Plenty of Signals on 40, 20 and 15 m, But None on 10 m!

 Today evening by about 5.30 pm local time, I could see several signals on the waterfall on 40m, which was quite unusual. In the morning hours 40m band is busy with several local nets and ragchews. But we have only one net in the evening, the Silicon City Net, that too will be over before 5.30 pm. Hardly one or two signals may be seen on the waterfall by that time on 40m. Today most of the stations on 40m were DX, possibly from Indonesia. There should have been some contest out there. I could hear several YL operators as well. 



Checked 20m, which is usually active at that time with several long distance VU stations. It was the same today also, with dense signals on the waterfall on 20m, some even 5,9+20 dB.

Moved on to 15m, which also showed a few signals on the waterfall. Seemed like Indonesian stations operating contests. There were YL operators there as well. With all the lower bands wide open, I was hopeful that 10m also will be open and give me a few DX contacts. But contrary to my expectation, 10m was noisy and there were no stations heard at all!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Six Button Wireless Mouse vs Three Button Mouse

Image
 When I started using computers long back, mouse had only two buttons, a left and a right button. Then came three button mouse with an extra scroll button. I have read that there was also a single button mouse, but I have not seen one. Now here is a six button mouse, that too a wireless mouse with a USB-A Nano Dongle and 2.4 Ghz wireless connection. In the earlier era, mouse had a rolling ball which would gather dirt and sometimes stop functioning well. Now we have optimal mouse which uses a red light source and an optical sensor instead of the rolling ball. The wireless mouse works on a single 1.5 V, AA battery with a projected battery life of one year!
Read more

Debut Ham Radio Technical Discussion Net on 7065 kHz, 1:45 am UTC (7.15 am IST)

Image
Started by calling CQ on 7065 kHz using my automated CQ call which I had described yesterday. VU3RFT joined first followed by VU2EHA. Had a good discussion on Center Fed and End Fed Dipole Antennas. VU2EHA and VU3RFT participated. All of us were using inverted V dipole antennas. VU2EHA had 40 and 20m dipoles on same mast. VU3RFT was using 1:1 current balun. I mentioned that I am using 40/10m center fed dipoles with 1:1 current balun. VU2EHA asked about 15m dipole. I suggested that the 40m dipole will work well on 15m as it is an odd harmonic. He mentioned a problem because his IC-718 does not have an autotuner. We lost propagation at around 7.35 am IST. Wonder whether there was a geomagnetic storm? Number of waterfalls on 40m band decreased very much at that time. Planning to try again tomorrow at the same time. SWLs can monitor at  http://vu3wew.ddns.net:8073/ , the OpenWebRX by VU3WEW, located about 10km from here and likely to pick up my signals very well. Being a WebSDR, it can be
Read more

Building a Tape Measure Yagi for LEO Satellite Operations

Image
 The Moxon Yagi which I have been using for my LEO Satellite operations had a Moxon rectangle for VHF and five UHF Yagi elements which were passively coupled to the VHF Moxon driven element. The gain was not that high when I thought of working SO-121 QRP satellite. VU2TEK had good success with his Tape Measure Yagi which motivated me to go for one. But I don't expect the same success as he was operating outdoors, pointing the Tape Measure Yagi in the direction of the satellite pass. I am planning to use only in a mast mounted fashion which will limit its usability for satellite passes to a short period of about 4 minutes. I have chosen the DK7ZB design which I have been looking at for a quite a long time. That design has 5 elements for VHF and 8 elements for UHF with a boom length of about 1.5m. First step was to get a wooden reaper to use as the boom. Earlier it used to be available in all electrical wiring accessories shops. But now with the usage of PVC channels for wiring, I w
Read more