Propagation de K7RA

26 November, 2009
ARLP048

This is a brief Propagation Bulletin preceding the Thanksgiving holiday. ARRL headquarters is closed on Thanksgiving Day and the day after, Friday, November 27.

Part of the reason for the brevity is because of limited internet access at the moment. I hope to have another bulletin out Monday morning to catch up with the sunspot,  solar flux and geomagnetic data normally at the bottom of this bulletin.

Last Friday's Propagation Forecast Bulletin ARLP047 reported sunspot numbers for November 12-18 as 11, 0, 0, 11, 12, 0, and 29, and since then, November 19-24 they were 30, 31, 14, 13, 0 and 0. Nice conditions for the ARRL SSB Sweepstakes last weekend.

This weekend, November 28-29 is the CQ Worldwide CW DX Contest. Although recent activity seems a good trend, we have no indications when sunspots will return.

With increasing sunspot activity have come reports of openings on 15 meters.

Jack Emerson, W4TJE of Fancy Gap, Virginia says a friend in North Carolina copied the VR2B beacon (Hong Kong) at 21.15 MHz some mornings via long path.

Jack said he began listening, and most of the time the signal is barely copyable. But on November 23 at 1210z via long path Jack said he was able to hear the signal, although with S1 signal strength, 519.
He was about to leave for work but decided to tune up the band, and on 21.255 MHz at 1212z found special event station VR2009EAG coming in very well at 5x5.
Jack worked him with 100 watts, and swung another antenna around to the short path direction to make sure he was actually receiving the signal via long path propagation.

The evening before (November 22, local time) Jack heard more JA stations on 15 meters than he has ever heard during the new solar cycle. Jack worked UA0CM just after local sunset, with a 599 signal report.

Carl Luetzelschwab, K9LA reports recent openings on 12 meters.

Jon Jones, N0JK operated casually on a Sunday afternoon outing in the ARRL SSB Sweepstakes, and took along a 5 watt transceiver and a CB mag-mount whip. He was on a trap clay shoot outing at a friend's farm. Jack added some wire to the whip to get it to load on 15 meters, and reports "Figured it might be good enough to make a Q or two.
To my surprise, it really got out! Over the next hour and a half I made 43 QSOs on 15 Meters, including some real DX like WP3R, AL1G and KH7XS. A number of stations commented 'great QRP signal!'

Even some short E-skip to NM, TX and CO. But the comments that impressed me the most were: "thank you for getting on and helping out."

In Sweepstakes, weary contesters on Sunday afternoon digging for new calls really appreciate the casual operators getting on to give out some needed contacts. Jon's 43 contacts were with 20 sections.

Aki Akai, JQ2UOZ of Nagoya, Japan has also had good luck on 15 meters recently, running 500 milliwatts into a dipole on his apartment balcony. You can watch a video showing his station and some contacts he made on November 22.

He wrote to us last year (see 2008 Propagation Forecast Bulletin ARLP035 at http://www.arrl.org/w1aw/prop/
2008-arlp035.html) about a personal challenge to earn DXCC during the solar cycle minimum using only one-half watt.

On November 15 he made 19 contacts with Czech and Slovak stations on 15 meters during the OK/OM DX Contest, and you can see his log of these contacts at,
http://www.k4.dion.ne.jp/~jq2uoz/GoodEarsList.html.

Look for the data normally at the bottom of this bulletin in a dispatch early next week.

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers, email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net.

For more information concerning radio propagation, see the ARRL Technical Information Service web page at, http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/propagation.html.

For a detailed explanation of the numbers used in this bulletin see, http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/k9la-prop.html.

An archive of past propagation bulletins is at, http://www.arrl.org/w1aw/prop/.

Monthly propagation charts between four USA regions and twelve overseas locations are at, http://www.arrl.org/qst/propcharts/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of this bulletin are at http://www.arrl.org/w1aw.html#email.

Source: The American Radio Relay League

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