Canada Post / QSLs / Magicband Transformations

Several weeks ago I mused about my interest in earth-mode VLF experiments, following the inspirational exploits of G3XBM in his earth-mode work a few years ago.





His low powered system utilizing a 5W audio IC and simple circuitry produced surprisingly interesting results over several kilometers.

With possible future experimenting in mind, I found a nice low-powered IC audio amplifier kit from China on e-Bay, capable of producing about 18W at 12V ... more with higher voltage and proper heat-sinking.

Whenever buying from China, I look for a dealer with the highest feedback rating and always compare their complaints versus the number of orders shipped. There always seems to be a few that are 99.9 - 100%, which, for me, has always assured that they are probably not selling junk. Anything lower than 98% can often be a red flag.

The kit was just $1.50 and with free-shipping, what's to lose?

A few weeks after I had placed my order, the nightly TV news had a spot regarding the problem that these "free shipping" packets were creating for Canada Post and their customers. It seems that in the past few months, as more and more "free" shipments were arriving from the far east, Canada Post had not been able to keep up with the processing. The news spot showed row upon row of shipping containers parked at the back of Vancouver International's (YVR) postal processing plant, with all of them filled with thousands of small "free" packets waiting to be processed!

It seems that each packet needs to be scanned by the border security folks (CBSA) for illegal material before it can be processed by Canada Post and the back-up was building at a tremendous rate. There appears to be little if any profit for Canada Post with these smaller untracked packages and they are given the lowest priority-rating possible.

In order to speed up the process, both CBSA and Canada Post facilities would need to expand their operational capabilities at the airport and I suspect there is no serious will to do this until pressured politically by angry customers.

All parcels from China that are mailed to Canada stop at Vancouver's YVR before going further. The mammoth recent increase in online "free-shipping", in spite of the normally estimated 3-4 week delivery time, has proven too attractive for customers and our domestic system has failed to meet the new load demands.

With this new information in mind, my e-Bay purchase would prove to be an interesting test of the system and of the TV news spot's accuracy. Normally, I would have expected my tiny parcel to arrive in about 30 days, but mine would be one that eventually ended up in the airport parking lot.

The kit finally arrived this week, with a delivery time of 89 days! Many online sellers will offer an inexpensive option to pay for faster shipping, something that will still take a couple of weeks but much better than three months. If you are given this inexpensive shipping option I would highly recommend that you choose it, and if not, ask for an alternative to "free shipping". Unless something changes soon, delays will continue to increase.

I also wonder, and perhaps you can comment below, are U.S. customers seeing the same long delays as we here in Canada are experiencing when the "free shipping" option is chosen?

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QSLs in my mailbox always excite me ... especially like yesterday's, arriving in a thin light-brown envelope decorated with colorful stamps.





I'm 100% certain this is because of receiving similar-appearing envelopes containing QSL cards during my formative years from age eleven onward and how much enjoyment the cards from shortwave stations all over the world brought me at this young age. For me, there is no replacement for a paper QSL, but sadly, this long-standing tradition is slowly slipping away due to the high cost of mailing even a normal-size envelope.

Earlier this summer I had a nice run of JA's on 6m Es but this time, instead of CW, they were on JT65A. Yesterday's card was for one of the digital contacts.

Signals were weak, at -23 db ... far too weak to be heard on CW but easily readable during the 60 second deep-listen period mandated by the JT65A mode. With so many stations now listening higher in the band for JT-mode signals, there has been very little activity on CW and now, with the introduction of yet another new digital mode, FT8, even the digital activity is split into sections, with neither mode being compatible.

I have held off installing the newer WSJT-X version containing the FT8 fifteen-second transmission mode until all of the bugs are ironed out ... the software will likely be tweaked a few more times yet before it reaches the polished final version we see for JT65 and others. 

FT8 has been designed for weaker 6m Es openings that are often too short in duration for the longer time periods needed by JT65's sixty-second sequences. FT8 contacts can be completed quickly, before short-lived signals can drop out, but the shorter sequences come at the cost of reduced sensitivity ... probably a worthwhile tradeoff.

Conventional mode activity on 6m has suffered tremendously with the introduction of these new modes and it seems that if you want to work weak signal DX (and not all do), sadly it may be digital or nothing at all if the trends continue.

