Aurora

Worked VE4TTH, Peter in Manitoba, his signal would smear across the waterfall and fade S-9 to  S-2 in a matter of seconds some times with sidebands 400hz wide. Then he tells me he has the Northern Lights at his qth bright enough to light up the ground.

 I've heard auroral buzz and fade on fone on transpolar and 6 meter aurora propagation but its the first time I've seen it. Eyeballed it a couple of times in the North Pacific in my sailor days-damn that was a long time ago.

73 de Rob

She works on a Starship

I always wondered why the finals on my tube 6 meter rig had an otherworldly glow....see the link below.
73 de Rob

Working Split

Passed along a dx spot this am "FM/F6AVS 17m listening up 100." Didn't think much of it until I remembered when I thought working split was unobtanium. I was never able to do it with my old analog gear-with digital and a pc its click and drag. Somehow I don't think its the same.

73 de Rob

Off My Feed, But Also Puzzled

By the book PSK31 should have more carry than 63 or 125 given the same power. However this am, once again, 63 was making the hop on 15M better than 31. Could be the EU ops on 63/125 are running more power/gain antennas than the 31 crowd.  Not a lot of detail, mostly call, rst, tu es 73 variety.
Gives me something to ponder between trips to the head.  Got the parts for the Rockloop-all I really needed was the toroid but a cheap two section BCB variable cap is not to be passed up.   73 de Rob

The YL Does It Again

Buy her book-buy me a tower!
On Amazon-Huzzah!

Shameless flogging. 73 de Rob

QRPp or 8000 miles to the Watt

The new antenna must have something going for it, F5SYC confirms me at 0.5W on 20M

 (Merci Philippe!).

73 de Rob

Big Bambu

My sojourn in SE Asia gave me an appreciation for the building qualities of bamboo so when I decided to try the top fed grounded vertical from the RSGB Practical Wire Antennas book, I found my support growing amuck in my neighbor's yard. A little wire and some lashing and it was up-it seems to work as good as the grounded sloper but may be a bit noisier, time will tell. In any case a $0 investment. No this was not the top band version but it was scaled to 40M and will tune 20, 15 and sorta 12 as well. Not bad for bell wire and bamboo.

73 de Rob