Island activities:
IOTA NEWS. Since no or few new IOTA announcements have been made during
the past several weeks (probably because of many COVID-19 travel
restric- tions), OPDX decided to list the following IOTA operations that
were active this past week between May 24-28th (as per the DXCluster):
IOTA Callsign Island/GROUP Bands/Modes
------ ---------- ------------- ------------
AF-004 EA8DIG La Palma 15m; CW
AF-004 EA8W Canary 20m; FT8
AF-057 5R8UI Nosy Be 30m; CW
AS-003 4S6NCH Sri Lanka 10m; Digi
AS-007 JR3IIR Honshu 17m; SSB
EU-003 CQ8THANKS Azores 20m; SSB
EU-004 EA6OM Balearic 10m; SSB
EU-005 G0ORC Great Britain 10m; CW
EU-005 G0TSM Great Britain 20m; FT4
EU-005 GB1PBL Great Britain 80m
EU-005 GB1945PE Great Britain 20m; SSB
EU-005 GB1945PJ Great Britain 20m; CW
EU-005 M0MCV Great Britain 40m; SSB
EU-005 M5WNS Great Britain 30m; Digi
EU-009 GM8OFQ Orkney 20m; SSB
EU-015 SV9BMG Crete 10m; Digi
EU-015 SV9RKU Crete 17m; SSB
EU-018 OY1CT Faroe 10m; CW
EU-018 OY1OF Faroe 10m; SSB
EU-023 9H5JO Gozo 20m; SSB
EU-025 IT9CAR Sicily 40m; SSB
EU-025 IT9KKE Sicily 40m; SSB
EU-029 OV1CDX Sjaelland 17m; SSB
EU-030 OZ30EU Bornholm 20m; SSB
EU-030 OZ8IE/P Bornholm 40/20m; SSB
EU-034 ES0IA Kassaar 17/10m; SSB
EU-047 DJ9IN North Sea 20m; SSB
EU-054 IF9A Favignana 20m; CW
EU-115 EI4KF Ireland 20m; FT8
EU-115 MI0SAI Ireland 20m; FT8
EU-116 GD4SVD Isle of Man 17m; Digi
EU-128 DL1FDH/P Schleswig-Holstein State E 30m;FT8
EU-175 CU3HN Azores 20m; SSB
NA-015 CO6OV Cuba 30m; Digi
NA-021 8P0T Barbados 20m; SSB
NA-021 8P6ET Barbados 20m; Digi
NA-065 KJ7COA WA State North 20m; FT8
NA-096 HI8RD Dominican Republic 30m; Digi
NA-096 HI7M Dominican Republic 17m; SSB
NA-099 KP4EJ Puerto Rico 10m; Digi
NA-099 WP4KEY Puerto Rico 20m; SSB
NA-099 KP4RV Puerto Rico 17m; FT8
NA-099 WP4IRV Puerto Rico 20m; SSB
NA-102 FG4SO Guadeloupe 20m; SSB
NA-107 FM4SA Martinique 20m; SSB
NA-108 J69DS St. Lucia 20m; FT4
NA-138 WB2DRV FL State NE 20m; FT8
NA-168 KS4YT LA State SE 20m; SSB/FT4
NA-168 KV4T Grand Isle 20m; SSB/FT4
OC-001 VK2CPC Australia 40m; SSB
OC-001 VK4PN Australia 80m; CW
OC-005 VK9NK Norfolk 20/12m; FT8
OC-006 VK7GH Tasmania 20m; SSB
OC-013 E51JD Rarotonga 20/15m; SSB
OC-147 YG9WKB W Papua's Coastal 40m; FT8
SA-006 PJ4DX Bonaire 20m; SSB
SA-011 9Z4AH Trinidad & Tobago 17m; SSB
SA-011 9Z4Y Trinidad & Tobago 20m; CW
SA-018 CE7VPQ Los Lagos Region South 20m; SSB
EU-117. Vasily, RA1ZZ, will be active as RA1ZZ/P from Bolshoy Berezovyy
Island during the RSGB IOTA Contest (July 25-26th) as a Single-Op/Low-Power entry. QSL via RA1ZZ, direct or by the Bureau.
NA-143. Joe, K5KUA, will once again be active as K5KUA/5 from Galveston
Island (USI TX-001S, Galveston County, Texas) during the RSGB
IOTA Contest (July 25-26th) as a Single-Op/Mixed-Mode/Island-
Fixed/ Unassisted/Low-Power entry. Operations will be mostly
CW and some SSB. QSL via his home callsign, direct, by the
Bureau or LoTW.