If all of the DX moves from CW to digital, for me, much of the magic will disappear as well. Letting the computer do all of the thinking is not nearly as satisfying or enjoyable as using my brain and CW skills to put a new rare one in the log. Six meters continues to evolve and I'm not overly excited by the direction it seems to be going.

May Moonbounce / More 6m WSJT Observations

Late May's EME activity seemed poorer and less active than the previous month of northern declination moonrises.

Unlike winter's northern moonrises, the summer ones occur close to 'new moon' time and for a few days on the much favored northern path, the moon is too close to the sun, resulting in lower activity and higher noise. As well, with the warmer summer weather, outdoor projects or other summer activities often take priority over ham radio operations at this time of the year.

Nevertheless, I did manage to work five stations with my small station, and added four 'new initials', bringing my total unique-station QSO total to 105 ... it seems there are still plenty of folks out there that I have yet to work!

• VE1KG

• OK1DIX #102

• S53K #103

• IK1UWL #104

• OZ1CT #105

IK1UWL's 4 x 9el cross-polarized array

S53K's 4 x 11el array

OZ1CT's 4 x 10el cross-polarized array

Latest Incoming EME QSLs:

With the summer Sporadic-E season now in full swing, I've had the opportunity to make some early observations regarding the growing use of the weak-signal digital modes. It seems my previous suspicions about the migration from traditional modes to the digital modes is occurring even more rapidly and in much larger numbers than I had expected. Almost all early activity has been concentrated on both JT65 and JT9 modes and most of the chatter on the ON4KST 6m chat page centers around these digital modes.

So far this season I have heard much more DX on JT65 than on CW or SSB, including two stations in Europe on Tuesday (EI4DQ and F5LNU). It seems that many QSO's are taking place with signals that are usually too weak to be heard by ear (~ -16db or weaker) and if listening for CW signals, the band would appear to be pretty much dead. With no full-blown openings to Europe yet, I just wonder if stations will stay put on JT65 or move to the much faster CW mode for making quick contacts when the propagation allows?

Making JT65 contacts is not a particularly fast process, with most QSOs taking a minimum of four minutes, if both operators are well acquainted with the procedures ... longer if not or if QRM or propagation throws a spanner into the works. Some of the newer JT9 sub modes allow for quicker exchanges as does the much less sensitive MSK144 mode but with so many options now available, it's often difficult to get everyone on the same mode or at least figure out what mode you are seeing!

I can see the advantages of using these modes when conditions will not support CW but will still allow digital decodes. If the normal 'weak signal window' can be sustained for a much longer time period than the usually short-lived audible CW-level window, perhaps more stations could actually be worked on these modes even though the QSO rate is much slower. But I still think that many easy CW QSO's will inevitably be missed when operators are watching their digital waterfalls and ignoring the CW end of the band ... of course, if everyone is doing that, then there will be nothing to be heard on CW, even though conditions may well support good signals.

It's a strange new situation and I'm probably not the only one that may be worried about the negative effects of the new weak-signal modes on 6m ... time will tell, but for me, if things keep going along this path, much of 6m's magic may be gone along with it.

Some other initial observations are:

- maybe it's possible to work more DX on weak signal mode, even though it is slower, because of the possibly longer propagation window at sub audible signal levels? ... ie. on a seemingly 'dead band' by ear.

- many are using the wrong sequence when calling for EU or JA. Folks need to pay attention to what sequence the DX is using!

- if your neighbours are running on even or odd sequence, then it might be neighbourly to also use the same sequence to avoid causing disruptive QRM. This seems to go south fast, once the band breaks wide open and it seems like 'every man for himself' ... not unlike 50.125!

- there are too many weak-signal modes and it would be advantageous to settle on a 'standard' mode for 6m DX. It seems as though many are wasting valuable time either switching modes or trying to figure out what mode they are seeing but not decoding! On long haul 6m Es, things change too quickly to waste time.

- there are still a lot of over-driven signals or signals with 60Hz components causing double decodes +/- 60Hz from their main signals.

Digital Revolution Or Evolution?

courtesy: KD0WTE

A recent reflector posting tended to confirm a rather intriguing trend that I have also been noticing over the past few years.



The poster lamented the fact that he often found very few or even no CW / SSB signals on the HF bands while at the same time seeing lots of activity throughout the digital portion of the bands.

