good tropo FM DX this morning

[skyvalleyradio]

I've been fogged in all morning here on our ridgetop and there's been some decent tropo on FM this morning, which I discovered just after 8 am. This, in spite of a mediocre tropo forecast for the west coast today by expert Bill Hepburn. Using my GE Superadio III with just it's built-in whip antenna, I've logged tropo regulars KMHD 89.1 Portland (nice jazz station!) KWAX 91.1 Eugene, KKCW "K103" 103.3 Portland, KXJM 107.5 "Wild 107.5" & KLSY 107.9 South Bend WA (note: local CFSI is never heard at my home location leaving the frequency clear) . KYNW 102.9 normally is received poorly with static & signal degradation. Around 9am, it was so strong & in the clear, it was putting serious 'splatter' onto The Peak 102.7 & Jack-FM 103.1!! I suspect "Kool 99.1" KODZ Eugene was also in but couldn't pull it out on the GE due to KCLK & CFOX. The Superadio doesn't have any selectable narrow IF filters like my Magnum-Dynalab FM monitor. Unfortunately, I'm just too buggered up to make to the basement & fire up the Magnum & rotatable 10-element FM yagi. Now around noon, the fog is dissipating at this elevation slowly getting replaced with bright sunshine. As the fog disappears so are the signals to the south.

[Eldon-Mr.CFAY]

Greetings, Thanks very much for posting this great FM DX Sky Valley. Found it interesting. Yes Fog can certainly make a difference. I know in the Greater Vancouver and Fraser Valley area Thorne Hill in East Maple Ridge (Fraser Valley North) is a good location for FM Dxing. Jim (ve7rox) and I have dxed there over the years quite a few times for FM. Always liked hearing Oregon FM up there including KZEL FM Eugene which Jim got verified by letter, they sent him a bunch of station stuff too. The other one we heard which I was pleased about hearing was KHPE 107.9 FM Albany, Oregon. The elevation at the top of Thorne Hill in East Maple Ridge at the summit is about 980 Feet above sea level. The street going up the hill goes in a straight line right up the hill, some property owners lower down. There is a microwave tower at the very top of Thorne Hill but we did not notice any intereference to FM Dxing up there. I have dxed in North Surrey in past years with a Yagi on a tower and in Denny Ross Park in Langley Township (Murrayville) up the hill. However I would have to say that the two best FM DX locations in the Fraser Valley east of Vancouver are Thorne Hill, East Maple Ridge and where we lived in 1993 and 1994 in a house we bought on Rose Avenue East up the hill in Mission, B.c... That Mission location was way up the hill and it was absolutely amazing for AM DX and FM. I remember hearing 10 watt KSVR 90.1 Mount Vernon, Washington there quite often in 1993/94 and KPQ 560 Wenatchee, Washington every day during day. I have never been able to hear KPQ 560 AM Wenatchee at 12 Noon even i summer practically every day except at that Mission up the hill location. We kind of figured there may have been some minerals in that Mission Hillside making AM groundwave signals and skywave on AM really good most of the time. The height and further east in the Fraser Valley location probably helped a lot for good FM reception. For dxing in Mission I used to hear Centralia, Washington on 102.9 regularly and semi-regularly a couple of Portland station. On FM dx I think I heard some more Oregon FMs but unfortunately never kept a log on them. I was actually focusing much more on AM DX there and testing out various air-core and ferrite loop antennas I built and designed for AM DXing. I should have tried DXing on FM more there because I think I could have gotten some interesting E Skip etc.. in the spring and summer. We actually only lived in Mission for two years till my Mom sold the house in 1995 and I was spending weekends in Langley with my girlfriend and checking out the Langley Flea Market every weekend so was not in Mission on most weekends at all. However weekdays I had a lot of time to dx there.

