REF CW 2014

In the end of January I participated in the REF CW contest.
In recent years I made many QSO's in this contest with 50 mW.

The top of my inverted vee was broken last year in a storm and I made a temporaly repair. One of the wire lays on the roof.
So I had to experience how the antenna would work.

On Saturday I made 2 QSO's on 20 m with 50 mW and 100 mW.
On Sunday I made 14 QSO's on 40 m.
In these QSO's I had to use the full 5 watts of the FT-817 due to the antenna.

Further I made a number of QSO's on 20 m with a power of 50 mW to 500 mW.
The inverted vee with one wire on the roof works for 20 m.
But on 40 m it takes more power to make QSO's.

When the propagation is good, it's not that difficult the make QSO's with very low power.
On Sunday the signal of F6KNB was S9 + 10 dB. So I decided to try a power of 50 mW.
I gave my call just once and got an immediate respons. FB.

ARRL International DX CW

I started late, because the grand children stay with us this weekend.
This afternoon we went to the park in stead of participating in the ARRL int. DX contest.

My inverted Vee is still temporaly fixed after a storm last year.
One wire lays on the roof.
But I can still make QSO's even with low power in many different contests.

I need more power than the usual 1 or 2 watts, that I use most the time.
So I use the maximum power, that is about 4 or 5 watts.
Even the stations that I receive with S8 are more difficult to QSO than last year.

After a few hours in the contests there are 15 QSO's in the log.
But it's still fun to participate in this fine contest.
There was only one station, that was puzzled by my exchange 599 003, when I use about 2.5 Watts. hi
Let see what tomorrow brings.

DL1SDZ's WSPR spots with 0,5 milliwatt

On his blog Hajo DL1SDZ reports spots made with 200 mW down to 0,5 mW on 30 meters.
He reduced the power from day to day.

Hajo wrote me that the 4 last spots with 1 milliwatt were actually made with 0.5 milliwatt.
In the WSPR data Hajo uploaded the spots of 0,5 mW as 1 milliwatt, since this is the lowest value that can be used. (1 mW is 0 dBm)
Because my excell sheet can not calculate with a power lower than 1 milliwatt, I left the values for 1 milliwatt in the analysis of yesterday .

But today I calculated the lowest possible power for the value of 0.5 mW by hand
and made the next table exclusively for the spots with 0.5 mW.

The calculated lowest possible power is, in some spots, only one step lower.

This table show 4 spots in stead of 3.

The table below that I made yesterday, does include spots of 400 km or more,
so it does not include the spot by HB9JAQ

Click to enlarge

This analysis shows the calculated lowest possible power.
The lowest possible power is calculated from the power sent and the SNR.
The lower the lowest possible power, the better the propagation.

WSPR with 200 mW down to 1 mW by Hajo DL1SDZ

More and more operators discover the use of very low power with WSPR.
On his blog Hajo DL1SDZ reports of spots, made with 200 mW down to 1 mW.
Hajo reduced the power from day to day, as shown in the second analysis.

The first analysis shows the calculated lowest possible power.
The lowest possible power is calculated from the power sent and the SNR.
The lower the lowest possible power, the better the propagation.

Click to enlarge

The analysis below shows electrical field strength.
In this calculation the distance is also included.
The lower the field strength, the better the propagation.

Click to enlarge

In the analysis all spot over 400 km and more are in cluded.
Thanks Hajo, for the interesting experiment.

Analysis of G3XBM's 40m WSPR spots with 5 mW

G3XBM left WSPR running with 5 mW on 40m for 24 hours.
Roger concluded that his signal was in the noise most  of the time.
He also concluded that he would need 2 W.
http://g3xbm-qrp.blogspot.nl/2014/01/40m-5mw-summary.html
The analysis below shows that the conditions changed dramaticly after the 7 spots with 5 mW.

The header of the table shows the Calculated  Lowest Possible Power in mW (Click for info), 
which is calculated from the used power (Pwr Sent  in mW) and the SNR.

The better the propagation, higher the SNR and

the lower the Calculated Lowest Possible Power will be.

The analysis
9 UTC gives the spots that were made in the hour from 9:00 till 9:59 utc.

This first line shows, that the power that was needed for the spots was 1 W down to 2 mW

In this hour, half of the spots that were made with 2 W could be made with 100 mW.

The white circles indicate the power with which half of the spots could be made.

The lower the power needed, the better the propagation.

From 9 utc till 14 utc on the 18th there are 11 spots with a calculated lowest possible power of 5 mW or less. So it was possible to make spots with 5 mW.

WSPR with 5 mW
From 14 utc Roger reduces further to 5 mW and over 24 hours only 7 spots were made, shown in the yellow coloured part of the table. In the red part of the table there are no spots since the power that was used is 5 mW. In the red part I show the receiving stations and their SNR.