It does seem like there is far less CW and phone activity on the HF bands now, than there was a few years ago and there is no question that digital activity has soared. Whether it's RTTY, PSK31, JT65, WSPR, JT9 or others, these digital signals are always prominent and, band plan or not, are slowly migrating further in the band as activity increases ... but is this the reason for the decline of traditional modes?

The digital weak-signal modes make these extremely popular for a number of reasons. Nowadays, many amateurs are living in antenna-restricted communities and are forced to develop smaller, lower and less effective stealthy antenna systems if they wish to get on the air and make contacts. Most of these modes perform well with minimal amounts of power and are capable of hearing well into the noise ... and unless you live out in the country, with well-separated neighbours, we all know that noise is increasing at horrific levels almost everywhere. These two factors alone might well explain much of the growth in digital activity.

Licencing requirements have also been slowly evolving and today, getting a ticket is much easier than it was several decades ago ... and in many cases, without the requirements of knowing anything about CW. Every month, North Americans see a large number of new amateurs, many with no code skills and possibly not much interest in acquiring them. From my own local observations, most of these new amateurs usually head straight to FM on the VHF/UHF bands and have little knowledge of or interest in HF radio. These factors must also play into the demise of activity on the traditional HF modes as well.

We also shouldn't overlook the influence that Old Sol is having on our HF bands as well. Solar Cycle 24 (begun in 2008) has been one of the poorest on record and continues to generate month after month of terribly poor HF propagation. As a young SWL who listened in Cycle 19, (the largest on record), I can vouch for the relationship between HF activity and good propagation. Those were amazing days, when 20 and 15m would stay open all night long ... even 10m would often still be open with F2 propagation at midnight towards VK and ZL! Everyday, month after month, the bands were simply bulging with activity, from end to end ... high solar flux numbers bring high activity numbers and we are now experiencing the downside effects of what happens when the sun dreadfully underperforms. The only exception to band-bulging activity today seems to be limited to major contest weekends only. Where these people go the rest of the time is a mystery.

There are surely other reasons as well for the gradual decline of traditional-mode HF activity, including the fact that the general ham population is getting older. Large numbers of stations are simply 'going away' as interest or opportunity declines and as more of the aging traditional-mode ops go 'SK'. I know of several hams that have just given-up because of insurmountable increases in their local noise floors. Our new and usually younger hams, have largely grown up in the 'digital age' and for those that do find themselves exploring the HF bands without CW skills, might logically settle into the digital modes first.

Things are changing quickly, of that there is no doubt. Last summer, on 50MHz, I noticed a large increase in the number of dedicated CW operators moving to JT65 and JT9 during openings and this summer has already seen another huge migration from one mode to the other.

Although this year's Sporadic-E season is just getting started, I have already heard many more countries on JT65 than I have on the traditional modes (Japan, Philippines, China, Formosa, Alaska, Venezuela, Cuba, Brazil). Yesterday I listened to a PY calling CQ on CW for some length, with no takers, while it seemed most of the usual west coast ops were watching the digital band. I fear that many good QSO possibilities will be lost as more stations switch to the much slower digital modes ... on 6m, many of the openings last for a very short time making CW or SSB the quickest way to complete a contact. The other problem I notice this summer is that there are several JT sub-modes and it is often difficult or impossible to figure out which mode is being used let alone having the time to switch to the other mode before signals are gone ... perhaps a case of having too much of a 'good thing'? Hopefully one mode will emerge as the '6m standard' so all are on the same page.

What will be the long-term outcome of these changes remains to be seen but I suspect we'll see more and more of our HF CW and SSB spectrum space gradually shrinking to make room for more digital activity, likely to become the dominant modes eventually.

As a life-time, almost exclusive CW operator since age 15, I find this somewhat disheartening but must admit that over the past few years, I have found my own level of weak-signal digital activity increasing by leaps and bounds. These are powerful, capable modes and offer amateurs new and exciting challenges from VLF to nanowaves. Are they as exciting as my much-loved CW? Ask me in a couple of years!

JT65 Bringing New Activity To 50MHz

JT65 Waterfall

As mentioned in previous blogs, this summer's Es season on 50MHz has seen a huge increase in the number of stations using the weak-signal JT65 mode.






