2022 6M season wrap-up

For me, this season got off to a big start in April with a number of days of TEP into South America, getting me a few new DXCC. The normal Es season, however, seemed to be a bit different than the previous two years. I witnessed a much later start, not seeing my first big domestic opening until the end of May (28th.). There were a number of smaller, fast, openings, but nothing sustained. The first EU opening for me didn't happen until June 1st, and that was just into England a Northern France. Unfortunately for me, the big EU openings all happened while I was away at a conference in Montreal, then again in July when I was busy getting Covid-19 in Nova Scotia. My last regular season contact was on 7/25.

In October we started to hear some TEP again. Early November (as I write this) I had a busted QSO with CE8EIO (he responded back to me, but JTDX refused to xmit) and then a QSO with PY8WW. Meanwhile, WW1L is working into South Africa and other exotic locations :)

Other notes, I had a (7) QSO JA run that got me a few new grids on June 12th.  

VUCC

88 new confirmed grid squares, putting my total at 682.

32 of those squares were new FFMA squares, which puts my total at 326

DXCC

I worked at least 7 new ones, finally getting over the 100 mark with 4X4DK! I was hoping to have Eric, FP/KV1J since he's local and part the local VHF community, but 4X4DK was in and I grabbed him while I could. I've had a few busted contacts with 4X4 stations, so I didn't want to leave anything to chance. 

Here is the (mostly) final list:

#95 CE3SX - Chile

#96 EA9ABC - Ceuta & Melilla

#97 C31CT  - Andorra

#98 UB7K - European Russia

#99 5B4AGN - Cyprus

#100 4X4DK - Israel

#101 FP/KV1J - St. Pierre & Miquelon

93 confirmed in LoTW. Now I either need to find a local card checker, or figure out the process to send my remaining cards to the ARRL for LoTW credits. 

Misses

Even with working seven new DXCC entities this year, there were some very notable misses. 

ZP5 - in South America

KH6 - a couple of times 6-12 (This gives me hope that WAS is achievable at some point)

D44 - Cape Verde (have heard them two years in a row now, yet to work them)

ER5 - Moldova 6-12

D2UY - Angola 6-28

OD5 - Lebanon 7-8

UN7 - Kazakhstan 7-9 (Had a busted QSO with him, will look for again next year)

Final thoughts

My first two years of truly dedicated 6m operation were 2020 and 2021, prime covid years. I wasn't travelling for work and summer vacationing was minimal.  2022 was somewhat of a "back to normal" year with me travelling to my usual June conference then again going to Nova Scotia in mid-July for our normal week in Pubnico. 

That's two weeks of Prime 6m operating dead smack in the middle of the season. I may need to rethink this a bit :)

Omni-Rig and DXlabs commander - Elecraft K3 and Digi-U mode

 

In my particular setup I've been using SDR-Console with an Airspy R2 for receiving on 6m. This allows me to have several "slices" of the band receiving simultaneously, which in turn allows me to watch a few FT8 frequencies plus voice, if I'm interested. 

In order to accomplish this, SDR-Console uses an external radio control program called Omni-Rig. Omni-Rig is effectively a software API to a hardware radio. It allows multiple software packages to gain access to the radio at the same time. In my instance, I have 2-3 copies of JTDX and SDR-Console all polling my Elecraft K3, and also keying the radio when each one is in transmit. 

I then select a receiver in SDR-Console, which then tunes the K3 VFO to whichever frequency I want to transmit on, all while having each independent receiver sending audio to each JTDX instance.

This issue is that Omni-Rig doesn't always behave well.

I've been using DXLabs DXkeeper for the last couple of years and have had good success with it. I operate 99% data modes, but on occasion I do like to make some SSB contacts. Having to log the frequency by hand was a bit of a pain so I started down the road of trying to integrate the Commander application for rig control. The main issue is that SDR-console, which is a critical part of the operation, only supports Omni-Rig as an external control program. So, we start building a house of cards to make all of this work. 

