Things are very slow on the bands

I have been on the radio now and then this past week the only one there was me and the static, there is nothing wrong with the K3 or the antenna the wrong has been the atmospheric conditions.  This weekend alone there have been 3 M class solar flares not making those in the CQ SSB contest happy campers. Not saying there is no DX out there as I have been reading from fellow bloggers and there has been some DX contacts but for me it's just not there. I was on the radio today and was not able to even raise U.S contacts just south of the boarder.
Lets hope the conditions some what improve this week…..

Alexloop vs Attic dipole

Setup for test. (Laptop running Ubuntu update)

The propagation conditions have not been all that great over the last couple of days so what a better time to do some on air Alexloop vs attic dipole comparisons! Here is the setup I used my Elecraft K3 putting the Alexloop in antenna 1 on the K3 and left the dipole on antenna 2 on the K3. This way I can use the internal tuner for the dipole and remove the antenna tuner for the Alexloop with just the push of a button on the K3. The power output was 5 watts, figured I would go to the top end of QRP considering the atmospheric conditions being not so hot. The Alexloop was up in my radio room facing West out the widow and East through my house walls. The Dipole is in a "Z" configuration in the attic so it kinda is facing most all directions. The Alexloop frequency was 14.061 and the dipole was 14.059 and I was using CW along side the Reverse Beacon network. The current atmosphiric conditions at the time of the test were:
A-5
K3
SFI 157
SN 173
Below is the results of the test.....not so well it would seem the Alexloop netted zero and the dipole only one. So is seems for a more acurate comparison better conditions are needed.

A nice way to rest a sore back.

Relaxing on the deck.

Last evening myself and a bathroom mat had a little hip hop time.....translation.....I was standing on a bathroom mat lost my balance causing me to "hop" and out went the hip!!! Today it was no work, off to the Chiropractor and physio. The good news is no disk problems just muscle but I still have to be very careful as I do have lower back disk issues. So what does this have to do with ham radio....nothing....BUT this does...It was a very nice sunny day out and I wanted to relax on the deck and not become board, so I gathered up (very gently) the KX3, Alexloop, Sony MDR-V150 head phones and a pad of paper.

Some things I tried with the Alexloop

1. I emailed Alex regarding his opinion about adding some extra coax so I did not have to be that close to the loop. He (as always) emailed me back within 10 minutes explaining there should be no problem doing this. At first I did try 12 ft of RG 213 and found I could not get a decent SWR. I then tried a 6ft piece 

and all was well. This would allow me to sit at the patio table and not have the loop under the patio umbrella.

2. When tuning the loop if I was in front of the loop while adjusting it's capacitor I found I could get a 1.2.1 match on 20m..but..as soon as I moved my hand away from the loop the SWR rose to 2.1.1. I found by adjusting the loop from the back of the antenna the SWR was not affected. 

New loop to tripod adapter

3. In the past I was using plastic zip wraps to attach the antenna to the tripod. I made and wanted to try a new antenna to tripod holder made of plastic pipe and heat shrink. It turned out to work just fine and will allow me to set the antenna up much faster in the field. 

 

I called CQ on 14.060 for about a 1/2 hour and was not spotted on the Reverse beacon network. This does not concern me as conditions were not that great. It was not my plan to really make any contacts but the see how the loop fit on the deck. Also how the new adapter I made fit both tripod and Alexloop.  Regarding the Reverse beacon network not sure if it is up and running properly today. I tried to refresh the spots and it seem to get stuck trying to refresh.

Hendricks 41dB attenuator built and added to the mix

Hendricks attenuator in service

It's Friday and the IARU contest is tomorrow, I had been checking out the propagation throughout the week and things seem to be calming down. Well until yesterday afternoon and the sun released an X1.4 solar flare and if that was not enough a CME as well..... Oh did I mention the CME is headed in our direction as well. So far the solar-terrestrial data seems to be ok. What's not to bad about a proportional hiccup is that it affects all of us, not saying that is a good thing but in the contest  the playing field stays level. This past week my Hendricks 41dB attenuator came in. The assembly was straight forward and was done in no time it

Final testing

tested out ok and I was ready to start using it. The attenuator has to go in series with my antenna  I placed it in series with my antenna B port on the K3. Both feeds from the K3 (antenna A port and B port) go to a LDG DTS-4 switch. Here I am able to place the dipole antenna in series with either antenna Port A or B. I did this as I can set up the K3 to have different settings (power output, filter selections, ATU on or off... etc) for each antenna port. So I select either antenna A or B on the K3 and then on the DTS-4 I select either attenuator in or out.

Solar storms VS QRPp

This week we all have seen sunspot 1515 working overtime producing solar flares.  It has been some time since a sunspot has consistently produced M class flares sometimes 2 or 3 in the same day. As amateurs we like to see rising sunspots, rising Flux numbers and a falling K index. ( as a side note this link is a great index for all those propagation words you wonder about)...BUT....along with an active sun also can come increased solar flare activity, increased solar wind which can bring a downturn for radio conditions. As a QRP/QRPp station I take these conditions as a challenge I also understand that during these times for me DX may mean contacts in the U.S. This week I have tried to get on the radio for a short time each evening. Using the Reverse Beacon Network (RBN) has been a great help giving me an idea which bands were open and just where my CW signal was being heard.  Below is the results of one of my RBN sessions

 20m report

NY3A  in P.A.         11dB
K3MM in M.D.        21dB
WZ7I    in P.A.       18dB 
K1TTT in M.A.       11dB
KB9AMG  in W.I.     9dB       

Most of the time I would be heard in Europe but with conditions the way they are the U.S. seems to be my DX destination for the time being.  I fired up the K3 along with DxLabs. Right off the bat I saw lots of spots for Europe but was not able to hear them on this side of the pond. I then heard an S5 signal from SM5EPO from Sweden. I knew conditions were not that great and after all the RBN confirmed that on 20m's it was the U.S only.........So I dropped the K3's power to 100mW's Heee Heee Heee and gave it a go. SM5EPO came back to me and with a few repeats the contact was complete at 39,111 miles per watt. In the past when conditions were good and I was making QRPp contacts and logging the miles per watt I wanted to see how I would do if conditions were not ideal.