NA-144. Oleh, KD7WPJ, will be active from Santa Rosa Island between
June 12-14th. Activity will be on various HF bands. QSL via
his home callsign.
IREF NEWS (IOTA DXpeditioner of the Year Award). Mike, AD5A, President
Island Radio Expedition Foundation (IREF) reports that normally the
Island Radio Expedition Foundation's "IOTA Expeditioner of the Year"
would be announced at the Dayton DX Dinner. As we know that was cancelled
this year. So, this year's award announcement was made on the HamNation
Live podcast on Wednesday evening, May 27th, at 8:00 pm Central Daylight
Time or 0100z on May 28th.
The following were announced as winners
(congrats) along with the sponsors for this year's award plaques:
1st -- Mike VE7ACN -- IOTA Ltd. (https://iota-world.org/)
2nd -- Vasily R7AL -- Central Texas DX and Contest Club
(https://ctdxcc.org/)
3rd -- Vlad RK8A -- The Daily DX (https://www.dailydx.com/)
To see the rules of the IOTA Expeditioner of the Year award please
go to:
https://irefradio.com/activator-award/
Please consider a contribution to IREF to support IOTA Expeditions
to rare IOTA Islands: https://irefradio.com/join-donate/
If you missed the announcement on Ham Nation (ep. 455), go to:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCNV2nHyBoSSekgFrVFuaXg
PLEASE NOTE: Since the Webmasters of the new <www.iota-world.org> have
decided NOT to post or dedicate a Web page to announce upcoming IOTA
operations, PLEASE send your IOTA operations information to the OPDX,
and we will post it here in an upcoming bulletin......
Check-out the latest IOTA News from the Deutscher Amateur Radio Club
Propagation de K7RA
May 30, 2020No significant solar activity over the past week, and still no sunspots observed since the end of April. According to Spaceweather.com, the percentage of spotless days in 2020 has inched up another notch to 79%. The percentage of days showing no sunspots for all of 2019 was 77%.
Average daily solar flux for last week was 69.6, up from 69 during the previous week. Average mid-latitude A index was 5.7, it was 4 during the previous week, and average planetary A index was 4.6, up from 3.7 during the previous seven days.
Predicted solar flux for the next 45 days is 69 on May 29, and 70 on May 30 through July 12.
Predicted planetary A index is 8 on May 29-31, 5 on June 1-14, 8 on June 15-16, and 5 on June 17 through July 12.
On May 27 Spaceweather.com pointed toward an active region, possibly a sunspot, just over our Sun's eastern horizon. You can see it via the STEREO observatory at https://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/ . Note that in solar images, east is toward the left, from Earth's POV. They expect it to come over the horizon and begin to point toward us on Friday, May 29. On Thursday evening, I can see it just barely across the horizon.
Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period May 29 to June 23, 2020 from OK1HH.
"Geomagnetic field will be quiet on: May 31, June 2-5, 9-13 quiet to unsettled on: May 29-30, June 14, 19-20 quiet to active on: (June 1, 6-8, 15-18, 21) unsettled to active: none predicted active to disturbed: none predicted
"Solar wind will intensify on: June (6-7, 16-17).
"Remarks:
- Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement.
- The predictability of changes remains lower as there are no indications."
On May 26, Martin McCormick, WB5AGZ in Stillwater, Oklahoma wrote:
"For several years, I have stored the channels between 29.600 through 29.680 plus at least 52.525 MHZ on a couple of scanners and recorded the output. It is usually nothing at all or worse, spurs and birdies from local sources such as computers and their networks plus unidentified RF smog from our neighbors' houses.
"Even at it's worst, one could still tell that there just wasn't much going on on 10 and 6 meters due to the absence of anything but noise.
"The latter part of March and several days in April brought 10 meters to life while the first week in May was mostly dead but after that, I am not sure I have heard a single day without some significant openings to the Eastern United States and generally areas within a 1,000 mile radius of the central continental US. One geographical factor if you live in the central US is that the population density is generally less for great swaths of land to our West until you hit the urban parts of Arizona, Nevada and California such as the Los Angeles area.
