RSGB GB2RS News Bulletin for June 21st 2020.

GB2RS NEWS

Sunday the 21st of June 2020

The news headlines:

Important RSGB Convention announcement

Tonight @ 8: Antennas for small gardens

Amateur awarded Order of Australia

In response to the UK’s continuing social distancing regulations, the RSGB Convention Committee has changed the arrangements for the RSGB Convention on the 9th to the 11th October. Instead of the physical Convention in Milton Keynes, the RSGB is instead holding an Online Convention on Saturday the 10th of October. Whether you’re a new licensee or have been enjoying amateur radio for many years, there will be a range of topics from expert speakers that you can enjoy free throughout the day. The RSGB will announce further details of the presentations and how to take part over the coming weeks.

Don’t forget the RSGB’s new series of webinars that began on the 15th of June. The next “Tonight @ 8” is on the 29th of June and is a presentation on Antennas for small gardens by Steve Nichols, G0KYA. You can watch the live stream and ask questions on either the RSGB YouTube channel or the special Tonight @ 8 channel on the BATC website, https://batc.org.uk/live/RSGB. You can find out more about all the webinars at www.rsgb.org/webinars and you can also watch previous talks in the series at the same site.

Tony Hutchison, VK5ZAI has received the Order of Australia in the Queen’s birthday honours list for significant service to amateur radio, particularly to satellite and space communication. Amongst his many roles, he is the National Coordinator and one of 10 official ARISS VHF/UHF telebridge stations to the International Space Station and a HamTV ground station. Congratulations Tony.

Following the election of Len Paget, GM0ONX as a Board Director at the recent AGM, the RSGB Board has asked the General Manager, Steve Thomas, M1ACB to take on the additional role of Company Secretary. The Board would like to record its thanks to Len for the time he has given as Company Secretary over the last year.

The RSGB and NHS ‘Get on the air to care’ campaign was the focus of a webinar for healthcare professionals this week. Roy Lilley, Director of the Academy of Fabulous Stuff and the Institute of Healthcare Management interviewed RSGB General Manager, Steve Thomas and Paul Devlin who is part of the NHS England Emergency Care Improvement Support Team and also an RSGB District Representative. The webinar was a wide-ranging discussion of the origins of GB1NHS, the scope of the ‘Get on the air to care’ campaign as well as the benefits of amateur radio for health and wellbeing and for reaching global communities who do not have internet connections. You can watch the webinar on the Society’s YouTube channel www.youtube.com/theRSGB.

The Software Defined Radio Academy, supported by the German National Society, is taking place as an online conference on the 26th and 27th of June. The talks are pre-recorded, but the speakers will be available via the video conferencing system to respond to questions. See https://youtube.sdra.io.

Now the special event news

Since the change of regulations applying to special event stations in the UK, many activations are now able to go ahead. UK amateurs would like to thank Ofcom for their help in making this happen.

The 28th of June is the Centenary of the Royal Corps of Signals. The Royal Signals Museum has a permanent special event callsign, GB100RSM, but due to the Covid-19 restrictions they cannot run the station from the museum. The station will instead run from the home QTH of G3WZP in IO90BR. Activity will be until the end of June on the 40, 20 and 17m bands, using SSB and CW. Skeds are welcome.

Another Royal Corps of Signals centenary station is GB100RS Royal Signals, operating from Bishop Auckland. It will start operating on the 28th of June. Full details of the centenary stations and their operations can be found at https://rsars.org.uk/rsars-corps-celebrations-2020/.

On the 26th of June GB1GSW will be on the air to commemorate the railway pioneer George Stevenson. See QRZ.com for the latest information.

Now the contest news

Please remember to check before the events for new rules due to lockdown and social distancing, which may differ around the world. RSGB strongly advises obeying your own government’s advice first and foremost.

The 50MHz Trophy contest ends its 24-hour run at 1400UTC today, the 21st. Using all modes, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator.

The All Asian DX contest ends its 48-hour run at 2359UTC today the 21st. It’s CW only on the 1.8 to 28MHz contest bands, with the exchange being signal report and your age.

