RSGB GB2RS News Bulletin for January 5th 2020.

GB2RS NEWS

Sunday 5th January 2020

The news headlines:

Happy New Year

GB3EG now on-air in Wigan

New Tropo records on 2m and 70cm

The news team and all the staff at RSGB HQ would like to wish our newsreaders, listeners and online readers a very Happy New Year. We would like to remind everyone that we always welcome your news, by email to [email protected], and the deadline is 10 am sharp on Thursday mornings. The GB2RS script is uploaded to the RSGB website by 4.30 pm each Friday afternoon.

The GB3EG repeater, located in Wigan, is now on the air. It is an analogue repeater with no internet connection activity. The location is at the QTH of 2E0SAF, approximately 200ft above sea level, with a mast 11.5m above ground level. Its RF output is a 7dBW, that’s about five watts but has had some good reports from further afield. It is accessed by 82.5Hz CTCSS tone only, and the operating frequencies are 430.9125MHz and 438.5125MHz with narrow deviation.

Congratulations to Ian, GM3SEK who set a new 70cm world record distance on tropo on the 28th of December by working D41CV at a distance of 4,565km. That put him in the unique position of holding both EME and tropo records on that band as, back on the 12th of March 1989, he worked ZL3AAD at 18,970km. On the 1st of January, Callum, GM0EWX on the Isle of Skye managed to work D41CV on 2m FT8. This now extends the 144MHz IARU Region 1 tropo record to 4,776km.

The new EI1KNH 5 metre beacon is now operational from its site near Enniskerry in County Wicklow. The transmit frequency is 60.013MHz. It shares the site with 70MHz beacon EI4RF and the 50MHz EI0SIX. For additional information please visit the QRZ.com entries.

All amateurs are required to revalidate their licence with Ofcom at least every five years. If it has been a while since you did that, go to www.ofcom.org.uk/manage-your-licence or email [email protected]. The process doesn’t take very long.

And now for the details of rallies and events for the coming week

We have no details of rallies in January. The first couple of the year will be the Barry ARS Table Top Sale on the 1st of February and the South Essex ARS Canvey Rally on the 2nd of February.

Please send details of your rally and event plans as soon as possible to [email protected] – we give you valuable publicity online, in RadCom and on GB2RS, all for free.

And now the DX news from 425 DX News and other sources

Sergey, RX3AMY will be active holiday style as 8Q7BS from the Maldives, IOTA reference AS-013, until the 23rd of January. He will operate SSB and some CW on the 40 and 20m bands. QSL via his home call.

SP3PS will be active as C5SP from The Gambia until the 17th of January. He will operate SSB and FT8/FT4. QSL via his home call and Logbook of The World.

Jon, EA1VE will be active as HC2JKT from Puna Island, SA-034, in Ecuador from the 10th to the 30th of January. He will operate SSB on the 40 to 6m bands. QSL via his home call.

Now the special event news

From Monday until next Sunday, Hilderstone Radio Society will be operating GB1RNLI from the RNLI lifeboat station in Margate.

TM70TAAF will be activated by François, F8DVD from the 12th to the 26th of January. The special callsign commemorates the 70th anniversary of the first amateur radio contacts with French Southern and Austral Territories that took place in January 1950. TM70TAAF will be operated from Mâcon, 60km north of Lyon in France. QSL via the bureau, direct with SASE and Logbook of The World. More information is on QRZ.com.

ARI Fidenza will use a series of special callsigns throughout 2020 to commemorate twelve major events and achievements in Marconi’s life. In January, the callsign will be II4BRN to commemorate his birth in 1874.

Please send special event details to [email protected] as early as possible. We have not received special event station info from Ofcom in recent months so you MUST let us know to get your event publicised here on GB2RS, in RadCom, and online.

Now the contest news

The ARRL RTTY Roundup ends its 30-hour run at 2359UTC today, the 5th of January. Using the 3.5 to 28MHz contest bands the exchange is signal report and serial number, with US stations sending their State and Canadian stations their Province.

The second session of the EUCW 160m CW Party runs from 0400 to 0700UTC today, the 5th. The exchange depends on whether you are a member of various CW clubs. Details are at www.eucw.org.

On Tuesday the 144MHz FM Activity Contest runs from 1900 to 1955UTC, using FM only, with the exchange of signal report, serial number and locator. It runs simultaneously with the 144MHz Machine Generated Modes contest, where the exchange is signal report and 4-character locator. This is immediately followed by the all-mode 144MHz UK Activity Contest, which runs from 2000 to 2230UTC. The exchange for this one is signal report, serial number and locator.

On Thursday the 50MHz Machine Generated Mode contest runs from 1900 to 1955UTC. The exchange is signal report and 4-character locator. It is immediately followed by the all-mode 50MHz UK Activity Contest from 2000 to 2230UTC. The exchange for this contest is signal report, serial number and locator.

Next Sunday, the 12th, the Datamodes AFS takes place from 1300 to 1700UTC. Using the 3.5 and 7MHz bands, the exchange is signal report and serial number.

Don’t forget that the UK Six Metre Group’s Winter Marathon and runs until the end of January. There are no specific operating modes or periods. Just work as many locator squares as you can on the 50MHz band.

Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on Friday January 3rd.

After the two new Solar Cycle 24 sunspots that appeared last week, we now have another spot developing in the Sun’s south-west quadrant. Don’t get too excited though, as the last two spots soon disappeared and this one might not amount to much either. It is, however, a positive sign that the next cycle is coming, albeit slowly.

Conditions have been settled geomagnetically, which has been good for the ionosphere. Maximum usable frequencies have reached 18MHz at times, although 7 and 14MHz have been more reliable during the day. There have been more interesting signals on the lower bands – 160, 80 and 40m – after dark. January is a good month for propagation on these bands, with the long periods of darkness meaning no D-layer absorption. DX can start to appear on 40m during the late afternoon and may continue throughout the night if the MUF stays high enough. Propquest.co.uk, which shows the results from the Chilton ionosonde, suggests this may be possible at times. Otherwise, NOAA predicts that the solar flux index will remain in the range 70-72 this week, with the Kp index hitting a maximum of two, thanks to a lack of coronal hole activity. This means conditions should remain roughly similar to last week.

And now the VHF and up propagation news.

Tropo records tumbled last week with the D41CV team on Cape Verde working British Isles stations on 144 and 432MHz via FT8. On the 31st of December they had a world record 432MHz QSO with GM3SEK at 4621km, then on New Year’s Day worked GM0EWX at 4776km on 144MHz FT8 to break the 144MHz record. Irish Sea tropo coupled into the Azores high tropo region to make the contacts possible. Love it or loathe it, FT8, combined with social media posting of activity has really made these super-tropo paths visible by making people more aware that something is happening.

This exceptional tropo weather has just taken a pause for now, but with high pressure remaining over the continent for much of the coming week, tropo should still be a feature although probably not of the scale of last weekend. The preferred directions will be from southern Britain into northern Europe and again across Biscay to northern Spain. The northern parts of the UK will be rather windy at times as low pressure drives a series of fronts across northern areas and occasionally down into southern Britain. This could provide some rain scatter on the microwave bands.

Moon declination is positive and reaches a peak on Friday so good Moon availability all week. Path losses are falling so EME conditions will improve throughout the week.

The peak of the Quadrantids shower is over but meteor activity will still be above normal, so keep looking for meteor scatter contacts on the VHF bands.

And that’s all from the propagation team this week.