Tag Archives: VHF/UHF

Featured, Field Day, General, Newsletter, On The Air

Field Day Operators Take Note – 10m and 6m are Open

I spent a little time this morning evaluating the band conditions on 10m and 6m in preparation for our upcoming Field Day Operations this weekend. To try for an “apples to apples” test, I used the antennas here with FT8 at 10 W input power. Our field day setup will have 1/2 the number of elements as we have here but we will be running 100 W so I believe the is to be a reasonable test. The beam heading for my tests was 260 degrees – the same as we will be using for Field Day.

As you can see from the image above, 10m was open for a good portion of the USA at 9:30 am this morning local time.

FT8 QSO with North Dakota on 10m
FT8 QSO with North Dakota on 10m

I made quite a few QSOs on 10m including several to the western states.

6m Band Opening
6m Band Opening

The 6m Band was also wide open and I was able to make about 40 contacts this morning include several to California and Arizona.

The openings on 6m and 10m were most likely a result of E-skip propagation. You can see the current propagation conditions on these bands here.

Digital, CW, SSB, and 6m operators at Field Day take note – its important to take advantage of openings on 10m and 6m during Field Day. These bands were not only open for FT8 digital but I am sure they supported SSB and CW contacts as well.

Fred, AB1OC

Featured, Field Day, General, Newsletter, On The Air, Space

International Space Station Could be Active for ARRL Field Day

The folks who are operating our satellite station during Field Day this weekend will want to be sure to monitor for possible crew activity from the ISS. The following is a summary of the ISS passes at our Field Day site:

DateTimeAzimuth Elevation
Rise: 2018/06/23 13:01:30 305.2 0.0
Max: 2018/06/23 13:06:40 17.8 24.6
Set: 2018/06/23 13:11:47 89.2 0.0
Rise: 2018/06/23 14:37:59 302.2 0.0
Max: 2018/06/23 14:43:25 210.2 75.3
Set: 2018/06/2314:48:45 129.0 0.0
Rise: 2018/06/23 16:15:10 282.3 0.0
Max: 2018/06/23 16:19:19 231.5 9.1
Set: 2018/06/23 16:23:25 180.7 0.0
Rise: 2018/06/24 07:18:28 202.10.0
Max: 2018/06/24 07:23:25 134.1 21.3
Set: 2018/06/2407:28:25 66.9 0.0
Rise: 2018/06/24 08:54:20 248.1 0.1
Max: 2018/06/2408:59:41332.4 51.3
Set: 2018/06/24 09:05:05 54.9 0.0
Rise: 2018/06/24 10:31:43283.5 0.0
Max: 2018/06/24 10:36:42351.0 19.2
Set: 2018/06/24 10:41:4258.10.0
Rise: 2018/06/24 12:09:01 303.1 0.1
Max: 2018/06/24 12:14:03 11.720.1
Set: 2018/06/24 12:19:03 79.4 0.0
Rise: 2018/06/24 13:45:36 304.7 0.0
Max: 2018/06/24 13:51:01 31.6 61.0
Set: 2018/06/24 13:56:22 116.1 0.0
Activities, Featured, General, Newsletter, On The Air

N1FD Multiop First Place in 2017 June VHF Contest from SOTA

Chalk up another contest certificate for the Nashua Area Radio Society! We activated Pack Monadnock as part of our SOTA activities last year during the June VHF Contest.

Anita, AB1QB and Curtis, N1CMD Operating in the June VHF Contest
Anita, AB1QB, and Curtis, N1CMD Operating in the June VHF Contest

Anita AB1QB, Curtis N1CMD, and I set up a battery/solar powered 6m station to work the contest and we received a certificate for our entry.

Portable 6M Antenna
Portable 6M Antenna

We used a 3 element yagi on a 25 ft mast and a 100W radio for our operation and we had a lot of fun!

We have another SOTA activation coming up on Mt. Kearsarge this weekend on Saturday, June 9th. You can read more about those plans here.

Don’t miss it!

Fred, AB1OC

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