. More stations than I could handle, requested skeds via the ON4KST chat. I have to apologize for all my replies like “pse qrx, meep u when free”, I forgot about. So, all I can say is:
Please excuse me for forgetting to meep you!
Indeed, this chat is a great tool, I don´t want to miss it. But in times of contest it can be a challenge, like the contest itself. I will not apply for to do without, it is rather a question, how to use it. The amount of information, flowing over the screen, is immense. On saturday afternoon or on sunday morning, relevant entries might disappear within less than a minute. So I have to think about optimizing my software tools.
QSOs on 1296 MHz
Skilled VHF Operators may smile, when I tell them, 58 QSOs on 23 cm and 19 QSOs on 13 cm are hard work. The sum of that is the number they work within the first hour of their contest section. But in fact, the world above 1 GHz is a different one. The beams of the antennas are much narrower compared to VHF and UHF. The dense of stations is much less, since it is not like plug and play to become QRV up there. The attenuation increases GHz by GHz and all that results in real work for most of the QSOs. There are only a few big guns on 23 cm to be heard from any antenna direction. So the band seems to be empty, even at contest time. But the chat is an oppotunity for all kind of stations to arrange skeds and to have QSOs over distances of several hundred kilometers. And, especially when using aircraft scatter, patience could be needed to complete.
QSOs on 2320 MHz