11m conditions

FRANCE , SPAIN , only skip for me in North Finland , few days now 

Heard to my part of south west UK yesterday evening around the triple 5 were strong stations from Norway, Finland, and Poland. A good Sporadic E opening. Same on 10m FT8, but strangely did not hear any SSB action on 10m from those areas.

Will see what happens Friday, day off, so radio will be on . Has been very hit and miss for a few weeks.

Did anyone in the UK catch any of the inter-G skip late this afternoon? From here in Gloucestershire I could hear north of England and Scotland, and also from the direction stations from France. Had a few hellos with Scottish stations on ch19 UK FM. It was nice to hear some UK activity on CB as usually very quiet locally.

11m band was active today, No Uk contact, not had the UK for a few weeks now, hopefully get sone Uk contact's

i do not have UK contacts for over a month

SangueG wrote:

Received some short skip SSTV images yesterday afternoon on 27.700MHz from 19DCG955 and 14EK057. Makes a change from the long DX signals recently from south America. Anyone else making short skip contacts? Is the Sporadic E season now underway?

Hi is this SSTV images? 27.245 yesterday, today is there as well ch 20 25 EU band but way weaker at my area Corfu ... which software for pc decode SSTV? if i can manage to decode the image with pl-990 & pc ... is ok fldigi & mfsk32? thanks

Yes that sounds like SSTV signal. Although probably transmitted on SSB and you are receiving on FM, so not so clear.

PC programs I have used are RX-SSTV and MMSSTV. Suggest RX-SSTV as it is simple to use and just for RX, not TX. You can practice receiving by playing test and example sounds from youtube, there are many on there you can try.

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Strong signals on 11m from Denmark, Finland and Sweden to my QTH in south west UK this evening.

Uk Dx into Finland, near Lapland.

Evening Chaps,

A couple of good groundwave contacts tonight. I worked into Barrow-in-Furness and down into Norfolk from my dx location in North Derbyshire.

A bit of skip with the grey-line approaching. I was hearing 14/30/31/34 divs and lots of South America. I was tuning around 25Mhz and heard some strong Latin stations. South America or Portuguese trawlers?

Working conditions: Yeticom Optima, Icom SM30 mic, Sirio 4000, 40w and static-mobile 515m asl.

73s John.

Hello from Finland, Germany and Poland on 27 .555, usb at the moment

Hello All,

A couple of good contacts into Brazil and Finland.

Working conditions: President Lincoln, Sirio 4000, 515m asl.

Eu area skip into North Finland now

Some high power FM mid-block Italians this way Glenn and then 27.585MHz from Crete (90VOG010)......but with a Yagi near the beach plus 1.5kW Ameritron he's pretty much burning his own pathway through the atmosphere!

We've got grandkids over again so no radio fun for me today but lets hope everyone else catches some of the promising propagation.

Hello All,

I heard 183SD0 (Benin) on 27.595 last night. No signal, but a very readable Radio 4. Tried to shout back, but with only 25w out of the back of my old Lincoln into a Sirio 4000, I didn't stand much chance. Fun trying all the same.

I heard lots of 12/3/4/6/31/30/1 working him though, which made for interesting SWLing as I was getting both sides of the QSO. I heard lots of 26 and 163 div stations shouting with no success.

Briefly worked 12 div later on.

Good dx and best 73s, John.

Victor wrote:

Some high power FM mid-block Italians this way Glenn and then 27.585MHz from Crete (90VOG010)......but with a Yagi near the beach plus 1.5kW Ameritron he's pretty much burning his own pathway through the atmosphere!

We've got grandkids over again so no radio fun for me today but lets hope everyone else catches some of the promising propagation.

Was that the Dutch guy called Frits (in Greece)? I heard him yesterday and he was talking to some 26CT stations too, I couldn't hear them but Frits was end scaling me here with his 4 element beam and cloud warmer.

That's the guy and he was end stopping here too. (Could hear him without an antenna!)

Yeah, loads of CT's, AT's etc. calling in to him which was good. Did have a bash myself but he was overwhelmed which is hardly surprising.

