A POTA Aurora?

Posted on May 11, 2024 by robert

Aurora watching turned into a thing when the largest Geomagnetic Storm in more than two decades gave us Earthlings a spectacular view of the power and majesty of our sun last night.  Sadly, Rhode Island weather wasn’t as cooperative as it could have been, as it was very cloudy until about 3:30 AM this morning.  But that didn’t stop my wife, daughter, and me from heading out at O’dark hundred to see the sights.

View to NW around 3:30 AM near Schartner Farms in Exeter RI

My wife and daughter can be seen on the shore of Barber Pond (POTA US-10548) around 4:00 AM enjoying the celestial display due west

This amazing global display of Auroral activity was spawned by the first few of a large series of Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), impacting the Earth Friday afternoon.  This drove the Kp level up to 9 and generated a G5 storm.  While things tapered off a bit this morning, they are back up to a level 8, with several more CMEs due to impact us in the next day.  Those with clear weather may be lucky enough to see more displays tonight.

By the way, viewing the event through recent smartphones will reveal more colors and details than can be seen by the naked eye.  In the examples above, the Aurora was occurring over the West Coast thousands of miles away  Had the sky been clear around 10 PM, the display would have been on top of us.  Nevertheless we could still see the Aurora with our naked eyes, but mostly saw the whitish green colors of the shimmering curtains.

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Amazing Times for Solar Cycle 25

Posted on May 10, 2024 by robert

The Kp index reached a value of 8 today, after the planet was struck by one or more CMEs, pushing the planet into a Severe Geomagnetic Storm (G4), something we haven’t seen for 20 years.  Multiple additional CMEs are headed towards Earth.  Fortunately we aren’t expected to see a Kp of 9 (Extreme), but who knows.  Currently the storm will likely be producing auroral activity that may be visible as far south as Texas and Alabama.  (Sadly, New England weather is anticipated to be cloudy overnight).

I subscribe to the Auroral Alert program from SpaceWeather.com so my phone has been buzzing with SMS messages for days now as many X-level flares have been detected.  Sure enough, I observed the noise floor increase and the waterfall go dead about an hour after the CME impact.

Capture of Solar Data from SolarHam.com – showing today and tomorrow being a level 8 storm.

From the Space Weather Prediction Center showing the radio blackout when the CME hit around 10 AM EDT.

SWPC – Shows the high level of D layer absorption happing as the particles from the CME spread out into the Ionosphere 2 hours later. Note 35dB attenuation in the 20 meter band, and that is one way. In other words 35dB going up thru the D layer to the F layer, the 35dB coming down, for a total of 70dB  Nothing like a 12 S-unit reduction in signal strength!

 

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Operator To Operator 400 for K4NYM

Posted on May 4, 2024 by robert

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And after Bear Cave comes Fishing Hole?

Posted on May 1, 2024 by robert

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Another Bear Cave and 350 O2O with K4NYM

Posted on April 14, 2024 by robert

A couple of new POTA awards came in this week – first was the Operator To Operator Award with Bill K4NYM.  Unsurprisingly another Bear Cave Award came is as well, this time for Green Swamp US-5330 in Florida (thank you Bill).

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Wonderful Surprise from Incoming QSL Bureau

Posted on April 13, 2024 by robert

Ever since I got back on the air, I’ve had envelopes at the ARRL Incoming QSL Bureau.  Over the years I’ve received a few envelopes, perhaps 25 DX cards, and a couple dozen from the W1AW/x operations during the 100th anniversary.  I had used Forever stamps on the envelopes and had clipped extra stamps to each one.  But I hadn’t received any envelopes in years.  I just figured QSLing was a thing of the past.

About a week ago, I received an email from Paul W4FC, who informed me he had recently taken over the part of the bureau responsible for my call, and that he had received hundreds of pounds of cards that were unsorted when he took things over.  His preliminary sorting indicated that there were a few ounces of cards for me, and he wanted to know if I was interested in receiving them, or if he should just recycle them.  Of course I said yes, and we made arrangements to cover any shipping fees.