If anyone gets a chance you might want to try AM and FM dxing at the large park up the hill in Mission right near the recreation center between 7th and 14th Street. Jim and I did some dxing there about 5 years ago and it was still good for FM and AM although FM Tropo or E Skip was not happening the night we went up there. Having said that I think the best FM DX I have ever heard was in North Surrey way back in 1979 and it was one of the FM stations from Monterey, California, KWAV I think, good reception too. I was using the outside Yagi mounted about 25 to 30 feet above ground. A friend of mine who did some FM dxing way back in the 1970s and lived in the Whonnock area of East Maple Ridge (not up on Thorne Hill though) received CKY 92.1 FM Winnipeg, Manitoba on E Skip quite well. He never taped it though.

I am curious Sky Valley if you have had any FM DX from East of the Rocky Mountains at Saltspring or Vancouver Island. Speaking for myself I have not, its been mainly north south with California been the farthest and only 1 or two stations from there even. Sure hope you are feeling much better and will be able to be more mobile in the very near future. All the best wishes for good health Sky Valley!

Take care everyone, all the best!

73s Eldon

[skyvalleyradio]

Eldon - I have had sporadic-E (Es) propagation also aurora-E (auEs) from east of here many times since a kid starting to DX the FM band in the 1960's. Via Es, the shortest path I've managed were openings into the Regina area, but it's been over a decade since this happened. Typical Es single-hop distance range favours the Winnipeg area, but there were no openings on FM this past summer. East-west propagation on FM is a rare treat not to be missed. Typical Es skip on FM favours south & south-east of here.

On VERY rare occasions that auEs MUF's have reached FM, I have twice heard Edmonton on FM. Since the sunspot maximum tends to bring more aurora and sometimes auEs, it's been since around 2000, that this last occurred. Of course, sometimes FM signals in Alberta can be pulled in via aurora when it's particularly intense & wide-spread, but one can only guess what station is coming in based on it's frequency. The audio is always so distorted & "hollow" due to lack of modulation transmission, it's almost impossible to get an ID.

I should point out that NONE of this is possible without pro-grade FM monitoring or high-end consumer FM receiver plus an outdoor, rotatable yagi antenna designed for FM reception. Es can be strong enough to be received on cheap receivers or vehicle radios - if the FM band is 'open', it's open! I've had "double-hop" Es on vehicle radios numerous times. Aurora & auEs reception requires high-end gear plus excellent timing. Hearing tropo east of Chilliwack on FM is next to impossible from the lower mainland/southwest coast.

[Dave L]

Excellent DX report!

Being a QRP station, my equipment isn't very elaborate. Especially my FM antenna, which is just a modified Shakespeare VHF Omni whip. I've been running scans between 36 and 40 MHz with one side of several private 2 way mobile communications heard with full quieting. Largely unidentifiable as to location, but given the time of day (11 to 1130 am), I assume these are east-to-west E-layer hops from Alberta. Sometimes though, about a half an hour after sunrise, I get west-to-east hits with what seems like South African accents (Pacific Islands perhaps) around 38.0 to 38.5 MHz.

[skyvalleyradio]

Dave L - your gear is good enough to get a grip on rising MUF in the 30-50 mHz utility band. As we're near the sunspot peak of the current solar maximum, you're definitely experiencing F2 propagation. If it were summer, I would have said 'multi-hop' sporadic-E (Es). Oct-Nov & Feb-Mar being the months likely to have the highest F2 MUF's, this freq band is currently pretty active. Monitoring 30-50 with both an omni antenna and beam used to be mandatory for us "6 Meters warriors" (50 mHz ham DXer) to track rising MUF's and exact location of the opening. This spectrum used to be chock-full of every type of comms. you can think of from every part of the world. Over the last few decades though, there has been a mass exodus of police 2-way, commercial "dispatch" 2-way, even early model cell phones & pagers operating in 3rd world countries on these freqs! The stuff you're hearing though probably isn't coming from the east - mostly F2 crosses the 'geomagnetic equator' southeast, south & southwest of here. The 'African sounding' 2-way you hear could easily be a crew of immigrant employees/users of 2-way spectrum. it's easy to get fooled by this! So far nobody has reported west coast - Europe or Africa F2 propagation on 6 although it's possible. 10 meters west coast -Europe & Africa has happened a lot over the past year...so, who knows? The Long Beach peninsula, with no obstacles hampering signals to the entire Pacific rim would be the ideal spot to try and work some "deep" multi-hop F2 towards the Indian subcontinent or east coast of Africa on 50 mHz

