[NLRS] Little 6M/10M activity showing today

[Doug Reed]

I did see two very long range captures shown on the MountainLake APRS
map today. On inspection, both were bogus. One was caused by someone
testing a new APRS tracker but leaving the default "12345.67" location
in the config. The second was a more obscure problem with the packet
protocol. The second station is transmitting the right data, but one
packet was mangled during receive and the simple 8-bit checksum didn't
catch the error. That has always been a weak spot in the packet
protocol but it doesn't cause significant problems in most packet
radio applications.....

This just means you need to do a little checking before trying to make
that super-DX QSO based on automated system reports. PSKreporter.info
has more data and probably gets more bad data too. I've reports where
the data didn't make a lot of sense, i.e. CW at 50.277MHz (the JT65
area) or JT65 at 50.040MHz.

Just as a recap, at 4:30PM PSKreporter.info is still showing good
activity from the eastern and southern US into Guyana, Brazil, and
Argentina on 10M. Most of the reports are from around 28.077MHz using
JT65. The PropNet.org site is also showing 10M activity with Brazil
using 10M PSK31. KA9SWE from WI is still hearing Europe and Russia
near 28.041MHz on CW. Very little activity shown on 6M except for a
couple small patches in the south-east. And at 4:50PM, WSPRnet is
showing a bit of east-west activity on 10M and even a few captures
with Australia in the last 30 minutes.

73, Doug Reed, N0NAS.