Various Topics
1) The Hepburn Tropo Forecast Maps at http://www.dxinfocentre.com/tropo.html continue to show scattered areas of blue and green across much of the eastern US, thru the weekend and perhaps into next week. This doesn’t look like overwhelming potential, but it’s a ton better than weeks on end of black and faint blues that occurs during colder, nasty weather.
There was a good opening on Memorial Day, and W8BYA made the most of it. Here’s W8BYA’s report from EN70:
GM Stan. Had some nice propagation to the SW this AM. Managed to work a new 2m grid, EM06 for number 213. Stations worked over a 2.5 hour period were:
N0IRS – EM29SE – 507 miles
W0BLD – EM37JC – 503 miles
N4QWZ – EM66OK – 319 miles
K1RZ – FM19JH – 434 miles
N0MST – EM27QA – 574 miles
W5VTM – EM25JU – 649 miles
K5SM – EM03TT – 874 miles
KA0KYZ – EN33QW – 435 miles
KI0HA – EM38UN – 412 miles
KB0HH – EM06 – 753 miles
KC0PTM – EM29VN – 484 miles
KB5MR – EM25AV – 678 miles
K0AZ – EM37DC – 528 miles
W7QJQ – EM25NU – 632 miles
KD0FEI – EM29NC – 530 miles
KC8YJB – EN91BK – 175 miles
K5SW – EM25HR – 656 miles
KC0HML – EM17LL – 679 miles
K8TQK – EM89JE – 155 miles
WA0CNS – EM48RN – 326 miles
W0RT – EM27JG – 594 miles
VA3ZV – EN82WV – 208 miles
N0UWY – EM15IF – 766 miles
KB9WZJ – EM69TR – 120 miles
W9RM – EN52RB – 197 miles
Total miles this morning was 12188
73, Gedas W8BYA
Gallery at http://gedas.me
This info came as part of KA1ZE’s daily email about the 144.205 activity every morning, 7 days a week, starting at 1200Z. I’ve been talking about how great this is for several months now. This is easily the best thing going for 2m SSB/CW activity in the USA, outside of a contest or major band opening. If you want more info, click here: http://kc9bqa.com/?p=4582 This is an announcement from KA1ZE himself, explaining how it works. All are welcome, and Stan will be happy to add you to his daily email list. His info is contained in that link above. Or… you can also access KA1ZE’s updates via N0IRS’ KC VHF Grid Bandits website. The exact link is: http://www.kcvhfgridbandits.com/kc_vhf_grid_bandits_045.htm
2) The Mountainlake APRS maps (which depict real-time 2m VHF conditions) were down for a week or two. Today they appear to be back up with a new and improved format. The address to use now is: http://aprs.mountainlake.k12.mn.us/map. What you should see is a Google map of the USA, with you having the ability to zoom in or out, and slide the map around. The colors that indicate the approximate distances APRS stations are being heard should populate on the map shortly. If you do not get color, here’s the fix: In Internet Explorer, go to your “Compatibility View” settings. I found this tab by accessing the “Page” drop-down menu in the upper right of any IE webpage. Once you’ve clicked on Compatibility View, make sure you do NOT have the aprs.mountainlake.k12 turned on. Once you’ve removed that from compability view, you should get the colors to show up.
3) Last topic for this long post – Very pleased to announce that this website had 2089 unique visitors in May 2011. The previous high was 1775 in April. We cracked the 1000 visitor mark in May of 2010 and haven’t looked back since. I appreciate everyone who is helping to spread the word. I am quietly confident that my ramblings here help VHF/UHF activity levels. That’s the goal.