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G4TNU > NEWS 17.07.22 01:35l 202 Lines 9087 Bytes #999 (0) @ EU
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Subj: RSGB Main News - 17 Jul 2022
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GB2RS Main News for Sunday the 17th of July 2022
The news headlines:
* National Radio Centre seeks volunteers
* Antarctic Stations due to be active
* Unknown interference appearing on 15m band
The RSGB National Radio Centre at Bletchley Park is looking to
recruit volunteers, particularly for duties on Mondays, Thursdays and
at the weekend. If you think this volunteer role is for you, or it
you want more information, please contact the NRC co-ordinator,
Martyn, G0GMB on nrcsupport<at>rsgb.org.uk.
The Argentine Antarctic Stations at San Martin, AN-016, Belgrano II,
AN-016, and Marambio, AN-013, are expected to be active on 14.190MHz
every Saturday in July between 1300 and 1800UTC. Look for the
callsigns LU1ZD, LU1ZG and LU4ZS respectively. QSL all three stations
via LU4DXU.
The IARU Region 1 Monitoring Service Newsletter for June 2022 is now
available. You can read about a new unknown signal on the 15m band.
It was present on 21.0035MHz for several days with long-lasting
transmissions. It was also received several times in the vicinity of
21.122MHz. There were also several unknown signals on the 40 and 20m
bands. You can read the whole newsletter at iaru-r1.org.
The two-part Scandinavian Activity Contest was due to take place on
the 17th and 18th of September for the CW leg and the 8th and 9th of
October for the SSB leg. The SAC Contest Committee has unanimously
decided to cancel this year's two sections of the Contest. The
decision has been made due to the ongoing war in the region and in
consideration of the IARU declaration about friendship between
people.
The RSGB has appointed two new District Representatives and they are
welcomed into their new roles. Craig Langman, M7LAN has taken on
District 51, Warwickshire. Martyn Bell, M0TEM has taken on District
31, Cumbria. There are other District Representative vacancies around
the country. Check out your Region on the RSGB website.
ARRL has advised that IARU HF Championship logs submitted between
0000UTC and 2000UTC on Sunday the 10th of July have not been received
correctly. The ARRL reports that if your log is not in the list of
logs received on the contest section of the website, please resubmit
the log via contest-log-submission.arrl.org.
The International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend is due to take
place from 0000UTC on the 20th of August to 2359UTC on the 21st.
Around 250 entries have registered so far from all around the world.
You can find out more at illw.net.
And now for details of rallies and events
Please send your rally and event news as soon as possible to
radcom<at>rsgb.org.uk. We'll publicise your event in RadCom, on
GB2RS, and online.
Today, the 17th of July, the McMichael Amateur Radio Rally & Car Boot
Sale will take place at Reading Rugby Club, Sonning Lane, Reading
RG4 6ST. Doors open at 9.30am. There will be a large car boot area
and plenty of free parking for sellers and buyers. Refreshments will
be available on site. Admission is GBP 3 per person. Sorry but no
dogs allowed, except for assistance dogs, which is a site rule.
Next Sunday, the 24th of July, the Finningley ARS Rally is due to
take place near Doncaster, junction 2 of the M180. It will be a car
boot style rally. Refreshments will be available on site. Entry is
GBP 3. You can find out more via the club's Facebook page.
Please note that the Angel of the North Radio Club Radio Rally, due
to take place on the 17th of September, has had to be cancelled.
Now the DX news
Pete, ZL4TE will be active as E51RMP from Aitutaki, OC-083 on the
18th and 19th of July. He will also be active from Rarotonga, OC-013,
on the 20th and 21st of July. Both locations count as the South Cook
Islands for DXCC purposes. He is planning some HF QRP activity. QSL
via his home callsign.
Paul, W7NZJ will be active as FS/W7NZJ from St. Martin, NA-105, on
until the 20th of July. He will operate digital modes on the 10 to
20m bands. QSL via eQSL.
Mike, KI1U will be active as VE9IU from Grand Manan Island, NA-014,
until the 23rd of July. He will operate CW and FT8 on the 6 to 40m
bands. QSL via Logbook of The World, or via KI1U.