The Worked All Britain 50MHz phone contest takes place today, the 21st of June, from 0800 to 1400UTC. The exchange is signal report, serial number and WAB square for UK stations. Details are at www.worked-all-britain.org.uk.

Today, the 21st, the UK Microwave Group contest takes place on the 24 to 248GHz bands. Running from 0900 to 1700UTC, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator.

On Tuesday the SHF UK Activity Contest runs from 1830 to 2130UTC. Using all modes on the 2.3 to 10GHz bands, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator.

On Wednesday the UK EI Contest Club Summer Series runs from 1800 to 1900UTC. It’s CW only on the 3.5MHz band, with the exchange being you 6-character locator.

The 80m Club Championships SSB leg takes place between 1900 and 2030UTC on Thursday. The exchange is signal report and serial number.

Next weekend, the UK Microwave Group’s 5.7 and 10GHz bands contest runs from 0600 to 1800 on the 28th. Using all modes, the exchange is signal report and serial number.

Also next Sunday, the 28th, the 50MHz CW contest runs from 0900 to 1200UTC. It’s CW only and the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator.

The 7MHz Cumulative contest runs from 1400 to 1600UTC on the 28th. Using all modes, the exchange is signal report, serial number and locator.

The UK Six Metre Group’s Summer Marathon runs until the 2nd of August. Using all modes on the 50MHz band, the exchange is your 4-character locator.

Now the radio propagation report, compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on Friday the 19th of June.

We had another week dominated by Sporadic-E HF contacts. Ten metres has been open daily to Europe and often until very late at night. There have been reports of USA and Japanese FT8 contacts from the UK during the day, continuing almost to midnight. By Thursday signal levels appeared to be dropping off at first but, by 1100UTC, Canada and the USA was rolling in via multi-hop Sporadic-E.

Many people have been heard saying that HF propagation is taking off and that the Sun has woken up again. The truth is that Sporadic-E is not due to sunspots, and as we head towards July and August we can expect the Sporadic-E openings to become less frequent. On this subject, the Sun has been very quiet with zero spots and an SFI of below 70. There has been an absence of coronal holes, other than at the Sun’s poles, which has helped keep the Kp index down to two and below.

F2 layer propagation is suffering from the summer doldrums, although there have been virtually daily reports of Jim, E51JD on South Cook Islands being worked on 20m SSB.

Daytime critical frequencies remain in the range of 4 to 5MHz but are tending to be slightly higher just after sunset. This means that 20 metres may be remaining open to DX until nearly midnight local time. And it does suggest that 30 metres might remain open to DX all night. This is not unusual, as it is due to a change in ionospheric chemistry in the summer, with higher MUFs at night, but lower MUFs during the day compared with winter.

This weekend marks the Summer Solstice, traditionally a time when F2-layer DX is harder to come by. But with the Sporadic-E season well underway there is still plenty to keep HF enthusiasts happy.

And now the VHF and up propagation news.

As we said in the HF section, we are still firmly in the midst of the Sporadic-E season and the savvy operators will be keeping a constant watch for Sporadic-E, starting on 10m and working up to 2m as an event develops. To save spending a whole day on it, we would also suggest looking mid-morning and again late afternoon or early evening. In most years, openings can still occur into the first week of September, but from now onwards the openings become less frequent, hence the need to develop your own early warning routines to make sure none are missed. Check the www.propquest.co.uk daily blogs to get some hints.

It is likely to be a mixed spell of weather throughout the coming week with elements of high pressure at times giving occasional Tropo, especially across the North Sea and south across Biscay. Remember Tropo paths are usually quite long-lasting, so there’s no need to rush as you do with Sporadic-E.

The other half of the mixed weather types involve heavy showers, sometimes thunderous with hail too. This is all good news for the microwave operators, giving a chance of some rain scatter propagation. The only way to work this on a day-by-day basis is to have some idea of where the showers are; there are many good online radar displays to help you with that.

Moon declination reaches a maximum on Monday and is positive all week. Path losses are falling and 144MHz sky temperatures are low from tomorrow.

Continue looking for the best meteor scatter conditions around local dawn and take advantage of the continuing high activity levels due to many people still home working.

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