Author Archives: PA2S

TenTec 229 tuner modification

Curiosity is one of my key drivers. Copying others is a dull game. Of course, sometimes, it is easier to make a copy than to create a bad lookalike, but in general, I prefer to explore unthreaded paths. That must be in my DNA:-) Thus, with the new 60 m allocation, these radio waves started… Continue reading »

Propagation to VK continues

Propagation to VK continues

Today, another good opening to Australia was recorded. During the last month, quite a number of openings occurred, showing that propagation from Europe to Australia is not as rare as I initially thought. In a number of cases, a peak is observed around 19:30 UTC. At that time, in Australia the sun is already above… Continue reading »

JT: you hate it or you love it…or?

In my humble opinion, Joe Taylor, K1JT, is a true innovator for the amateur service. As a scientist, Joe received several notable awards. The amateur community should be grateful for his efforts and resulting advancement. Many amateurs may forget that our use of frequency spectrum is justified by experiments, with possible spin-off that benefits everyone…. Continue reading »

Down under – 4th opening

Down under – 4th opening

The story continues Yesterday, Nov. 13th, the propagation to VK was weak. Just a few spots from some European stations were reported. Alan, VK7BO mailed me that he would leave his receiver on, when possible. That encouraged me to continue the observations. Nov. 14th, I was checking to see if a free message with “TST… Continue reading »

Down under – 3 days in a row

Down under – 3 days in a row

The 12th November 2016, another opening to VK7BO occurred. As I wanted to analyse the openings, I transmitted every other minute, mostly CQ’ing and making some QSO’s just as well. All spots were visible on hamspots.net and to be on the safe side, I took notes in my little booklet, that has a lot of… Continue reading »

Down under continued…

Down under continued…

Today, after returning home, I checked hamspots.net and spots from VK7BO were again there, so I decided to start sending CQ’s, hoping to get a number of samples, to compare with yesterday. The opening peaked -7 dB at best, but this time, a number of -7’s were recorded. Unfortunately, hamspots only showed the last 250… Continue reading »