The Saint Patrick's Day aurora produced some interesting effects on 6 metres (50 Mhz)

This is a video showing me making a number of QSOs into the UK on 6 metres on Saint Patrick's Day. This was my first time working an aurora opening on VHF. It was quite interesting, and quite enjoyable. I also worked a few German stations, one French station and one Swedish station.

VHF beams taken down . . . Antron 99 back in the air!

My Antron 99 back in the air, and the 4 metre dipole.

Rooftop selfie . . .
EI4DIB and EI2KC

Today the precariously positioned VHF beams were finally taken down. Tony EI4DIB helped me to remove them from the broken stub. We decided there and then that they would not be going back up today. The rotator appears to be shot and the stub pole had broken in the storms. The XY 2m beam has not had much use, while the 3-element 6 metre beam is only used during the summer E season. I decided to put back up my Antron 99, which I find to be a fantastic antenna on the high bands, most particularly 12 metres and 10 metres. In the meantime, I can think of a plan for the VHF beams. The only VHF antenna that we did put back up was my 4 metre dipole, which you can see offset from the pole supporting the Antron in the photo.

Below you can see a video of a contact I made with J38XX in Grenada. I was using 100 watts from the Icom 746 (a lovely radio) into the Antron on 28 Mhz CW. I later worked a number of North American stations on SSB and had a bit of fun.

Just this morning (Monday 10th Feb), I worked HS0ZBS on 10m CW with the Antron. Fine business!

Amsterdam Island FT5ZM update: I now have a total of ten band slots with Amsterdam. I was delighted to get them on 40m CW last night at 00:40. I also got 17 cw today, so now have them worked on all bands from 40 through 10. Is it too much to wonder about a QSO on 80 metres at this late stage?

I finished my latest HF Happenings column today and have sent it off to the editor of Echo Ireland magazine. 

Houston, we've had a problem . . . in fact, two problems

They say a picture speaks a thousand words, so here goes . . .

This is my VHF array, sadly damaged by all the recent windstorms. The antennas themselves seem to be fine, but as you can see the stub pole is broke, and I'm pretty sure the rotator is shattered too (it certainly isn't working!) So at the earliest opportunity I will need to get my rescue team up to the QTH for some help to repair the damage. I lowered the array this morning to try to prevent further wind damage. To add insult to injury, two of the wires on my hexbeam are snapped, the 12m wire and the 15m wire. Picture below:

You can see the 15m wire dangling down from the hexbeam here.

The wind storms started on St. Stephen's Day and there's been at least one bad wind storm every week since then. My antennas have taken a heck of a battering. Let's hope the rescue team and I can restore them without too much trouble or expense. Here's hoping . . .

Licenced four years ago today - what a wonderful hobby we have

This was me with my test results the day I received them.

Four years ago today I got a very special phone call. I had just left work and was on my way home on a Friday evening, thinking that I would have to spend another long weekend waiting for good news. But a phone call came. It was a Dublin number. I answered. It was Derek from Comreg. He was sending out my licence in the post, but was ringing to tell me my callsign. I can remember it clearly. He spoke very slowly . . . "Echo . . . India . . . Eight . . . Golf . . .  (and then an indescribably long pause!) . . . HOTEL . . . bravo". He asked for an email address so he could send a PDF copy of my licence and I could operate straight away. I was elated. I thanked him generously and bid him a good weekend.

I hung up the phone, and immediately called out through the Dundalk 2 metre repeater. Tony EI4DIB came back to me for my first QSO as a licenced ham, and at that moment a great adventure began. Following years of interest in the hobby of radio, I was finally a fully fledged radio amateur.

My first ham station, pictured in winter 2009.

The four years since then have flown by. I can remember using my Icom 718 and a half-size G5RV which was only about 12 feet off the ground during that first couple of months in winter 2009. Sunspots were non existent, and the bands were closed every day by the time I got home from work. I had only 40m SSB to sustain me through the winter, because the half-size G5RV wouldn't tune there. And I hadn't yet learned CW. Soon, I had a Kenwood 570, and in early 2010 I got the Butternut HF6V up and running with the help of Tony. I started to learn CW. It took me about a month, maybe a little more, and by February 2010 I was already working contacts on CW. I took the test at Coolmine that month, with my lifelong friend Brian EI7GVB. We both passed. I became EI2KC on March 5th 2010 and within a few days he had received his new callsign - EI4KC.

The station grew, as did the antenna system. An MA5B minibeam followed, as did 40m and 30m inverted vees. The DXCC count went up steeply. I was working far-off places with a hundred watts, morning, noon and night. Stuff I could only have dreamed of. From a small garden I was, quite literally, working the world. I was following a passion which had been ignited when I was a teenager, and my older brother was a CB operator, and later a ham. I worked DX on 11m using an old Silver Rod from my boyhood home. Now, I was back chasing DX again, years later, and feeling good.

One of the nicest aspects of the hobby though is the camaraderie and the friendship. I have so many friends in the hobby; people of all tastes and interests. Some of them love HF and DXing. Some of them don't. Some of them are shortwave listeners. Some are VHF enthusiasts. Some of them live in far-off countries. Yes, ham radio unites people, across political, geographical and religious divides. Everyone has their niche in ham radio. But all of them are friends, and in the long nights of winter, and even in the balmy days of summer, there's always someone on the other end of your CQ, waiting for a QSO or a good ragchew.

Morse code opened up the world to me. This is the J-28
morse key which I used to learn CW, borrowed from EI2HX.