Nowadays 6 meters can be tracked via sites dedicated to posting loggings &/or mapping VHF & HF signal paths, and the Internet has proven a more valuable tool for quirky, variably 'open' 6 meter band than 30-50 mHz monitoring. However, I still use this to track exactly when the local MUF hits 50 and I'm ready, fist on key pounding our "CQ DX..." More often than not, the F2 MUF stalls somewhere between 40-50 mHz! I have around 80 memory channels dedicated to various stuff 30-50 mHz also the 10-4 good-buddy DXers on 27.555 USB to get an initial picture of propagation.

VHF/HF Real-Time maps & loggings:

http://www.dxmaps.com/spots/map.php?Lan ... &HF=N&GL=N

50 mHz Propagation Logger:

http://dxworld.com/50prop.html

ON4KST 50/70 mHz Chat & Map Tracking: (registration & log-on required)

http://www.on4kst.org/chat/index.php

From viewing the maps as I write this, there is a bit of F2 on 6 meters between southern Europe (Italy, Greece, Croatia) and Madagasgar & Mauritius (10:30 PDT) but nothing else. North America so far is dead.

So far this cycle we've only had a few F2 openings on 6 that I've caught and I don't think I've missed many. Last Nov, one day with a 90 min opening into Brazil (PY5) Ecuador (HC2) Uruguay (CX1) and another Nov day a short 20 min opening into Argentina (LU) and Chile (CE) All but 2 contacts were using CW, a few moments of strong signals I worked a few SSB contacts. Late Jan this year, a short 10 min opening into Argentina and then about 2 hrs later the band shifted southwest, opened, and I worked a few New Zealand (ZL1) and Cook Islands (ZK1) stations during a short, intense opening so strong, everyone got to use SSB. Output power here is 400 watts CW/SSB and a 6-element rotatable 50 mHz yagi. Unfortunately, my signal has lost a lot of it's potency due to the trees on my property having grown higher than my 50' towers.

73 de VE7SKA

[Dave L]

Thank you for the excellent summary and links. You've certainly got a finger on the pulse of tropo conditions.

While it might be slightly off-topic, it's still important to discuss Basic/Advanced licensing requirements on this matter.

I would have hoped the feds drop the 5 wpm requirement to use the 10 meter and 15 meter bands with a power limitation.

It seems to make no logical sense that CB users get a slice of the band while otherwise competent amateurs cannot. I'm not sure what the ratio of new HF to VHF users are, but my guess is, it's low. CB DXers are notoriously illegal with overpowered linear amplifiers, leaky front ends, gerry-rigged arrays and zero technical accountability for interference.

10 meters is only reasonably useable a few years out of every decade and would certainly provide enough incentive to improve amateur skills to operate the lower bands, otherwise I fear HF use may disappear entirely.

Any thoughts?

[skyvalleyradio]

Dave - I have never supported ANY CW based licensing, believing that amateur licenses should be 'multi-tiered' and based on degree of difficulty in exam/qualification levels. 17 mHz & up should be a privilege with easy exam requirements, 500, 160, 80 & 30 meters the next level and those wishing 20 meters or 40 privileges should be able to design & draw basic circuits, design specs for an in-tune antenna, define & state ionosphereic propagation types & techniques, mastery of RF interference solutions. Somewhere in there perhaps an RF incentive too as exists with the basic no-code license.

Having said that, I will defend CW to the bitter end as the mode of choice when working marginal, noise-level signals. I wouldn't have anywhere near the achievements and DXCC contacts on 50 or 144 mHz without CW and high power. I will always defend keeping portions of both 50 & 144 for CW use only, along with "DX Windows" to keep local/domestic contacts from interfering. No matter what the no-code folks say about VHF or UHF, to work SERIOUS DX on these bands requires CW.

