6m Sporadic E opening

6m seem to be getting in good shape lately. After an interesting TEP early winter season, spring has started showing signs of nice activity on 50 Mhz.

Yesterday, a sudden Sporadic E occured, that gave us the chance to make a few
QSOs in the "neighbourhood".

Below is a couple of projections of my 16 QSOs made yesterday evening on 6m, to give you a glimpse of the type of Sporadic E we witnessed:



 

Best DX worked was F2DX at the southwestern part of France.

SV5DKL atop 1800 DXCC Challenge mark

After my previous post regarding my DXCC Challenge progress, back in November 2013, I was sure that the ascending rate would deteriorate substantially.

I was right!

It wasn't until today, after 166 days, that a QSO with S9TF on 12m SSB was confirmed in LotW, to take me on the 1800 DXCC Challenge mark.

It is obvious, that if no DXpeditions upload their logs to LotW, filling missing bandslots becomes a pain in the neck. What proves that, is my worked DXCC challenge number, which currently resides on number 2331, for my SV5DKL callsign, according to my Logger32 respective report. Also, the fact that I haven't sent any direct QSL requests in a long time ...

So, here is my current DXCC Challenge standings in LotW, for my SV5DKL, as of 17.April.2014:

 

, and the respective ranking for my SV1DKL callsign, as of 17.April.2014:

 

 

I will not set an intermediate pit-stop ... next target set will be the vague 2000 mark !!

 

73

Stathis, SV5DKL





B-45 High Altitude Balloon is alive !!

 

B-45 High Altitude Balloon is currently flying at almost 9km height, across Dodecanese islands.

Tracking team had lost its signs, since it travelled from the west coasts of France to near Madeira and back into the Mediterranean.

Today morning, I got its telemetry, as my setup was ready and the balloon's flight prediction was right towards Rhodes island.

The tracking team, as well as the balloon owner/experimenter himself are very pleased and happy, and by the telemetry data I've uploaded to the respective tracker:

http://spacenear.us/tracker/

 

,they believe it could break the flight record of HAB B11/12. We are close to 115 hours of flight by now, and we will need another 3 days of active tracking of B-45, in order to break that record.

 

Below, is a screenshot of the current B-45 reception, as presented in http://spacenear.us/tracker/:

 

 

and here is a screenshot of my DL-FlDigi screen decoding B-45's transmitted telemetry on 434.500 USB in Contestia 8/250 mode:

 

 

I will keep feeding up the system with B-45's telemetry data as long as possible, and I hope there will be more tracking receivers to chase its flight route until its end of life.

 







3rd GTC CW Cup preliminary results on-air !!

 

 

Today, I have uploaded all in-time submitted logs of the 3rd GTC CW Cup in public, as well as the preliminary score rankings, before the QSO cross-checking, at Greek Telegraphy Club's official web site here.

While on Cat. B' (SOAB/QRP), it is pretty clear that SV1KU/QRP will be the trophy winner, on Cat. A' (SOAB) a real drama is going to take place !!

At the top 3 places of the preliminary ranking, SV1JGX, SV1ME & SV1/SV2FWV are very close, as they have accomplished similar results. The battle will be judged upon the number of QSOs that will be confirmed and those derive from the QSO cross-checking, as the rules of the GTC CW Cup clearly state.

It is going to be a time of patience for those 3, who are all very good friends of mine, until the final results will arise, clearing everything out. Still, the trophy winner of Cat. A' is going to be only one and he will be lucky enough to receive the beautiful and BIG cup that GTC is going to award him with.

While we are working on the organization of the 4th GTC CW Cup, I leave you browsing through the preliminary results and the public logs of the participants, waiting for any comments or notes from you, to this e-mail address: 

sv5dkl@rho.forthnet.gr

73

Stathis, SV5DKL

E.C.M. - G.T.C.

G.T.C. #028

GTC CW Cup Contest Manager

ZD7VC St. Helena - Another new one on 6m

I know that most of you had already worked ZD7 on 6m, but until yesterday evening that was a new one for me, too.

Bruce, ZD7VC from St. Helena island (AF-022) was spotted by numerous southern european stations on the DX-cluster at 50.183 SSB, so I thought I'd give it a try.

And, there he was !! A huge 5/7 signal with clear, punchy audio was heard in my headphones. I worked him first call, after turning the beam to his direction and loading up the amp, and after our QSO, I stayed QRV on his frequency to check what stations he kept on working. He, indeed, worked a lot of SVs, as well as 9As and S5s. During my time monitoring his QSOs, his signal peaked up to a real 5/9 to the s-meter of my FT-2K.



That was just incredible and propagation favored particularly the eastern mediterranean countries. Lucky me !!

Bruce gave me nr. 94 DXCC worked on 6m and the target set is to reach 100 DXCCs on 6m until the end of coming June, which I think would be somewhat easy to achieve.