2016 Plans...

Happy New Year to everyone, hope your holidays were quiet and full of good DX...

Things have been pretty quiet around this QTH apart from some PSK31 operating.  Plans are currently being made for some "micro-DXpeditions" in 2016.  There are a couple of islands and lighthouses that I would like to get on the air this year, but trying to fit it all into the family schedule is getting harder to do.

The "pre-pre-planning" for Field Day has already started.  Our club will once again be running two separate FD sites, and we're sorting out who's going where in order to make sure we have full capabilities at both sites.

Winter Field Day is also nearly upon us, that takes place on January 30th - 31st.  Link for that event is HERE.   Field Day doesn't always take place in the good weather!

I'm sure this year will be a busy one.  I have decided that once the weather warms up I'm going to operate portable at every chance I can get.  I missed out on a pile of rare DX last year, so my goal this year is to try and get as much of that rare DX as I can.

Where I want to spend next summer.......

See You Next Year!!

More WSPR

Yesterday was a good day to hide and stay the heck out of the kitchen.  So I decided it would be a good time to go and do a couple of hours on WSPR.

The propagation conditions seems to be pretty good on 20m, so here's a look at what 500mW got me around 1700 UTC.

Here's the shot into Europe

Here's the shot into North America......not too many Canadian stations about....

Radio used was the IC-718 into my 148' Inverted L long wire antenna.

Merry Christmas

May peace, happiness and goodwill be with you and your family not only on Christmas, 
but throughout the year and beyond. 

From my house, to your house, 
here's wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a

Happy New Year for 2016.

RAC Winter Contest

Not a bad weekend on the bands for this years RAC Winter Contest.  For once the stars aligned and all my equipment and the propagation worked as advertised.

I should let you all know that my new 148' Inverted L long wire antenna worked exactly as advertised.  It also seems to give me a very strong signal into the heart of Europe on 15m and 20m.

The bands were very noisy on Friday night as the contest started, I had a noise floor of S7 here....which is very unusual for me.  This settled  down on Saturday and levelled out at about an S4.

Contacts were made on every band from 2m to 160m.  The only places I did not manage to get a single contact with was the NWT and Nova Scotia.   I also listened for Bob, VA3QV, but never heard a peep from him........Liz must have him in chains again....

The propagation numbers to start the weekend were: SFI=116.  SN=52.  A Index=5.  K Index=1.  These numbers stayed that way for just about the whole weekend, late Saturday saw the SN go down to 44, but that was the only change.

The big surprise for me this year was the large number of DX stations taking part.  I worked stations in Bermuda, Netherlands, Germany, Belize, Colombia, Italy, Spain, USA, and France, all of whom are giving out contact serial numbers.  It's nice to see this contest spread out around the world.

That's it for this year, no more contests and only two more club nets till next year......when we start it all over again.  Where does the time go??