I get your points about the 10-4 goodbuddies doing whatever the hell they want. We're decades past ever dealing with that mess - 11 meters. I don't give a crap what they do, how many f-bombs they drop, or how much power they run on 27.4 - 28 mHz, but I'll chase those assholes off of 10m CW when they're interfering with a DX contact I want to complete! The "trailer-trash" of the HF bands, like it or not, most of the new amateurs licensed since the 'no-code' class was introduced are coming from 11 meters. My solution many, many decades ago would have been to let amateurs keep their privileges on 11 meters AND allow the no-license goodbuddies to join the ranks with a lower power restriction. TEACHING these guys courtesy, good operating techniques would have prevented the free-for-all that exists now on 27 mHz. Alas, amateurs back then thumbed their noses down on CBers and a true class distinction separated them from us. Monitoring 27.555 USB and a couple of other 'freeband' channels, I have heard some EXCELLENT DX operating mostly from CBers outside of North America, with clean signals using amateur equipment instead of the bootleg shit many of them use. All that Chinese-made crap wouldn't exist if there had been a collaboration on use of 11 meters allowing CBers to use amateur equipment at lower operating RF powers. With interest in amateur radio declining, the Amateur radio service needs to seriously build bridges with the CBers willing to listen & learn

[Eldon-Mr.CFAY]

Greetings,
Thanks Dave L. and Sky for going into so much detail about the higher frequency amateur radio bands etc... You make some very good points Sky Valley about CB and Amateur radio operators. I agree with most of what you have said and Dave too! I never got my amateur radio license because I was always more interested in radio broadcasting and dxing the AM and FM Bands. However I always had an interest in amateur radio but the code was my stumbling block, for some reason I always found it difficult to learn even though typing in high school was never a problem for me using my hands. Learning the code and pounding it out always was for some reason a bit difficult for me. The technical end of it like circuits, etc.. were not a problem for the amateur radio exam. By the way Dave and Sky Valley I assume you both are good at code and I agree with you about under tough dx conditions code making it through when voice modulation does not, how many words per minute can you do with code???? I know my friend Jim (ve7rox) has been an amateur for years too and has never had a problem with code!!!

Interesting posts, thanks guys for all the information here! Great reading!

73s Eldon

[Dave L]

Learning the code and pounding it out always was for some reason a bit difficult for me. The technical end of it like circuits, etc.. were not a problem for the amateur radio exam. By the way Dave and Sky Valley I assume you both are good at code and I agree with you about under tough dx conditions code making it through when voice modulation does not, how many words per minute can you do with code????

Thank you for your comments Eldon. Sky Valley is venerable operator indeed. Me on the other hand, possess only a Basic with Honors Certification. That entitles me to work amateur bands above 30 MHz and with a maximum input power of 250 watts. That's plenty of power for me, mainly because I pride myself on QRP (low power) operations. My main objectives are IPARN Inter-Provincial Amateur Radio Network, satellite (OSCAR) and SAREX (Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment) although the shuttle does not fly anymore, many of the astronauts aboard the International Space Station are licensed amateur operators. Lately it's known as ARISS (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station) 145.800 MHZ. One of my greatest "coups" was an ongoing QSO with cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev U4MIR while his was mission was prolonged aboard the Russian Space Station MIR when the Soviet Union fell. He was launched a Soviet soldier and almost overnight became a free man. We would often discuss details of his work aboard the station and often about glitches, breakdowns and jerry-rigs. Nowadays, most of the comms on the ISS are handled though a PACKET message board system. It's quick and necessary because the orbital passes are only 7 minutes from horizon to horizon and the best window without Doppler shift is less than two minutes.

I am super, super lucky to be in Tofino for this operation, because the ISS orbits the earth in a 51 degree inclination from west to east and being the only amateur in the area, I get the first kick at the cat, before the US operators pileup.

No minimum WPM (words per minute) is required to operate these bands. 5 WPM is necessary for the 10 and 15 meter band and 12 WPM is the requirement for the lower bands 40, 80 and so on.

My advice to you, is do it. I'm certain you'd enjoy it. Even without a licence, monitoring these bands is interesting and intriguing.