"I heard 2 amateurs in Wyoming, for instance, who were within ground wave range of each other. One was N7DMO Riverton in Central Wyoming and W7WLK, near by, whose signals probably would have both been full quieting on 29.6 but the discone antenna I am using is actually rated for 50-500 MHZ. Our computer network is to blame for a small amount of low-level noise on that frequency so there are noticeable heterodynes but they were booming in and commenting that 10 meters was open to Oklahoma.
"Most of what we hear here on 10 and 6 during single-hop sporadic-E is pretty much Southern Canada and New York to Florida along with Southern Texas, Mexico, Central America and occasionally the West Coast from San Francisco down to Southern California.
"The Northern Midwest down to Iowa and Nebraska is a common DX catch on 10 meters and 6.
"It is nice this year to not have as much local interference such as the touch lamp some neighbors down the street got a few years ago that spewed birdies from around 25 MHZ well into low VHF until they thankfully moved out and then there were the grow lamps, I think, which, when on, knock about 10 dB off the bottom end of reception.
They start up with a sort of blip-blip-blip-bzzzzzz, which is probably a gas discharge tube coming to life and shedding light on budding plants whose DNA sequences are still illegal in Oklahoma except for medical use. The sound is a broad-band hiss modulated by a buzz at AC line frequencies.
"Whatever it was, it seems to be absent this year and I am eternally grateful."
Bob Kulacz, KB1DK in Trumbull, Connecticut wrote on May 23:
"How about this one.
"While I was waiting my turn to work OE8ANK on 40 SSB at 0345z on May 21, he was called by and worked YD2DOP. OE8ANK was surprised by the contact and asked for confirmation of his QTH. YD2DOP was heard loud and clear here in Connecticut, S8 to S9. Was I hearing YD2DOP over the north pole or was it long path over the dark south pole? It was just about high noon in Indonesia. I was never expecting to hear a signal from that location on 40 at that hour."
W0TTY is in CN87 (where I am, Seattle area) and is using a small mobile antenna (Comet UHV-6) indoors. He uses FT8, and has made many contacts on 6 and 10 meters. Check his page on QRZ.com for a picture of his tiny antenna! He writes,
"May 24th UTC looks like the big day with the big opening. 25th had the two Indonesian stations 5 minutes apart. I saw them for only maybe 30 minutes and they were gone.
"2020-05-27 17:20 XE2GF DM12LM 50.315 -19 R -19 S 50W
2020-05-27 17:12 NC6K DM13 50.314
2020-05-25 22:46 N9LD EM69 28.076
2020-05-25 18:25 NA6G DM06 28.076
2020-05-25 17:39 K7UW DM43 28.076
2020-05-25 17:38 N1AV DM43 50.315
2020-05-25 17:20 N3QQ CN87 50.315
2020-05-25 17:16 K7BAB CN87 50.315
"2020-05-25 04:25 KE8FT CM98 28.076 Oakland CA
2020-05-25 04:22 KG6RYV CM87 28.076 Davis CA
"2020-05-25 03:39 YB1MIG OI32 14.076 -10 R -17 S 75W
2020-05-25 03:34 YB1NWE OI33 14.076 -24 R -13 S 75W"
He listed many others, far too many to report here.
The latest video from Dr. Tamitha Skov, WX6SWW, as of May 28:
https://bit.ly/2Xyb4Ik
This weekend is the CQ World Wide WPX CW contest:
https://cqwpx.com/
If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers, email the author at k7ra@arrl.net.
For more information concerning radio propagation, see the ARRL Technical Information Service at http://arrl.org/propagation-of-rf-signals.
For an explanation of numbers used in this bulletin, see
http://arrl.org/the-sun-the-earth-the-ionosphere.
An archive of past propagation bulletins is at
http://arrl.org/w1aw-bulletins-archive-propagation.
More good information and tutorials on propagation are at
http://k9la.us/.
Monthly propagation charts between four USA regions and twelve overseas locations are at http://arrl.org/propagation.
Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins.
Sunspot numbers for May 21 through 27, 2020 were 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, and 0, with a mean of 0. 10.7 cm flux was 70.2, 70.8, 69.1, 68.8, 70.3, 69.7, and 68, with a mean of 69.6. Estimated planetary A indices were 5, 6, 4, 5, 5, 4, and 3, with a mean of 4.6. Middle latitude A index was 8, 7, 4, 5, 7, 3, and 6, with a mean of 5.7.
• All propagation reports can be found at:
http://www.southgatearc.org/propagation