Although this mode has been around for a few years, for some reason, it really took off this season. I witnessed many long-time, 'CW-forever' operators (myself included), gingerly move up the band to see what this mode could offer.

At first I thought the activity I was seeing was probably mostly from magic-band regulars, who like me, were also curious ... but I now think this is not the case.

Normally, my 6m summertime Es activities result in just one or two stations requesting a QSL to confirm the contact. These are usually guys that either need a VE7 card or are looking to confirm my grid-square ... just a few cards arrive, in spite of many dozens of contacts over the summer months. This summer I noticed a much different pattern.

This summer saw a tenfold increase in the number of QSL requests and every single one was for a JT65 or JT9 digital mode contact! It soon became apparent that these were not 6m diehards that had just moved up the band, but rather, very enthusiastic newcomers to the band ... what an exciting thing to see! Many of the cards did not have any grid-square information ... the telltale sign of all VHF operators. They had discovered the magicband, using JT65.

Perhaps these were mostly 'no-code' amateurs or those living in antenna-challenged situations such as condos or apartments. Whatever the reason, it really is interesting to see such a profound change in 6m operating tactics, by both the veteran ops and by the newcomers ... all happening so quickly. Hopefully some of the new arrivals will venture down the band to try CW or SSB where contacts can be made much more quickly than on the digital modes but all of this new activity is wonderful to see.

Another Rare Visit From The 'Snowman'

Thursday's blog lamenting this summer's poor domestic Sporadic-E season on 6m must have struck a sour note with the propagation gods as Saturday afternoon and evening saw a massive opening to the eastern U.S., Alaska as well as to the Canadian Arctic ... it was even strong enough to show up the next morning and continue on and off for most of the day. Now that's the type of thing we used to see with fair regularity and it was a welcome respite from what has generally been acknowledged, along with last summer, as the poorest Es seasons in many years. The long-lasting, strong-signal opening provided us dedicated 6m junkies with a nice late season flurry of fun, which would not have been out of place had it occurred in mid-June ... maybe the Es 'metamorphosis' eluded to in my last blog also includes an extension of the normal season. Who knows what effect global warming is having on this aspect of natural phenomenon ... there is just not enough yet known about this fascinating mode of propagation that generates so much interest every summer.

The map below shows the 'leftover' activity on Sunday morning ... not as much as Saturday night but still a pretty good showing for the last day of July!

courtesy: http://www.dxmaps.com/spots/map.php

I spent most of my time working this opening on JT65, up at 50.276, and learning the ropes of this fast-growing mode. One thing is abundantly clear however ... ideally, the chosen JT mode for 6m Es should be JT9 and not JT65.

Using JT9 would allow 10 times the number of stations to fit into the present JT-window ... that's 100 JT9 stations instead of 10! With JT65, the window fills-up quickly and the QRM can soon take its toll with the usual ear-splitting strength of Es signals.The waterfall below shows the much narrower, more sensitive JT9 mode on the right compared with the wider JT65 signal on the left.

courtesy: https://sm7vrz.wordpress.com/jt9-english/

I took the opportunity to send out a few JT9 CQ's and did work a number of stations with several of them being well into the -20db range ... too weak for CW but readily worked on JT9. The sensitivity of JT9 will allow two-way contacts to be completed right down to the -27db range, over a one minute transmission period. This is pretty close to the popular WSPR none-QSO mode! I'm surprised that WSPR is so popular on HF when hams could actually be working each other, on-the-air in weak-signal mode JT, instead of relying on a backdoor computer link to see who is hearing their signals ... isn't two-way communication what it's all about? Granted, WSPR beaconing is great for observing propagation trends when you can't be there to watch, and therein lies its utility. Please excuse my short WSJT rant!

Saturday night's opening provided another rare visit from the 6m 'snowman' ... VYØSNO/b, located in Iqaluit, Nunavut in the Canadian Arctic. The beacon is rarely heard as far west as VE7 and it is always a great treat to catch it. It is basically unmaintained so when it fails, may never be repaired ... it's nice to know that its 25 W transmitter is still doing the job. I suspect that if anything fails, it will be the antenna in the brutal Arctic winter weather. The beacon's vertical antenna is located on the top of the high building on the left.

courtesy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org

A little later in the evening, an even rarer beacon made a 599 appearance as well ... VYØYHK/b, located on King William Island, Gjoa Haven, Nunavut. It was pure magic to hear its little 15W transmitter, complete with Arctic 'flutter', pounding into the west coast from above the Arctic Circle.