[Dave L]

BTW Eldon, are you still in Langley? They have a terrific amateur club there. I have a studio in Langley and often participate on their Monday night net frequency 147.380 MHz (tone 110.9). I have also attended meetings at the Brookswood Fire Hall #5.

[Eldon-Mr.CFAY]

Greetings,
Thanks for all the information Dave. Much appreciated. Yes I am still residing in Langley but still on my extended visit and business trip to Cobourg, Ontario to see my relatives etc .... Will definitely be coming back out to Langley soon though. My favorite area of Langley is Murrayville but I am very familiar with Brookswood too. Also Fernridge and Campbell Valley Regional Park near the USA border, great place to do some dxing too! I attended an amateur radio swap meet near Brookswood in the large Langley Rec. Center down there about 7 or 8 years ago. It was great, bought a lot of goodies and talked to some of the amateur radio operators there. I got to know Reg Easingwood over 10 years ago in Langley City and he had been a longtime amateur radio operator as well as former Mayor of Langley City for about 8 years in the 1980s. Very nice gentleman, he had a great display of communications receivers etc. in his store in downtown Langley. Unfortunately he passed away about 2008 or 2007. By the way as a sidenote he built the very first tv set in Langley back around 1950 and he had to order all the parts from the States including a radar tube which he used to build it. People flocked from all over sparsely populated Langley to what later became downtown Langley City to see this new technology called television. Reg. had to erect a small tv antenna tower and built a Yagi type antenna out of metal tubing to pull in the Seattle TV stations for reception because KVOS TV in Bellingham and the Vancouver TV stations DID NOT EXIST in 1950!!! He told me the history about it all. Very interesting. I also have his business card with ham calls on it still. Silent Key now. By the way Reg. Easingwood was the first one to sell TV sets in Langley, Early RCA television sets I believe. He even gave me some great vintage Radio-TV Experimenter magazines from the late 50s and early 60s! Great guy!!! His brother was Joe Easingwood of Victoria radio fame!!! Anyway theres a little bit about my interest in amateur radio in Langley.

Dave I will check into getting in touch with the Langley Amateur Radio Group when I get back out there. Looking forward to attend another amateur radio swap meet in Langley too, gosh its been too long since I attended the last one, at least 8 years ago!!!

73s Take care,

Eldon

[Dave L]

I did learn code. Landline Code and was marginally efficient at 15 WPM with an iambic key. It has slightly different characters and monitoring copy is quite different from radio. You had to listen to the duration of the "clicks" on the Bunnell sounder (which I still own to this day, in working condition) as opposed to the spaces between the dah's and dit's of radio telegraphy.

I was the second to last person in North America to be issued an ORT number (Order of Railroad Telegraphers) ORT-296861, before the union changed to the UTU (United Transportation Union)

And to Sky Valley... do you fist an iambic or straight key? Computer modem?

[skyvalleyradio]

Dave - I always used a straight key until my arthritis got the best of me about 5 yrs back and now use a programmable keyer. I'm comfortable with 20-25 wpm, but am always happy to work a newbie @ 3-5 wpm!! I was also one of the early pioneers involved in high-speed CW meteor scatter on 144 mHz when computer programs to generate & read CW just became available in the late 1990's. By programming TX to send at 20,000-50,000 wpm and using early, crude digital audio programs, one could decode these on very short meteor bursts otherwise too short to exchange such info. Using typical TX/RX protocols for meteor-scatter DX, we'd run 30 min skeds and try and exchange callsigns & grid squares. Activity centers around 144.1 - 144.125 CW. I'm very impressed with your telegraphers ORT qualification - a prestigious accomplishment! I had a couple of those old Bunnell sounders and remember the relay 'clicks' deciphering 'dits' & 'dahs' These got traded away many years ago.

Sounds like you're having lots of fun at various amateur activities - there are so many different facets of the hobby. I must confess to having not explored digital TX modes or techniques to the depth you have, nor considered OSCAR/SAREX activities. The Long Beach peninsula is lucky to have an amateur op possessing your experiences and abilities!