[Lowfer] Re: Hifer reception this week

[James Moritz]

Dear Lowfers,

Noisy conditions on 13.555MHz last night - I was able to see NC, MP, and GM 
again, but nothing from RY this time.

The previous 5 nights have yielded signals on every occasion, although 
conditions don't appear to have been particularly good. The best reception 
seems to occur between about 0000 and 0500 utc, when there is usually 
something visible, and the man-made noise seems to be at a minimum. The 
signals often become audible for short periods - there has always been 
rapid fading over about 10 - 20dB over a timescale of a few seconds, giving 
rise to a broken-up appearance on the waterfall trace, and the signal also 
fades in and out more slowly over periods lasting from minutes to 10s of 
minutes, so having a QRSS contact might not be easy at this distance.

The effects of propagation are much more apparent than at LF, as you would 
expect. The waterfall traces are often blurred, and at one point last 
night, the signal from GA split into 2 distinct traces running parallel a 
couple of Hz apart.

SM6LKM's 14.1011MHz beacon has been harder to copy here - it is usually 
visible in the mornings, but generally much weaker than the trans-atlantic 
signals. Perhaps this is due to our antennas not being favourably aligned, 
or just that propagation at 14MHz works better over several 1000s of km 
than it does at 1000km

Cheers, Jim Moritz
73 de M0BMU