Sunset at VYØYHK courtesy: https://thesongiliveby.com

courtesy: https://www.google.ca/maps

This short video was made during Saturday evening's opening to the north and before the VYØYHK/b appeared. The weaker beacon on 50.030 is VY1DX in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory.

This morning, as I write this, the band is open to W1 and points to the east ... still some life left in the band yet.

It will be interesting to watch what happens over the next two weeks, when most Es activity on 6m usually folds its tent and quietly disappears until the following May ... let's hope the Fat Lady still needs more practice before pulling the curtain.

Magicband Morphs

I have been having fun on 6m every summer since the late 60's. Without doubt, this summer's Sporadic-E (Es) season is the worst one I have experienced in terms of domestic (North America) openings. This summer was almost a carbon-copy of last year's summer Es season. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, unless this is some form of short term or cyclical anomaly, the fundamental nature of Sporadic-E openings appears to be undergoing some type of change. Missing-in-action were the numerous day-long intense openings to California as well as the grand openings to the eastern states (FN grids) and Canada ... all guaranteed openings every summer. These openings would often last well into the late night hours and even overnight, picking up the next day where they left off. This is the second summer in a row where no Es MUF's into the 2m band were experienced, with this year having seen nothing even as high as the 88-108MHz FM band. Maybe I missed them if they occurred, but I don't think so.

In terms of non-domestic openings, the band continues to evolve, as it seems that a higher percentage of hours with very long skip continues to rise. As poor as this year has been domestically, CW contacts were completed with Germany, Ireland, England, Japan, France, Canary Islands, Balearic Island, Venezuela, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Cayman Islands. A short and exceptionally rare opening to Africa, allowed an 'almost QSO' with CN8KD in Morocco, as he had one letter of my call incorrect when he quickly faded away ... pretty exciting even for a 'busted' QSO on 6m, in the middle of summer.

Whether this very long propagation is just multi-hop traditional Es or something entirely different is still up for debate, as often there are no indicators (beacons or other mid-point signals) indicating that the band is even open. Many, including myself, believe this is some form of chordal hop or interlayer ducting, involving the E-layer alone or perhaps even the bottom of the F layer. Signals strengths can reach 599 levels and almost without fail, have extremely small footprints, with stations just a few miles away hearing nothing at all.

Chordal Hop courtesy: http://g4fkh.co.uk/projects/lp-experiment/

Inter Layer Ducting courtesy: http://g4fkh.co.uk/projects/lp-experiment/

When these openings occur between western North America and Europe, they can be very exciting, as the footprint on the European end often sprays around like a stray garden hose, popping up in a different country with each passing minute. Openings are often fast and furious and always heart-pounding!

Perhaps there is still some magic yet to occur but the 'normal' season (or what used to be normal) is drawing to a close as August nears. The fat-lady is warming up her voice behind the curtain and will soon be singing once again.

But something else is changing on 6m besides the propagation and that is the huge growth of the JT65 weak signal digital mode. As the season draws slowly down, I still see long-time dedicated CW operators going up the band to dip their toes for the first time on this alternate mode. I have used it fairly often to work stations when the CW / SSB end of the band appears to be dead.

The maps shown below, grabbed just four days ago, illustrate what I have been seeing. The amount of JT65 activity is striking, compared to the traditional CW/SSB modes, both shown for the same one hour period. I could assume that the several extra db of weak-signal sensitivity is the reason for the disparity seen from one mode to the other but there may be other factors coming into play.

courtesy: http://www.dxmaps.com/

courtesy: https://pskreporter.info/pskmap.html

Once the band really opens however, the weak-signal sensitivity of JT65 soon looses its previous advantage and the JT65 segment of the band can get pretty clobbered, with numerous signals on top of each other, all competing for their ~200Hz slice of the spectrum. As well, a JT65 QSO is slow ... a minimum of four minutes. Taking four minutes to exchange calls, reports and 'rogers' on a wide open band with strong signals, makes little sense. Perhaps the majority of 6m JT65 operators are new amateurs with a codeless licence or are operating in antenna-restricted communities. Whatever the reason, the numbers are growing and traditional operating patterns are changing.

