RSGB GB2RS News Bulletin for July 17th 2022.

GB2RS News

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 if you want more information, please contact the NRC coordinator, Martyn G0GMB at [email protected].

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 the 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, M0TEB 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 [email protected]. 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 9.30 am. 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 £3 per person. Sorry but no dogs are 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 £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 activities. QSL via his home callsign.

Paul, W7NZJ will be active as FS/W7NZJ from St. Martin, NA-105, 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 the signal report, serial number and transmission power.

On Monday, the RSGB FT4 Contest runs from 1900 to 2030UTC on the 3.5, 7 and 14MHz bands. 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 has 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 an 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.