Sporadic E season starting

Source: http://forums.qrz.com/showthread.php?t=197336

The start of the Sporadic E (Es) season means enhanced progagation on the 28, 50, 70 and 144 MHz bands.

KA5DWI has just made available an article on "Es" season predictions.

Art Jackson KA5DWI has been collecting Sporadic E for the last 4 years analysing over 50,000 items of data.

He has now made available a PDF document, Spring/Summer “Es” Season Predictions, summarising his findings.

It can be downloaded from: http://propnet.org/docs/art/ProbabilityEs.pdf

HAPPY DX-ing!

OpenTracker2 configured and tested

Received my OT2 from ArgentData last week but could not do much since I went back to my parents house on the weekend. I was determined to get it up and running since early of the week but due to my office workload, I delayed it until yesterday afternoon.

Installation was quite a straight forward actually and using the default setup on the OT2, what I need to do is just change the callsign. I did however turn on the smart beaconing so that it could transmit whenever I am turning.. this will avoid the track to show that I'm jumping from one location to the other.

During my first test, I was quite disappointed when my track was not shown on aprs.fi. A call to 9W2RUT revealed that there was no i-gate operating yesterday... only the digipeater worked but since no i-gate, it means, nobody relaying the packet to the internet. So .. yesterday night, with the help of google, I managed to configure my Lenovo S10 to become an i-gate. Tested it this morning when 9W2RUT igate was down and it seems that mine could actually relay the packets received from someone else digipeater.. yes.. one try and it works!

Anyway, here is my configuration right now:

1. ArgentData OT2

2. Garmin eTrex (soon will be replaced by Garmin Nuvi 350)

3. Kenwood TMV71A (set to transmit on Band B)

Photos will be posted once I've got my Nuvi 350.

Anyway, if you're lucky, you'll see me moving around .. click the following URL:

http://aprs.fi/?call=9W2TPT-9

Dipole is up now..

Spent two hours this morning to bring up my W8010 dipole .. it is now joining my CP-6. I span it from north west to south east .. don't ask me the pattern but I think it is heading up north east .. Did a test with one local station, 9W2KGV on 10m and seems to be okay. Too lazy to tune the antenna, so, am using my manual MFJ tuner to bring down the SWR to 1:1.

Will try to QRV on 10m this evening and see if I can catch anything.

Update: Looking at the world map, I've just realised that I may not get Europe and Pacific where I believe where the most hams are, but will not change the direction as of now, probably in few months time.. not fancy going up to the roof again.

I did my first DX on 10m .. yes.. believe it or not.

How do you feel when the first time you work on DX? A bit excited, a bit nervous and the mix for sure. I've worked on one DX station on 40m before using a special callsign during a field day, but today is my first time I tried to work on DX. Luckily, one DX station (HS0ZIQ) coming on the air at 28.490Mhz and nervously I announced my callsign. What with 25W on "dummy load" could reach I thought. And hey, I was wrong .. John from Phuket Island answered me.. So, the CP-6 is not a "dummy load" after all .. Thanks John .. you surely make my day today!