Who knows what next summer will bring!

Growing 6m JT65 Activity

image courtesy: http://g8yph.blogspot.ca/

This past week, most of my 6m time has been spent monitoring or working JT65A mode stations, up the band a bit from my usual hangout around 50.100MHz. My main interest has always been CW but for some reason, and much to my surprise, the small sliver of JT spectrum space above 50.276MHz seems to be much 'busier' than the lower end of the band!

On several occasions this week, I have heard or worked dozens of others on JT mode while the bottom end of the band appears void of signals. Thursday morning was a good example, with several contacts down into the southeastern 'EM' grids on JT mode while seeing no reports of similar contacts being made on CW or SSB from my region.

This summer, there appears to be much more interest in 6m JT65 than ever before, as I see many familiar CW operators up the band on digital. There is no doubt that JT65's ability to dig deep into the atmospheric band noise and decode signals too weak to be heard on CW, provides an advantage when conditions are marginal. Perhaps this alone explains why I see such a difference between the two segments of the band. This is when JT65 really shines as it is primarily a weak-signal mode.

When the band really opens up however, things are different ... things can get messy pretty fast when the JT65 band fills-up with S9+ signals! Under these conditions, moving well away from the crowd is often better than trying to fight overlapping signals, often made worse by S9++ signals in your own grid, transmitting on the opposite sequence. In this respect, the JT65 segment is like a wider version of the 50.125MHz calling frequency ... the one spot in the conventional mode section of the band where anything goes ... the wild west of 6m.

Dead Band Spots - courtesy: https://www.pskreporter.info/pskmap.html

During one particularly noteworthy period of no action in the lower part of the band, JT65 signals were either copied or exchanged with CO8, V31, TG9, KP4 and XE. Many of these signals were heard for several hours, making the difference even more striking.

Perhaps having all of the JT signals crammed into a 2kHz sliver just makes it seem busier but the mode is certainly gaining steam. Now actually working guys on JT65 is akin to watching paint dry, as its weak-signal sensitivity comes at the expense of time ... the same information that could be sent on CW in 10 seconds, requires a full minute. A complete QSO takes a minimum of four minutes and the 13-character message buffer does not exactly encourage much conversation, other than calls, signal reports, grid squares and 'RRs'. All the same, calling CQ and waiting for the telltale signs of a reply to appear on the scrolling waterfall is somewhat mesmerizing, not unlike an addictive video game of sorts ... just one more CQ!

Will I abandon the CW end of the band? Never ... but having another mode to play with on the magic band is proving to be much more interesting than listening to the usual din of white noise, waiting for the band to 'really' open.

You can read more about JT65 and download the free software, WSJT-X, here.

CW Forever ...?

24 Hour 'JT' 6m Activity

For the past few weeks I've been able to transmit in the WSPR mode on 630m for the first time. For a long while I've tried to avoid it since the mode does not allow for two-way QSO's to be made. For that, excluding CW, one of the other weak-signal digital-modes such as JT-9 would need to be used. I've been using a new transverter sent to me for Beta testing ... hopefully I'll be able to report more if the unit receives final approval for production.

The transverter develops just over 70 watts output when run on 13V and so far, has been able to take all of the nightly punishment I've been able to throw at it with flying colors. Here is a WSPRnet screen shot taken from a typical night of my WSPR beaconing on 630m:

courtesy: KB5NJD's 630m Info

I was also able to have my first JT-9 mode QSO this week, with Toby, VE7CNF. This mode is the weak-signal WSPR QSO mode, tailored for LF/MF work and allows for calls, signal reports and confirmations (R's) to be exchanged ... the minimum requirements needed to claim a contact. Although additional information can be exchanged, its 13-letter message buffer does not exactly promote ragchew style conversations and some creativity is required to exchange more than the basics.

With many of our newer 'digital-savy' amateurs not necessarily being proficient in CW, I suspect that JT-9 may well evolve to become the go-to weak signal communication mode on 630m, much as it has in Europe. In fact, popularity of this mode in Europe has already spawned a few JT-9 contest weekends on 630m, with high activity levels being reported. I'm really looking forward to a 630m JT-9 QSO party in North America, once the band becomes a reality in the U.S.A.