Jumping Heliophysics Batman........

M class solar flare letting go

It's Saturday afternoon  around 3:15 local time and 19:15 UTC I just finished turning the Elecraft k3 on for the 3rd time today and nothing!! I looked over at my LDG antenna switch to see if I was on the dummy load but no the attic antenna was connected. I turned on my Elecraft P3 and it was almost flat lined hardly any signals to be found. I try not to use propagation alone to judge the bands as in the past propagation conditions have not been good but I had made some great contacts. Well it was time to head off to Solarham.net to have a look. Things started to come together as I looked at the solar data, solar flux is up and sunspots are as well ...that's good but look at the solar wind speed 689.5 also the K index is up around 4 which is not great but could be worse. the Bz has come up to +2.0. This morning when I checked the
Bz was way in the negative which is not good. The rise in solar wind and K index numbers pointed to a solar flare. The sun sure has been very busy on June 28th M2.4 class flare, June 29th M2.2 flare and now today two flares M1.0 and M1.6 class.
So in a nut shell things are very busy in space in such a way that radio is affected here on earth!! I have been using a less power as possible mind set here at VE3WDM to see how many miles per watt I can get. It seems I may have to chance the game up a little....see  how many contacts I can make compared to the size of solar storm that is affecting us.
 In closing let me know how this conditions are affecting you in your ham location. Oh and a side note to all those who live in the high latitude parts of the world.....enjoy the Auroras this evening.

The bands are dead but can a WSPR defibrillator get results

20m WSPR results

As most of you know the conditions on HF over the last week have been dismal at the best of times. Over the weekend I found 20m to be flat and 40m was just more or less local stuff. So Monday I thought it was time to give WSPR a go again. I set the output to 1 watt and gave 40, 30 and 20m's  a go. I was surprised that 20m was alive on WSPR. It was odd that I was unable to hear any CW on 20m's but using WSPR at one watt I was heard overseas.  My fan dipole in the attic is not really setup for 30m's but with the tuner in the K3 I

30m's was local only

am able to fool the rig to see a flat match. The SWR on the other side of the K3's tuner for 30m's is about 9:1 (according to my LP100A) so with one watt from the K3 and a 9:1 match what type of power is getting up to the antenna. With the help of this calculator I can enter my feed line type, power input, frequency and SWR this will get me a rough idea of the power at the antenna. So at 1 watt with an SWR of 9:1 using 30ft of  LMR-400 on 30m's the output at the antenna is around 892mW's of  raw power!! That raw power got me local responses on WSPR.  As for 40m's with one watt........it was more or less dead.

40m's was dead

Great Propagation forecast but that's it.....

I was on the radio now and then over the weekend with my hopes set on picking up some new DXCC's with the CQMM contest. I have very few of the South American DXCC's and it would had upped my total for the ARRL Jubilee. The news seemed good with rising sunspots,flux and lower solar wind....BUT....  for some reason the spots were all over my DXLab DXview world map but that's as far as it went. I heard nothing at all at this end. It just seemed to be one of those weekends with great conditions on paper but in the real world not so good. On Saturday I did make one contact PP1CZ Brazil (all ready have that DXCC) made it in with one watt with several repeats. That gave me a distance of 5088 miles per watt. Today the numbers look great again  sun spots (118) and SFI (148) but I did notice the Bz is at -15.5 that is the lowest I have seen it for some time now and once again the bands were dead.

The bands are alive with the sound of CW

Action on 20 meters

The propagation numbers have been flying high and the bands are open and hopping!! The above shot is 20 meters viewed on PowerSDR. It has not been this busy in some time even at 14.060 the QRP calling frequency I was able to pick up with out with any trouble KG1AFO, W4LVP K4YKI all in a QRP QSO's. In the other segments of 20 meters there both local (North America) and DX.  In the above picture where the yellow cross hairs are is the interference my Plasma TV is giving me. Even in that area I was able to copy  VA2DW and K4JJW who came in over the Plasma garbage!!

Fun under the sun

Cycle 24 seems to be heating up after some false and no starts and it even looks like we are going to see some consistency in regards to the sun. Does flux (not the stuff used when soldering), K and A index's, solar wind, CME and sunspots sound like blah blah blah to you?? It did to me, but understanding propagation really has helped out my contesting and DXing. Understanding propagation....how you ask???? ARRL has a great online coarse. www.arrl.org/online-courses, and I did notice that on the ARRL site you have to be a member to register for the coarse. Even though they offer online courses to members (at a reduced cost) and non members,I have to ask the question how does a non member register when the site requires you to be a member???  New Years is still some time away, so take the time to make an Autumn resolution and investigate a new area of our hobby.....propagation. 
Here are some links I use
dx.qsl.net/propagation/
www.spaceweather.com/
www.solarcycle24.com/