Four years on, with DXCC worked on eight bands and a total of 295 DXCC in the bag, I'd never have thought I would do so well so quickly. I guess it's the passion. I have been stuck in some horrendous pile-ups, for hours on end, rattling out my callsign on a morse paddle like there's no tomorrow, fighting with the rest of the world for that glorious "5NN" and a new country in the log. I have lost some battles, and I have won some. Thankfully, I've won more than I've lost. What a terrific hobby this is. We can communicate using just a piece of wire or metal and the ionosphere, contacting people in some of the most remote places on earth. Oh yes, this hobby is glorious. Who'd have thought I would contact someone on a rock jutting out of the ocean called Malpelo? Who'd have thought I'd work Pitcairn Island of 'Mutiny on the Bounty' fame, on 80 metres CW, in a narrow two-minute greyline opening? Who'd have thought I'd chat with people who have gone to the ends of the earth for the hobby - in Antarctica, Marshall Islands, Western Kiribati, Jan Mayen Island, Sable Island, Galapagos, South Cook, Austral Islands, Kermadec, Yemen, Somalia, Myanmar, Marion Island . . . the list goes on and on and on.

And this coming month, with any luck, I will be battling through more pile-ups, for rare and far away places such as Wake Atoll, Juan Fernandez, Banaba and more.

But in addition to all this DXing, I have been involved in other areas of the hobby. The local clubs are a great source of friendship and social interaction with other radio enthusiasts. I have been involved in contests and portable operations and even an IOTA dxpedition. I am on the committee of the Irish Radio Transmitters Society, and write the HF Happenings column for the society's magazine, Echo Ireland. It really has been a fantastic four years. Here are some of my stats: I've had 19,163 QSOs. I've worked 301 DXCC (6 deleted) and confirmed 280 (4 deleted). I've worked 287 DXCC on CW, 256 on phone, and 131 on digi modes.

Enjoying a bit of craic during AREN (Amateur Radio
Emergency Network) training with Derek EI7CHB and Pat EI2HX.

Ham radio brings the world into your home. And far from being an old fashioned, outdated pastime, amateur radio is very much a modern pursuit, encompassing technologies that are under constant development. OK, we may be the only ones left in the world using morse code. But we also combine computers with radio for genuine experiments in telecommunications. Some of us speak with astronauts on the International Space Station. We broadcast images on amateur television. We bounce signals off the moon. We push new horizons all the time, using weak signal propagation modes to make contacts that were previously impossible. Some of us make our own radios and antennas. Others monitor the bands for incursions and illegal activity. Many of us are involved in emergency communications, showing that the hobby has a civic and community side. In the event of disaster, radio amateurs provide communications when mobile phone networks and power grids are down.

What a wonderful hobby we have. Thank you to all those who've been there along the way. Thank you to all my ham friends, in Drogheda, in Ireland, and all over the world. It's been a beautiful journey so far. And we have so much more to look forward to.

Mount Leinster EI7MLR proves its worth again

I've just had a short chat with Chris GW7HAE/M through the Irish South Eastern Amateur Radio Group repeater network. Chris was operating from a handheld, using just half a watt, and a rubber duck antenna, from his car in Pembrokeshire. He was accessing the SEARG network through EI7MLR, the Mount Leinster 70 centimetres repeater. I was going back to him as EI2KC/P from my holiday QTH in Duncannon,, Co Wexford, through the Helvic Head 2 metre repeater EI2HHR on 145.675, using 5 watts on my Waccom UV5R handheld. An excellent contact.

Chris did fade for a few moments in QSB but otherwise held a good signal into EI7MLR for the duration of our 7 or 8 minute QSO.

6 metre beam installed - just in time for the first opening!

On Saturday I finally upgraded my 6 metre (50 Mhz) antenna. I have been using a simple aluminium dipole since the sunmer of 2010. It has served me well, giving me 54 DXCCs over two seasons. But I have been hungry for something with a little more gain so that I might notch up some new DXCCs this year. So when I chanced upon a three-element beam for 50 Mhz I snapped it up! Tony EI4DIB and Jim EI2HJB, who have been involved in so many antenna installations at my QTH, made themselves available on Saturday afternoon and we set to work. It was cold and windy but sunny. So typical Irish weather !

Tony EI4DIB and Jim EI2HJB installing the 3-element 6 metre beam

This was not a complicated installation in that we were swapping out a 6m dipole with a beam, so we could use the same coax. We were also swapping my 4m folded dipole for a 4m dipole made from my recycled 6m dipole shortened down. Tony and Jim managed to get the SWR of the beam between 1.5-2 so that was fine. It is under the 2m XY beam on the same rotator. I am now well set up for VHF activities!

This afternoon, Sunday, the 6 metre band opened for the first real Sporadic E opening of the year. Very timely too! I put the beam through its paces. I worked a number of stations in Poland and Lithuania and Latvia. Some of the signals were very strong indeed. I was delighted. Below is a video of me working SP3OCC, Ted in Poland, on SSB. I had just worked him on CW. He was 10dB over 9 at times. Very strong.

Below are maps from DX Sherlock showing just how active the band was today. It really opened up for a while in Europe, although the openings to EI were limited along a narrow path to Poland and the Baltic area.

6 metres open in Europe, with my first QSO mapped

Activity was intense for a time on 50 Mhz

This was an unexpected opening, especially such a big one. My first QSO of the E season in 2011 was on May 1st, so we are just a few days short of that date and the band has opened properly for the first time. While 50 Mhz was active last summer there wasn't so much DX to be worked so we are hoping that this year there will be some new countries floating around. And with the three-element beam now instead of the dipole, here's one op who's chomping at the bit for some extra DXCCs! Happy DXing . . .