JT-9 is capable of decoding signals reliably down to -24db SNR and boasts a 50% reliability of decoding at -26db SNR. Audible CW drops out at around -16 to -18db SNR, so communicating with JT-9 is the equivalent of going from 100 watts to around 800 watts ... a significant improvement and very helpful on 630m! Like WSPR, JT-9 will work with non-linear transverters and amplifiers such as the commonly-used and simple to build switching MOSFET Class D/E styles.

There also appears to be a fast-growing use of JT-65A on the 6m band this summer, with numerous 'CW forever' operators finding the mode's ability to dig up to 10db deeper into the noise paying off with surprising results. Some western North American operators have noticed that European JT-65A signal levels indicate that they should be in the CW-copiable range yet no CW activity is heard, for which there seems to be no ready explanation. Perhaps more will be learned this summer as the use of this mode continues to expand.

As one of the 'CW forever' proponents willing to try something different, I also have been listening for and working stations on 6m over the past few days on JT-65A. With the IC-756ProIII throttled back to 25 watts, I've found it fairly easy to make contacts when the band is open but have yet to hear or work anything unusual.

I'd love to hear your own comments on the use of JT-9 or JT-65A, particularly on 630m or on 6m ... maybe you can pass along some tips for those of us that are new to the mode on this band.

I may have to reconsider this 'CW forever' thing!

Lightwave Madness

The 288 km path  courtesy: REAST

One of the local lightwave builders, Mark (VA7MM), brought my attention to some outstanding lightwave work conducted several years ago, by a group of very dedicated amateurs in Tasmania.

A pair of articles describes their successful attempts to send signals, via cloudbounce, over the astounding distance of 288km (180mi), crossing Bass Strait between the north Tasmanian coast and southern Australia.


What did it take to transmit lightwave signals over such a distance? Basically a system similar to the ones recently employed in our own local lightwave experiments but on a grander scale ... much grander!

The receiver is based on one of the KA7OEI designs, with modifications to increase its sensitivity. The receiver, and several other designs, can be found on Clint's website here, probably the best source of information on amateur lightwave available anywhere.

The lightwave receiver  courtesy: REAST

Although the basic receiver used a typical-sized fresnel lens, what really set it apart from most was the use of a large (10mm x 10mm) Avalanche Photo Diode (APD) for the detector, to maximize the field of view produced by the fresnel and gather every bit of light possible ... at a cost of $1200!

The 10mm x 10mm rx APD courtesy: Hamamatsu

The transmitter was also big, consisting of an array of 60 red Luxeon III LED's, similar to the Red Rebel Luxeons used in our own local tests. Each LED had its own 12cm square fresnel lens, heatsink and method of focusing. Certainly this was a mammoth project, by amateur lightwave standards.

The 60 LED TX array courtesy: REAST

One of the biggest problems when using such a high-gain system, is the difficulty in pointing. They found that aiming in altitude was simply a matter of pointing a few degrees above the horizon but azimuth pointing was much more critical, requiring accuracy to within a half-degree.

Earlier long-haul tests out to 209 km used the digital JT65 mode for signal decodes but the 288 km test used a fairly esoteric weak signal mode called WSC built on the Spectrum Lab software. This mode is capable of digging almost 20 db deeper into the noise than JT65, down to almost -50db.

An in depth description of the two long-haul events, including equipment schematics, can be found in "288 km Cloudbounce from Tasmania to the Australian Mainland" and in "209 km with Narrow Beamwidth Transmitter".

The 288 km crossing project evolved over several years and is all very well documented, from the first early steps, at the Radio and Electronics Association of Southern Tasmania's (REAST) website here.

This adventuresome project was largely the work of VK7MO, VK7JG, VK3HZ and VK7TW. Their work is most inspiring and much can be learned from seeing what they discovered when transmitting into the cloudy nighttime skies.

Such an endeavour as this makes the local, much shorter Georgia Strait crossing, seem like a cake-walk, but I can't imagine using anything that big and bright here without causing trouble ... it would probably appear much too 'laser-like' to talk one's way out of a jam. Pointing anything resembling a laser light into the air these days is simply begging for trouble.

I can however, envision a scaled-down version, perhaps consisting of an array of four Luxeons ... at least on my end of the path, but even pointing one of those from the city could be problematic. Perhaps any NLOS lightwave attempts across Georgia Strait will need to be well away from Vancouver and its two-million sets of eyes.