What kind of minimum is this?

CQ WPX gave me a lot of fun last weekend. Lot of DX worked especially in upper bands, 15m and 10m. It was better than BARGT. The only area that was missing was NA. South America, South Africa and Far East delivered very good signals simultaneously during mid day. I will give you some examples.

10m

ZS5NK, 3DA0EI, D69XCLU1HF, CQ9K, PP5AMP, YB0IR, 5R8FU, A52AM

15M

B7M, 9N7JO, A52AM, VQ9LA, 9M8Z, 9V1YC, D44AC, TU2CI, ZP5MAL, XR3P

It is a matter that is very welcome but it also needs a kind of analysis. Unfortunately I am not a specialist. The minimum of the 23 circle! No spots at all in the sun! But still upper bands wide open. Is it new or it happened again before? And what have we to expect when the new circle 24 arises?

After all this recent activity we have great expectations for good propagation conditions from Swain Island next week. Vangelis, SV2BFN and the other guys of the gang start their long trip on Wednesday 28 of March to LA, Hawaii and Swain. Last step by a boat will be 24h long. The schedule for launch is 4 of April. Keep tuned at their page. Have a nice trip to all. We are waiting to hear you on the air. Enjoy your pileups!

On the road again

A minor operation of hernia kept me out of radio activity for several days. As I already said 2007 did not start smoothly. Several failures of the rig and the operator of the station gave general truble and turned shack quiet. Now I am back again and I hope that we have finished with surprises for this year.

I realy enjoyed BARGT contest this weekend. It was a very interesting come back. Even in the minimum of 23 solar circle I met and worked a lot of DX stations, like LU,CX, ZM,JA,E21,YB, HL, ZS and others. But most of all I was happy to work the famus station of ON4UN. It was a a fresh air for me and very recovering all this activity in RTTY for 48 hours.

At last a new one. Spratly Island!

2007 did not start so well. My main transceiver, FT1000mp Mark V Field had a control unit failure. Suddenly it started scanning the frequency downward. Till now I did not find any way to fix it.
Last week I got a heavy flu and kept out of the shack. But today I have reason to smile again.
I worked DX0JP in RTTY in 20m. That was great, cause it was a new one for me in any mode.
......................................................
DE SV8RX SV8RX SV8RX k
DPCVKSKJYAQSSV8RF SV8RXUR 599-599 SV8RX DE DX0JPIKBS
DX0JP DE SV8RX 599 599 SV8RX
RFUYXJGSV8RX CFMX6,1 DE DX0JQLQPIK
.......................................................
That was excactly what I decoded...I wish to you, many such happy moments

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and Happy New year to all of you.

May next year brings to you lot of DX and many successful Ham Radio activities.

24th cycle will be a big one

According to the specialists the becoming circle 24 will be a really big one. We don’t know when exactly starts but it will be soon. We have just to wait to see it. So propagation will improve dramatically next years. And this is one-way. I give you here some documentation for this prediction as I found it in NASA pages.

In the plot, left, black curves are solar cycles; the amplitude is the sunspot number. Red curves are geomagnetic indices, specifically the Inter-hour Variability Index or IHV. "These indices are derived from magnetometer data recorded at two points on opposite sides of Earth: one in England and another in Australia. IHV data have been taken every day since 1868," Cross correlating sunspot number vs. IHV, they found that the IHV predicts the amplitude of the solar cycle 6-plus years in advance with a 94% correlation coefficient.

According to their analysis, the next Solar Maximum should peak around 2010 with a sunspot number of 160 plus or minus 25. This would make it one of the strongest solar cycles of the past fifty years—which is to say, one of the strongest in recorded history.

To read the whole story follow the link: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/21dec_cycle24.htm?list127119

N8S Swain's Island coming soon

A great dxpedition in Swain’s Island has been announced for March 2007. The call they will use it is N8S. Among the famous hams in the crew it will be a Greek one: Vangelis, SV2BFN. I think it is the first time that a Greek amateur participates in such a big event. We all of us wish to them great success.
More info you can find in their page: http://www.yt1ad.info/n8s/index.html

Recent activities

I thought it was time to clean my tuner: a Palstar AT1KM. I have to admit the feeling of a robust construction that hit me at the first glimpse without the cover. I cleaned the coil carefully with isopropyl alcohol even I didn’t see any sign of dirty after a year of service. I put it up together again with that kind of satisfaction that hams experience after any successful job of repair.
But the great event it was my first take off with WSJT. (This is a really marvelous piece of software, nearly magic). Under continuous guidance of the veteran in these modes, my friend SV8CS, I set it up and we had the first QSO in 2m in FSK441. Unfortunately the 8Km distance between us it is incredibly small for such kind of test.
So we activated an other veteran, SV2JT, who lives in Salonica about 400Km away from Zante in straight line. Even between us there are mountains 3000m high the QSO was absolutely unhindered using no more than 8watts and five element beams. We used FSK441 and JT65B. Communication in 2m band with so small power in this season of the year would be impossible with any other mode. Till next meteor scattering that I will try in deep water, I have to give my compliments to K1JT for his great program and my thanks to SV8CS and SV2JL for their help.