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EI7GL....A diary of amateur radio activity

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Guest Post: Experimental reception of the OZ7IGY 40 MHz beacon via meteor scatter ...by S57RW

Posted: 05 May 2021 12:41 PM PDT https://ei7gl.blogspot.com/2021/05/guest-post-experimental-reception-of.html


Andrej, S57RW in Slovenia left the following comment on the blog today
under an old post. Rather than leaving it there largely unnoticed, I am
putting it up as a short guest post.
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Wednesday 5th May 2021: Today I tried to listen to beacons on the 8m band
and around 09:30 UTC, I got two bursts from OZ7IGY in Denmark.
Both had a duration of about 10-seconds. First, I got a part of the PI4 transmission but that was not long enough to decode. After 2-3 minutes, I
got a second burst and copied part of locator and final carrier.
This one was quite strong about S5 to S7 and had a typical burst and after burst. Don't know if that is the right term but it sounded like typical
strong MS burst.
It may be worth listening in the morning when there are more meteors
around :)
RIG was IC-7300 and a dipole for 8m abt. 4m high N/S direction. 73 Andrej - S57RW!
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As the map shows above, S57RW is about 1200kms from the OZ7IGY beacon in Denmark, an ideal distance for meteor scatter on the 40 MHz band.
Note that the Eta Aquariids meteor shower peaks on the 6th of May.

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Looking back at the start of the Sporadic-E season on 28 MHz - April 2021

Posted: 05 May 2021 06:00 AM PDT https://ei7gl.blogspot.com/2021/05/looking-back-at-start-of-sporadic-e.html


For every day during the month of April 2021, I listened from about 08:00
to 22:00 UTC every day for FT8 signals on the 28 MHz band. For the first
few days, I heard only a few countries every day. The chart below shows
from the 7th to the 30th of April.

As can be seen from the chart, the second week of April continued at a low level with just a few countries heard every day. The 10th was one of those exceptions in that I didn't hear a single signal despite listening all day. The chart clearly shows that the Sporadic-E season started on the 15th of
April with the third week being in marked contrast to the second week.
Lyrid Meteor Shower: For Sporadic-E to occur, there needs to be a supply of metallic dust from the residue of meteors burning up in the atmosphere at a height of about 100kms. The first real meteor shower of the Spring is the Lyrids which goes from the 18th to the 25th of April and peaks on the 22nd.
Was the early arrival of the Lyrids responsible for the Sporadic-E season starting on the 15th and 16th. The exact start and finish of the shower
seems to be different depending on what source you look at.
The 23rd of April is for me always a main date for Sporadic-E. I just
noticed every year from my logbook that it was a date that stood out. It's probably no accident that it comes just a day after the peak of the Lyrids. Methodology & shortcomings: In hindsight, I probably should have recorded
the number of stations and countries on a day by day basis but I wasn't
really planning to record the start of the season. The chart was just an
idea I had once the month was over.
I was able to extract the number of countries heard on FT8 from my previous blog posts but the exact number of stations heard wasn't good enough that I would have confidence in the data for a chart.
As we are still near the bottom of the solar cycle, most of the signals
that were heard were via Sporadic-E. It might be more difficult to repeat
this test near the sunspot peak as there could be a F2 propagation in the
mix as well.
I'll make a note in my calendar and I might repeat the exercise in 2022 and
see if the results are the same.

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Sporadic-E on 28 MHz for 9 hours - 4th May 2021

Posted: 04 May 2021 11:54 PM PDT https://ei7gl.blogspot.com/2021/05/sporadic-e-on-28-mhz-for-9-hours-4th.html




Tuesday 4th May 2021: The 28 MHz band was open more or less continuously
for about 9 hours from about 13:00 to 22:00 UTC with signals from most of Europe coming through via Sporadic-E.
A total of 358 stations in 42 countries were heard which is usually a sign
of a reasonably good day.
The main Sporadic-E opening seems to have been to Italy as can be seen from
the concentration of stations on the map. While I wasn't able to do that
many scans of the band, I did hear two Italian beacons on CW...EI7GL
28218.0 IQ5MS/B 18:31 04 May IO51TU<ES>JN54AB Italy
EI7GL 28227.2 IW3FZQ/B 18:28 04 May IO51TU<ES>JN55VF Italy
The Eta Aquarid meteor shower peaks on the 6th of May and that should
provide even more fuel for the Sporadic-E propagation. The season is only
just starting.

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