Evening All,

I went up to the dx-perch and the band appeared to be flat. I tuned around the UK40 and had a good 30 mins of rag-chewing with some locals on ch24.

Tuning around the Mid-Band i started hearing 2 div on the Super Bowl and unusually on USB on the higher channels. Tuning into ch38 LSB the signals were getting stronger and I made contact with a station in Kentucky and another in North Carolina. Unfortunately the band closed as quickly as it opened.

I then had a good QSO on HI-Band with 30JI001 Marcos in Galicia. He was using a home brew 5/8 vertical with great success.

The only fly-in-the-ointment being my Anytone 5555 that I bought on my return to radio 13 years ago has stopped working.

All the contacts were made on my 30+ year old Jackson (still works faultlessly), KL200 amp (about 80w) and a Sirio 4000.

73s and good dx.

Hi John,

Great hearing about your activity there and having some good success with a fun bit of DX.  

Terrible shame about the Anytone though but glad your old Jackson is working flawlessly. A good reminder for those venturing out to bring a backup rig just in case.

Look forward to hearing more about yours and others 11m activity as conditions allow.

73,
Victor

Hi Victor,

Cheers. Not sure what has gone wrong with the Anytone. It worked fine last time I used it, although that was some time ago. It has been packed away in its box in that time.

I had fun using the old Jackson, it had the finals replaced a few years back. The original  (MRF344 I think) was well expensive and difficult to get hold of, so it has an SC1969 in it, which makes it ideal for driving the amp.

The band was only open to the States for about 45 mins or so, but great while it lasted.

73s John.

That's the stuff I like right there John, being lucky to catch an opening no matter how brief.  
(Luck of the Radio Gods? )

Worth checking over the basics with the Anytone such as the inline fuse before possibly sending her away for a systematic approach repair. 

(My IC-706 had a weird fault when I first got her in that she would be temperamental in powering up and often shut down. I thought it'd be the MOSFET power up circuitry but turns out someone had put a slow blow fuse in her which hadn't blown but was carrying a couple of hundred ohms. Fuse replaced, job done and hasn't missed a beat since!)


No 11m action my way today unfortunately....

Then again I'm observing a similar effect as observed on 10m with Norway, Denmark, Germany, etc. coming in on the West UK webSDR's but nothing with us on the East UK side!?!

Hello Victor,

I have always considered catching prop as the communications version of catching fish. Sometimes loads of contacts...... Sometimes nothing.

Thanks for the tip on the Anytone.If I cannot solve the problem, I will probably sell it for spares or repair. It was a good radio for getting back into the hobby, but I wouldn't spend money trying to repair it. It used to drift like a Nissan S15 on SSB.

The Lincoln is now working like a charm, after your advice. I wish I had 10% of your tech knowledge, Victor.

Hope to give my Superstar 360fm an outing. It has a pic chip for the UK40 along with some other mods. I do like my old 'skool' Uniden boarded radios.

I have half-a-dozen looms to enable fitment of the external Superstar frequency counter and I have been meaning to get them installed. I don't trust myself to do it, too ham-fisted. Lol.

Wishing you good dx and best 73s, John.

I love the fishing analogy there John and feel somewhat similar with my radio interests.  

There are those of course who believe in a 'scientific/calculated' version of events and you could lay out the scientific principals of a rainbow with the most likelihood of where to view such a natural phenomenon. Doesn't beat just looking up and catching one by happenchance though.

Spares or Repair for the Anytone? Probably for the best considering what some charge for repairs!
(Drifts like a Nissan S15....had me cracking up mate! )

Glad I could help you in any way whatsoever John and the same is true for anyone else.  

73



Apologies to everyone for getting a little 'off-topic'. (It's all radio after all.)

11m conditions......

I hope not to be facing similar conditions to what I've experienced so far this year. The summer solar storms along with this weird East/West UK sporadic E divide has been a bit perplexing to say the least. I hope you all fare better and of course pop up and post how you're doing and what conditions are like at your location.

Italy and Greece strong signal into Finland now.

Nothing worth writing home about my way Glenn, occasional music with FM on the triple five.