Sp.E 28MHz fun!

[G6Tanuki]

Today has been horribly wet, so I took my little Clansman PRC320 up to the summer-house and - running on batteries, with only the standard Clansman whip-antenna, I happily worked a bunch of stations.

Southern France, Spain, Portugal, Poland, loads of Italians, Montenegro, Slovakia, Switzerland, Austria, Southern Germany, Egypt, Israel.

It's amazing what 25 Watts can do when the atmosphere's looking upon you favourably.

[Alas, with the closedown of Band-I broadcast VHF TV we've lost the opportunity to watch Italian soap-operas or Spanish horseracing which I remember from the 70s and 80s.]

[Superscope]

27 Mhz has been the same for the last couple of Days.

French, German and Spanish Stations coming in on FM
at very high levels.
Which was sort of odd, since I was on Uk frequencies
which are not part of the European CB allocation.

The real surprise was yesterday, when Ireland was coming in
loud and clear on FM and about 8 Channels were broadcasting
Live Church Services!
Never heared of that before!

I guess that's one way of populating the empty CB frequencies.

Still, CB regulations do allow business use, so no disregard of
regulations going on there, unless of course they were coming
from the Irish Republic!

A lot quieter today though.



Ian

[SiriusHardware]

There was a change in the rules many years ago now to allow 'Community' use of CB frequencies in the UK and presumably in The Republic of Ireland as well. I recall having heard what were apparently sermons in Irish accents during short-skip events on 27MHz.

[Radio Wrangler]

6m and 4m have also been lively

David

[SiriusHardware]

Is there anywhere I can go to or sign up to to get 'live' reports of SP-E on 10m-6m-4m? I never seem to be around when they happen. I could keep an eye on an SDR website like Hack Green, but then I'd have to monitor it.

Yes, I'm probably the laziest radio amateur on earth.

[Jon_G4MDC]

DX Cluster? Select 10m only spots.

Here's one. No particular recommendation, it was top of the Google list.

https://www.dxwatch.com/dxsd1/dxsd1.php?f=12

You can specify mode as well to filter out the FT8 which counts for a good many spots and doesn't interest me.

Pity that one can't seem to do SSB and CW only SSB or CW but you could have separate windows open for each.

[G6Tanuki]

Originally Posted by SiriusHardware

Is there anywhere I can go to or sign up to to get 'live' reports of SP-E on 10m-6m-4m? I never seem to be around when they happen.

I prefer the 'live' approach: I've got an old and somewhat-deaf[1] AOR AR1000 scanner receiver that I leave to itself wandering over 28-29MHz with the squelch turned-up-rather-high. Fed from a 28MHz loft-dipole whose polar-diagram favours the South-East, if the squelch starts opening I know fun is afoot.

[1]it's probably deaf because of several decades being connected to 'full-size' antennas while I'm squirting a few hundred Watts of RF around on harmonically-related frequencies. I wonder just what voltage would be produced by a 28MHz dipole when it's only 15 Metres from a longwire radiating 175W of SSB on 3.5MHz?

[SiriusHardware]

I suppose a low-tech version of that would be to leave an HF receiver (TS-50 in my case) listening to 27.555MHz with the squelch set fairly high - probably the first frequency which really livens up when there is a SP-E lift on 10/11.

[M0AFJ, Tim]

6M has been great over the last few days, lots of W’s, St Kitts and Nevis, Chad etc etc. It’s always worth keeping an eye on ON4KST and live MUF

[Richard - F4VPR]

Originally Posted by SiriusHardware

Is there anywhere I can go to or sign up to to get 'live' reports of SP-E on 10m-6m-4m? I never seem to be around when they happen. I could keep an eye on an SDR website like Hack Green, but then I'd have to monitor it.

Yes, I'm probably the laziest radio amateur on earth.

You and me both!

I use DX maps too and you can set email warnings for openings, they're not always accurate but handy all the same.

Set the mode pull-down to accept what you want.

R.

[electronicskip]

27/28Mhz is still very busy this morning over all UK / European bands . lots of different signals coming through on AM/FM/SSB etc.

[SiriusHardware]

I was hearing quite a bit of activity on 10m last night (Tuesday) after 6pm which suggested that the activity during the day must have been quite boisterous. I'm stuck at work during the day, unfortunately. No doubt the activity will have subsided when I'm finally free at the weekend.

[electronicskip]

Still activity on 10m also today although not as much as 11/12m just come back in from the workshop and all euro channels are buzzing away.

[G3VKM_Roger]

Heard the new Irish 40MHz beacon today, a good haul from the west oast of Eire to Norfolk. It's on 40.016 MHz CW and (?) PI4 code. Call sign is EI1CAH.

[SiriusHardware]

10m still lively at the time of posting this (Teatime, Wednesday). 10/11 are the last HF bands I can still enjoy as they are proportionately less badly affected by all the urban QRM which so badly affects lower HF bands. It's a shame 10/11 isn't 'up' all the time like it is now.

[Tea_Bot]

Originally Posted by SiriusHardware

Is there anywhere I can go to or sign up to to get 'live' reports of SP-E on 10m-6m-4m? I never seem to be around when they happen. I could keep an eye on an SDR website like Hack Green, but then I'd have to monitor it.

Yes, I'm probably the laziest radio amateur on earth.

Try the DX robot
I follow it on twitter and get loads of alerts when stuck at work, or away from a radio..

https://amunters.home.xs4all.nl/index.html

[SiriusHardware]

I did take a quick look at that link and was surprised to see that 10m is absent from the status indicators on the landing page although 6m is there and if 6 is up then 10 generally is.

Still, it's possible for 10 to be open and 6 not, so I'd like to see a flag for 10m there as well.

[SiriusHardware]

Evening, Tuesday 8th June - strong European signals on every EU CB channel, a couple of continental stations working the UK on 27/81 frequencies as well. I don't have a 10m mobile with me but conditions are likely to be good there as well.

[Spec-chum]

Originally Posted by SiriusHardware

Evening, Tuesday 8th June - strong European signals on every EU CB channel, a couple of continental stations working the UK on 27/81 frequencies as well. I don't have a 10m mobile with me but conditions are likely to be good there as well.

Yes it was very busy this evening I was just listening sat in my garden with my little Yupiteru scanner and they were booming in. Also heard a German fellow on 10m was working many station around the world. He did mention in his calls he was using a 1K linear though.

[Steve G4WCS]

11m wide open to europe and getting GB3VHF at good readability