A few days ago, he emailed again and said he actually had almost two pounds of cards, and was sending them to me via Media Mail.  I was shocked when they showed up yesterday.  A quick count indicated there were over 250 cards!  Many dated back to 2012, about the time I started to get serious about DXing.

While I haven’t been able to verify everything yet, I did notice a card from Tasmania, Jim, VK7SM.  This is of significance because I have 55 of the required 60 WPX prefixes for Oceania, and with this card I now only need 4 more Oceania prefixes to qualify for the rare CQ WPX Award of Excellence.

I am absolutely stunned at how quickly Paul has handled all of this.  I can’t even imagine how many cards must have passed through his fingers!

 

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Eclipse Park Activation with KH1

Posted on April 8, 2024 by robert

My wife and I headed to our favorite park, Beavertail (US-2868) on Conanicut Island, RI,  to watch the Eclipse this afternoon.  We were too far to the east to enjoy totality, but we figured it would be fun to see 91% of the sun occluded.  The weather sort of cooperated, with thin high wispy clouds and a temperature in the low 50s.  But I didn’t quite plan on the stiff breeze blowing right off the water into our faces – I was shivering, especially my hands.

I figured that I could use this as an opportunity to try out my Elecraft KH1 and it’s built-in 41-inch whip antenna at a park.  Despite my trembling fingers, I managed to make ten QSOs between 2:15 and 3:09 PM, all of which were during part of the eclipse.  I was actually pleasantly surprised  that folks could even hear me, but they did with a few fills required and signal reports ranging from 539 to 599.  That completes another of my goals for 2024, by the way.

My view looking SSW from Beavertail – it was a nice early spring day but WINDY.

My Elecraft KH1 laying down on my chair. It was fairly easy to work 10 stations with the attached 41″ whip (and 13 foot counterpoise wire laying on the ground)

 

 

 

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It’s not all about K4NYM, but almost!

Posted on April 3, 2024 by robert

I was surprised to receive a QSL in the mail from Bill Brown, K4NYM, who has made over 190,000 QSOs from 388 parks.  I can’t imagine the number of QSL cards he must send out!  I can’t even imagine the amount of work required to log that many contacts and upload them.  THANK YOU BILL!!!

 

But in non-K4NYM news, I received a Repeat Offender Award for a park in Ohio.  So I do have contact with folks other than Bill.

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QRP Labs QMX On The Air

Posted on March 27, 2024 by robert

Today, I finally got my QRP Labs QMX transceiver on the air, making my first contact with AB9CA, Dave, at park US-2259 in Indiana.

The QMX is a five-band QRP transceiver.  It supports CW, or single-tone digital modes (like FT8).  When running off a 10.8 volt battery pack, it produced 4.3 watts out on the 20 meter band.

The kit is priced at $95 for the 80/60/40/30/20 version (what I have), or $105 for the 20/17/15/12/10 version.  A very nice metal case sells for $20.

For those of you that dislike winding toroids (like me), be aware that this kit has a bunch since it is 5-bands.  There are 7 toroids to be wound, as well as two binocular cores.  Some of them are multi-tapped.  Plus this is a pretty tight assembly.  The good news is most of the components are surface mount and already installed.

The QMX is about the size of a pack of playing cards. It is hooked up to a dummy load and one of my paddles for testing.

Be aware that it does not have an internal tuner.  SWR protection has been added to recent versions to avoid blowing out the finals.  Because of this, I was unable to tune my Elecraft T1 Automatic Antenna Tuner, until I inserted a 6 dB attenuator in the output of the rig.  With that attenuator in place, the rig sees a SWR of less than 1.5:1 no matter what the load is.

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What’s Bigger Than a Fox Den?

Posted on March 26, 2024 by robert

Well a Bear Cave, of course!  I just received the Repeat Offender Bear Cave Award for working US-4559 sixty times!  This is one of K4NYM’s favorite parks, judging from how frequently he’s there.

Lest you think I only work Bill, I am 156 parks away from hunting 1,500 unique ones.  I usually work about 6 HF Parks on the Air most weekdays, and twice that on the weekends.

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