Back to 2 W
You would expect more spots, since the 24 hours before showed many more spots that could have been made with 5 mW. But the conditions changed dramaticly.
The last part of the table shows spots that were made with 2 W.
At 20 utc on the 20th at least 500 mW is needed.
And at 5 utc and 7 utc spots could have been made made 5mW

G4ILO Whispering with 20mW and 1 mW

Julian G4ILO did an interesting experiment with WSPR. 
He used a power of 20 mW and 1 mW and was heard over large distances.
I made a table of the spots with both 1 mW and 20 mW.
I left out the few spots that were made with 50 mW.

The table below shows an interesting phenomena.
When 20 mW is used, the  calculated lowest possible power is 20 mW or less.
When 1 mW is used the calculated possible power is 1 mW or less.

The Lowest Possible Power is calculated from the used power and the SNR.

The SNR for a solid copy with WSPR is -29 dB.
When a signal is received with a SNR of -19 dB, this signal is 10 dB stronger, 
so the power could be 10 dB reduced and still be solid copy, but then with a SNR of -29 dB.
The Lowest Possible Power is 20/10 = 2 mW 
22 Spots were made with a Lowest Possible Power of 2 mW.

The tables below show the distance, the receiving station and the power that was used.

WSPR Propagation Analysis

Changes in propagation give huge changes in signal strength. 

WSPR has a SNR that can act as an S-meter. 

But if you want to compare WSPR spots, you also have to take 

into account the output power of the transmitter. 

WSPR Propagation Analysis

I use the calculated lowest possible power

in milliwatt of each WSPR spot, when

• the spots are all made over the same distance
• the spots are made with different power.

The lower the calculated lowest possible power, 
the better the propagation.

Solid copy

The SNR of a WSPR signal can be as low as -33 dB.

But a WSPR signal that is received with a SNR of -29 dB will be a solid copy.

Calculated Lowest Possible Power
A signal with an SNR of -19 dB is 10 dB stronger,  can be reduced with 10 dB
(1/10th of the power) and still be solid copy, but then also with a SNR of -29 dB.

The better the propagation, the stronger the signal and the higher the SNR will be.

The more the power can be reduced and the lower the Lowest Possible Power will be.

But the frequency must be clear, to actually receive a signal with the Lowest Possible Power.

G4ILO Whispering with 20mW

Yesterday Julian G4ILO wrote on his interesting Blog about his advantures with WSPR with low power:

Many people who operate the weak signal mode WSPR use too much power. 
If you don't use very low power (QRPp) you'll never find out what this mode is capable of. 
So to remind myself I thought I'd do some whispering on 10m using 20mW of power. 
It's easy to use low power with the Elecraft K3 as the power level is adjustable in 0.01 watt increments. 

The power of 20 mW that julian used to WSPR can be compared with 400 mW in CW. (13 dB --> 20x)

Today I visited the WSPR database to make the following analysis.
In each spot I calculated the lowest power what could be used, to be received with a SNR of -29 dB.
The stronger the signal, the lower the lowest possible power.
The stations that received the strongest signals are ON7KO (600 km), LA9JO 1900 km) and ND6M (6600 km)

Beeldenlaan

Het lange pad.

Moet je eens kijken, 

het is nu vijf voor vier. 

T'is het maar tien minuten lopen

van daar naar hier.

Gisteren ben ik met de eFiets naar Rhijnauwen geweest om te wandelen.
Het was heerlijk zonnig weer.
Aan het eind van de Beeldenlaan van Oud Amelisweerd naar de Vossengatsedijk, realiseerde ik mij dat ik over dat pad slechts tien minuten gedaan had.

Aanvulling:
De foto heb ik genomen na mijn bezoek aan de tentoonstelling van Armando
in Oud Amelisweerd vorig jaar in oktober. Presentatie in Prezi.
Halverwege de Beeldenlaan had ik het zo warm, dat ik mijn jas heb uitgedaan.

Merry Christmas

Click to enlarge

My personal Christmas card shows winter pictures of my favorite canoe spot.
The water is called: "Oude Zederik" and runs from Meerkerk to the river Lek.
It's a beautiful area with water and reedbeds.
The windmill is rebuild in recent years and is visible from the A27.

Young artist

Glijbaan - The slide  -  Click to enlarge

The young artist at work

The original drawing

 
This weekend our granddaughters stay with us.
On Saturday the younger of the two (4) made a drawing.
My granddaughter had asked me, how I made the colors on a drawing, that I have made.
So I sugested to color her drawing, while she was painting another drawing.
The young artist said: WOW, when I showed her the drawing with the colors. hi

Our elder granddaugther painted birds

 

On Sunday it started to rain, when we had planned to go to the park.
So it was time for panting.

When the rain stopped, we went to the park.

