Ham Shack on The Hill

The Holiday seems a distant memory as the last couple of weeks have been flying by speedily here and I have felt the strains of work and the cold dark wintery days that we have been seeing. Despite the usual moans, the New Year has started off ok so far.
As far as playing radio I have already had some fun filled hours of radio from the shack as well as some nice contacts being made from the mobile.

The beginning of the month started quiet on the HF bands here in Yorkshire. The entire HF spectrum has not been very active with not much propagation during my usual radio time which is usually most evenings and weekends. The 2 meter band has however been quite interesting especially around the first weekend of the month (3rd) when contacts of over 200 miles were being made throughout numerous QSO’s up and down the country. I made the most of the sporadic E conditions operating the Yaesu FT-847 and 50W using FM and a 7/8 wave vertical antenna. I gave a couple of CQ Calls on the calling frequency 145.500 and a quick QSY to 145.350 FM, proved well worth the effort. I worked around 18 Stations over a period of a couple of hours, with some excellent long distance QSO’s and a nice little pile up (Rare on 2M FM)..

Here are some of the Stations worked and their locations including Locator and WAB Square (Where Known) During 2009 First Sporadic E.

1) M0STN, Steve in WAB Square SP75NHM. Northampton.
2) M3RVZ, Phil in Locator IO93GA. Belper, Derbyshire.
3) G1KDU, Andre in Locator IO92GM . Staffordshire.
4) G0HWK, Mike in Dunstable, Bedfordshire nr Luton airport.
5) M0IGG, Steve on Walney Island, Cumbria.
6) G4WPE, Malcolm, in Locator IO92FS, WAB, SK22, Newhall.
7) M3VXT Craig in Chesterfield.
8) M1AVV Simon in Locator IO84JC WAB SD27, Barrow in Furness.
9) M1DDD/P, Nick in Locator IO93AE, WAB SK06 Buxton.
10) M0BXR Ian near Warrington.
11) G1PPH Mathew in Locator IO92ER, WAB SK21 Lynton nr Burton.
12) M6SLE Stuart from Bolton, Lancashire.
13) GW6STK Robert in Locator IO83dg, WAB SH87 Cowling Bay, Wales.
14) M3SXV/M Shaun in Stamford Bridge, East Yorkshire.
15) M0GGR/P Andy/Tyke in LocatorIO93GP Woolley Edge Wakefield.
16) M6JCS/M Jason, in Huddersfield.
17) M3MOV Mark, in Locator IO83PI, Runcorn Cheshire.
18) G0VXN Peter nr Blackpool, Lancashire.
I went on to work my friend's/ local Hams M0XLT, Kevin, G0GNU, Jeff, G1YPQ, Karl, 2E0DOG, Ron and Phil M1PAC and heard that they had also experienced Sporadic E conditions and some were also jumping on the DX whilst the going was good! I wonder if you had similar conditions? As far as the 2M band at present it is still occasionally providing the odd opening and is well worth a listen. Thanks to all worked and hope to do it again soon.

HF & LF
Not quite convinced that the new solar cycle has got out of bed yet, as nothing to spectacular to report from the Shack or Mobile. So far I have heard only a few odd early morning DX openings taking place on 20 meters during my work bound journey and more often than not, nothing at all. I have heard the odd VK and also Al, ZL1BD but have not been successful on the call in. The best time to work the VKs & ZLs seems to be from 8.00 utc onwards, using the 20 meter band. By the time my working day is over the band has closed with no chance of making any QSO’s apart from surprisingly enough tonight (20M). I managed a Stateside QSO from my Mobile Yaesu FT-857 whilst returning from work around 17.00 utc. Tonight signals from the US were still coming in on 20M up until 19.00 utc, I hope things are on the up!

Despite poor HF-LF propagation I have still made some good QSO’s . I have had the best results operating PSK31 on 80M (3.582 MHZ) and 40M (7.038), always managing to find some activity somewhere using PSK31 on one of the LF bands.

Latest Satellite Operation using IOIo Beam, FT-847 via VO-52
I have still been following various satellite passes whilst spending time playing radio and have worked some good Locators and Countries this month so far via VO-52.

EA1QS, Pablo, in Locator IN52QK. Spain
OE3DSB, Gerald, in Locator JN78FA. Austria.
IK5QLO, Andy, in Locator JN53TU. Italy.
DL1SWB, Peter, in Locator JO53QH. Germany.
MW0BBU, Steve, in Locator IO71LR Wales.
IW6OVD, Fernando, in Locator JN62EA. Italy.
OK1UFC, Mira, in Locator JN78GV. Czech Republic.
Hope to hear you all via the “Birds” in the future passes!

That’s about it for Ham Shack on the Hill, from 2e0HTS. Until next time Thanks for passing by!! Best 73.