[Meteor-Scatter] Perseids and operating procedures!

[Ulrich Hilsinger]

Hello, 

just some ideas about this subject....


If you are using a "relative" frequency information in your CQ, such as
CQH or CQU8, you have a RELATIVE frequency information. I.e., if your
transmitter is 500 Hz higher than it should be, and someone receives you
correctly, he just has to tune exactly 8 kHz up to find you again.
If you send f.ex. "CQU78", it could be that someone else will tune to
.378, but will first have to correct the frequency offset before being
able to work you. So, the procedure which we are used to from CW should
be a good solution for WSJT too. 
Is positive and negative shift really needed ? This would mean to spend
52 kHz for WSJT random operation. One also need some frequencies for
skeds. Here in central europe, I see big problems even if there's no
contest going on (forget WSJT during contests, full 250 kHz are needed
then and even are not sufficient at all), as tropo activity often
extends up to 144.360 here even without any "big" event.


Now about Perseids.

I was QRV in SSB and HSCW only during this shower.
SSB was really a big frustration, as activity was much lower than I was
used to. I only worked LA0BY/p on random there (thank you Stefan for the
excellent activity !). In CW I was working skeds only, .100 sounded
shockingly quiet to me. Result was not very satisfying, 2 skeds (to GM
and UR3) for new squares failed, 3 complete skeds resultet in 1 new
square for me and much fun in my ODX sked with OH5LK which produced and
reported loooong bursts at the late morning/early noon of august 13th
over a distance of more than 1800km. 

During the last 4-5 years, I made the following experiences with
Perseids, which could perhaps be from interest for others too:

- During afternoon and early evening, condx are really terrible. Check
out what MSSOFT tells you about the radiant, you will know why.... No
sense to complain about bad condx, they could be great, but not for us
in Europe at this time of the day. It's a big error to go QRT at, f.ex.
19:00 UTC due to the frustrating past hours ("Oh, that was a bad peak,
game over...") - 2 hours later, condx will have improved a lot !

- Long distance skeds in east-west-direction allways failed for me. It's
just again the radiant, and additionally, there are better showers for
long distance QSOs it seems. My ODX on MS is still SV9/DK5YA, worked 4
years ago in June..... Available QRB depends on the meteor's speed, and
as the perseids are relatively slow, they will start glewing at lower
heights than fast showers. The ZHR or the length of the bursts is not
the primary argument for the possible distances ! (A 30 seconds burst
will not help a lot, if he is not audible 2200km away...)

- Compared to condx during many of the showers in may/june/july,
pre-Perseids condx are not what I would call wonderfull. I stopped
filling up the days before with skeds. Nevertheless, condx can be still
great 1-2 days before and after Perseids. 

I think that Perseids can be considered as a great shower for SSB random
activity due to their long bursts, as a good shower for medium
distances, and as a great chance for 70cm Meteorscatter. Of course,
EVERY mode is more fascinating, if there are a lot of reflections and a
lot of active stations. 
Don't be frustrated if you don't hear much bursts during the afternoon
and evening - have a great dinner with you (x)yl, spent a nice evening,
and, as soon as (x)yl says "oh, I'm tired now from that great dinner you
spent me, darling.. good night" it's the right time to go to shack and
enjoy the better position of the radiant ;-)
 

73,
Ulrich DH0GHU jn38vn
dh0ghu@db0cz.#bw.deu.eu
dh0ghu@darc.de
http://www.dh0ghu.de/