PA1B/QRP receives beautiful Award in the Black Sea Cup International

Click to enlarge    
BSCI Award for PA1B   

This beautiful Award I received for the particpation in the
Black Sea Cup International.
This contest is organized by the Black Sea Contest Club.
Contests like the BSCI offer a great opportunity to work with the lowest possible power.
When the S-meter goes up, my power goes down.

In just two hours I made 25 QSO's with the lowest possible power in each QSO.
Because I used the lowest possible power, 22 of the 25 QSO's,
were made with more than 1000 Miles per Watt.
--->  Click to see the overview.

Thanks to the BSCC.

CS8/PA1B First day of operation

Light weight keyer in the foreground  

It's great to take a station with you on holiday.
But when I am on holiday, I am on holiday and not on a DX expedition.
In general I make a few QSO's each day and a modest number of QSO's in a contest in the weekend.

On holiday I made a total of 72 QSO. On the first day I made 11 QSO's. On other days  I made a few QSO's each day. On the last days 47 QSO's were made in the YODX HF contest.


First day as CS8/PA1B
The first day of operation I made 6 QSO's in the RDA contest.
After I returned home after the holiday, I discovered that, because of the low power and the distance to UA2 and UA3, all QSO's in the RDA contest a made with more than 1000 Miles per Watt. hi
The first day it is always exciting, because I am curious which countries and continents can be reached.
After making some QSO in the RDA contest I made some QSO's outside of the contest. See table at the right.

Most of the time I work with Search and Pounce.

The signal of PT7FLA was very strong, so I used just 360 mW.

2 Way QRP QSO with N5EEI
I never hunt for other QRP stations, so when I gave CQ with 2.7 watts,  I was amazed to meet another QRP station.
Dave N5EEI reported that he worked with 5 watts into a dipole 10m up. 

I was lucky to use just 1.8 watts in most QSO's on the first days, since most of the QSO's resulted in a more than 1000 Miles per Watt QSO.

Antenna
The antenna was placed  just before the RDA contest.
I placed the antenna on the roof, together with João of the technical service to get access to the roof.
The antenna wire with a lenght of of 20 meters, ran from the balcony up to the roof and then to a point a few meters above the roof. The antenna did a great job.

The antenna at CS8/PA1B

After we booked our holiday to hotel Royal Garden in Porto Delgada on the island Saõ Miguel, I hesitated wheter I should take the portable station with me.
But I am glad, that I did bring along my FT-817 on the 12V - 4Ah battery.

Activity
In the months before the holiday, I figured out that the YODX HF contest fall into our holiday. This is a very fine contest in which everyone works everyone.
If I could use a 20 m long wire, as I did in 2011 on holiday on Terceira, (click to read the article)
I would have great fun in the YO DX contest.
So I decided to take the FT-817 with me.
But at that time I was not sure, whether it would be a success.

The problems:
My FT-817 has a maximum power of 2.7 watts.
On holiday I operate from a 12V-4Ah battery, so the power will be even lower.
The extra weight of the heavy FT-817 and the battery.
Further I did not know, whether I could put up an antenna.
But most of all, if I could only use an antenna in the central garden, it was possible
that all signals from the antenna could be blocked completely.
The XYL does'nt want to be visible while helping lowering a wire from the balcony.

Antenna
At first I tried to make a end-fed sloper from the balcony into the garden, but in the proces of
lowering the wire, the wire got stuck and my wife refused to help any further. End of part one.
When I mentioned, a few days later, that the roof would be the best place for an antenna, my
wife said: "ask the reception".
The lady of the reception (Graça) was very supportive.
I showed her the licence with the authorization to use a portable station from a hotel.
She first contacted the manager and then the men of the technical service to get the access to the roof.
So later that day, the 20 meter wire was "flying above the roof". WOW.
Thanks to Joaõ, for us putting the antenna up together and to Miguel to remove the antenna.

Feeding the antenna
I don't like antennas with a difficult earth system.
So on holiday I use a end fed antenna which is fed like a Zepp via a 300 oms ribbon.
For more info see the article on my site: The QRP holiday transmatch.  (Click)
The 300 ohm ribbon from the room to the wire has a lenght of 4.8 meters.
The ribbon transforms the high impedance of the feeding point of the wire into
a lower impedance at the transmatch, which is connected to the transmitter.

Starting on the 17th of August until the 25th of August a total of 72 QSO's was made.
So the antenna was working very well.

Ponta Delgada

View from the room

We had a wonderful holiday in Ponta Delgada on the Azores.
This year we visited the beautiful island of Saõ Miguel.
We stayed in hotel Royal Garden, which is a hotel in Chinese style. The rooms that are situated around the garden all face to the garden.
We choose for Porta Delgada, because it has a ancient city centre in walking distance from the hotel.

In the center of the city you find the square with the gates.

Two pictures of the boulevard. Avida in Portugees.