[MRCA] [MMRCG] 40m RATT test Saturday 1330Z - 850 shift

[Tim]

Nick asked " Do you think there is any time/freq that might work for some
cross-country RATT chat?  Or will we have to wait for some sunspots..... "
--------------------------------

Hi Nick - Well I use VOACAP's propagation prediction online tool:
https://www.voacap.com/hf/
I just looked at it for an east coast-west coast prediction.  It is showing
fairly good props on 30 meters (we sometimes used 10137 kc) at 0200Z and
another window on 60 meters at 0900Z.  But E-W propagation cross country is
generally pretty poor these days, we need some more solar Ions !  Antenna
gain and TX power are our friends...

It's pretty easy to use and I find it to be reasonably accurate in
assessing the probability of success on a given path.

Pull it up, Click N Drag the red pointer to your location and the blue
pointer (or vice-versa) to your target's location.  Scroll zoom in and out
to pinpoint.
On the right side, select CW mode (RATT not available but CW is a
reasonable choice bandwidth/SNR-wise.  For some reason it predicts SSB as
being much weaker probably due to the much wider bandwidth, lower SNR)
Select TX power level - I picked 50 watts as an example.
Select Antenna - go back to left side and pick representative antennas at
each end from the antenna menu.  I pick T&R dipoles at 30 feet.
Then go back to the right side and select Prop Charts.
On the left will appear a window with color-coded ham bands showing
predicted % of success versus Zulu time with the above parameters

It's a powerful tool developed for the Voice of America transmitters...It
looks up current solar conditions and makes the calculations automatically
- you don't need to enter any data....VOACAP is currently adapted to Ham
radio users...It is also pretty good at predicting NVIS paths.  Give it a
try..
Cheers & good luck with your experiments..Good fun..
Tim

On Wed, Aug 26, 2020 at 10:52 AM Nick England <navy.radio at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Tim
> Do you think there is any time/freq that might work for some cross-country
> RATT chat?
> Or will we have to wait for some sunspots.....
> I am clueless about propagation.
> Nick England K4NYW
> www.navy-radio.com
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 26, 2020 at 1:47 PM Tim Sammons <timsamm at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi MRCG-ers.. - Take a look at Nick's note attached.  He is doing some
>> east coast/midwest RATT experiments on Saturday.  They had a few
>> participants last week (I didn't hear them, 0630 AM last Saturday morning
>> PDST)  Tough propagation over that path at that freq/time.  Note he is
>> moving their experiments to 7087 kc, the freq Clatternet also uses.  Maybe
>> someday!  HiHi.
>> Thanks Nick - Good on ya!
>> Clatternetters:  We tried 3587 last week as a propagation experiment but
>> sigs were OK but weaker (but we got some good reception reports), so let's
>> go back to 7087 kc this Saturday at 7 PM PDST (0200Z Sunday)
>> For anyone who wants to listen in (and out of range) the KFS SDR online
>> receiver in Half Moon Bay hears us pretty well. URL:
>> http://69.27.184.62:8901/
>> No equipment?  Just a confuzer?  download fldigi (Fast Light Digital) -
>> great RATT decoder among other modes.  Really great, free software for
>> almost any "digital" waveform:
>> https://sourceforge.net/projects/fldigi/files/   Yeah, it doesn't sling
>> hot oil everywhere but it's really fun to play with...
>>
>> That is all..
>> Tim
>> N6CC
>>
>> BT
>> NNNN
>> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
>> From: Nick England <navy.radio at gmail.com>
>> Date: Wed, Aug 26, 2020 at 10:12 AM
>> Subject: [MRCA] 40m RATT test Saturday 1330Z - 850 shift
>> To: Military Radio Collectors Association <mrca at mailman.qth.net>
>>
>>
>> Give a listen - join in the fun. We are switching to the same freq as
>> Clatternet West - 0930 EDT (1330Z) Saturday 8/29
>>
>> 7087 kc USB using a 2 kc +/-425 cps tone, so 7088.575 kc mark, 7089.425
>> kc space. 45.45 baud.
>>
>> Ron K3TZJ is having some local noise issues so I'll be generating some RY
>> and QBF messages - and hoping for a reply.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Nick England K4NYW
>> www.navy-radio.com
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