Now the Special Event news
On Wednesday, GB1900HA will be operating at Arbeia Roman Fort in
South Shields. It is part of the Hadrian's Wall 1900 Festival. It is
1900 years since the building of Hadrian's Wall and there is a
year-long festival taking place.
OE60STMK is on the air until the 31st of August for the 60th
anniversary of the Styrian regional association within Austria's IARU
society. QSL via the bureau to OE6WIG.
Now the contest news
Today, the 17th of July, the International Low Power Contest runs
from 0900 to 1600UTC. It is CW only on the 3.5, 7 and 14MHz bands.
The exchange is signal report, serial number and your transmit power.
On Monday, the RSGB FT4 Contest runs from 1900 to 2030UTC on the 3.5,
7 and 14MHz band. The exchange is your report and 4-character locator.
Tuesday sees the 1.3GHz UK Activity Contest take place between 1900
and 2130UTC. Using all modes, the exchange is signal report, serial
number and locator.
On Thursday it is the 70MHz UK Activity Contest from 1900 to 2130UTC.
Using all modes, the exchange is signal report, serial number and
locator.
Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA, and G4BAO
on Friday the 15th of July 2022.
We had another rocky journey last week in terms of HF propagation.
The solar flux index climbed from 137 last Saturday to 165 by
Thursday, which should have brought better conditions. But the Earth
was plagued again by unsettled geomagnetic conditions, with the Kp
index hitting four on Monday the 11th and five on Tuesday the 12th.
This was due to an enhanced solar wind, which hit a velocity of 564km
per second and had a strongly south-pointing Bz magnetic field. This
allowed it to more efficiently couple with the Earth's magnetic field
allowing plasma to pour into the polar areas.
HF conditions were typical for this time of year, with lower maximum
frequencies during the day, compared with winter, but higher MUFs at
night.
Daytime F2-layer MUFs over a 3,000km path have generally been between
18 and 21MHz during the day, falling to 10 to 14MHz at night. But the
early hours of the 11th were particularly good with the MUF staying
above 15-16MHz.
The moral of the story is if you should wake up in the middle of the
night, check out your HF radio, you might get a pleasant surprise.
Sporadic-E remains the dominant mode for 10-metre propagation,
bringing strong short-skip contacts around Europe and the potential
for multi-hop DX.
Next week NOAA predicts that the SFI will decline to the 130s,
although their predictions have not been too accurate recently. We
can likely expect reasonably unsettled geomagnetic conditions with a
minimum Kp index of three.
With the current sunspot activity, the solar wind is unlikely to
remain calm for long and more solar flares are very likely.
And now the VHF and up propagation news.
The current very hot and humid weather means that Tropo is fairly
widespread. This can be a significant feature over surrounding seas
as hot dry air from the land drifts out across a cooler moist layer
of air near the sea surface giving almost continuous strong Tropo.
This affects paths across the North Sea, the English Channel and the
Irish Sea as well as farther afield across Biscay and south past
Portugal. The Mediterranean is a hot spot of Tropo during the summer,
and long east-west paths are possible if you take a rig on holiday.
Closer to home, these favourable Tropo conditions come to an end by
midweek as low pressure moves into place over the UK and brings a
chance of heavy thundery showers, with associated GHz band
rain-scatter chances.
Sporadic-E is still prevalent in mid-July and the jet stream pattern
probably favours paths to the Baltic and Scandinavia. A high Kp index
tends to suppress Es chances and this has been rather volatile
lately. It's worth checking this periodically, and the silver lining
of a higher Kp index is a chance of auroral propagation.
As we move towards the end of the month, all four relatively-small
July meteor showers are still active. The largest of these is the
Southern delta-Aquariids, peaking on the 30th of July with a medium
Zenithal Hourly Rate of 25. Remember that random meteor activity is
always there and is best around dawn.
Moon declination goes positive on Monday and we passed perigee last
Wednesday, so Moon visibility time and path losses will increase this
week. 144MHz sky noise is low all week.
And that's all from the propagation team this week.
And that's the end of the main news for this week prepared by the
Radio Society of Great Britain. Items for inclusion in subsequent
bulletins can be emailed to radcom<at>rsgb.org.uk to arrive by
10:00 on the Thursday before transmission.
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