I came across this article on the DXlabs documentation site that partially explains how to do it:

https://www.dxlabsuite.com/dxlabwiki/SDRConsoleCWSkimmerConfiguration

SDR-Console-->Omni-Rig-->(com1 virtual null modem com2)--->(com2)Commander(com3)--->K3

It ALMOST worked!

The issue that I was running into was when I selected the data mode on SDR-console, by the time the commands made it down to the K3, it ended up in Data mode, AFSK, which wasn't helpful. It needed to be in Data Mode A. After lots of debugging serial CAT commands, I took to the DXLabs groups.io page and started asking for help. 

In the end it was basically determined (By Joe, W4TV) that Omni-Rig was only passing the mode change, and not specifying the sub-mode. Commander was using a default of RTTY, AFSK, which didn't work. 

The end result was that I had to modify the Omni-Rig k3.ini file to set the additional sub-mode command when we issued the mode change from SDR-Console. 

Here is the change that needs to be made:

[pmDIG_U]

Command=(MD6;DT0;)

ReplyLength=0

As of right now, everything seems to be working. I can change modes without issue.

The only side note is that JTDX (or WSJT-X, if it applies) needs to set the radio mode to none, otherwise if you have SDR-Console in USB, JTDX will want to keep it in Data or USB mode, ymmv. 

I'm also using VOX keying in JTDX as it seems to switch out of TX slightly faster than when I was using CAT for PTT. 

Mid-season 6m update: DXCC and band conditions

 

DXCC on 6m has been attained!

Now to collect cards and LoTW entries...

On July 6 I worked:

UB7K for #98

5B4AGN for #99 ...and finally

4X4DK for Country #100

I was trying to work it out that Eric, FP/KV1J was in the #100 spot, but the propagation to Israel was there, so I wasn't going to waste the opportunity. 

Other random notes:

- The band has been open to Europe all week, some days more than others, but the lack of propagation in June seems to be made up for in July to this point. 

- Almost completed with UN7LZ in Khazakstan, but didn't quite make it:

- Confirmed LoTW grid count is now up to 668

Mid-season summary: Weird start....

 Comparing this Es season to the previous two seasons, this one has been weird for me. Here's the rough highlights:

- One big EU opening (I was traveling and missed it)

- Only a few big domestic openings

- One decent JA opening on the 12th of June (worked 7 JA and some new grids)

- Lots of TEP this season (Worked a number of new grids plus new DXCC)

Misses so far:

- ZP5 during one of the TEP openings

- KH6 - for state number 49, had half a QSO, but didn't complete

- D44 in Cape Verde

- D2UY in Angola

Somehow I still have managed to work 50+ new grids so far:

Angola on 6m

 

Angola showed up briefly on 6m today:

I turned the amp up to 500W, but they faded after 4 decodes. A few other stations heard him as well, but of the operators that I chatted with, nobody made a contact.

Hawaii on 6M

 

Almost! I heard him for a number of sequences, got a signal report back but couldn't complete.  

First EU of the 2022 Season

 The first opening to EU in 2021 was on May 19th, this season got off to a very late start. The first EU that I hear here was on June 1st, and I was not in front of the radio!

It was a relatively small opening, looking forward to the rest of the season.

More 6M TEP - Quick opening to Brazil

 I snagged a quick QSO with PY1MHZ today on 6M ft8 via TEP propagation. 

 

The bigger stations near me were giving reports of ZP, LU and other PYs being loud. 

6M TEP, the start of a new Sporadic E season

 Timing is everything in life....

I noticed some bigger stations calling CQ SA, so I spun the beam around and just got a few decodes from LW2EDM, so I gave him a call when he finished with the other station. He came right back and boom, was in the log! PSK reporter showed there were a few other LUs that heard me, but I didn't see any decodes from them:

Can't wait for the new Es to begin!

January VHF Contest - notes

 I didn't put an effort into this contest, the only working band right now is 6M. I spent most of the time (per usual) cleaning up the shack/office. Here are my notes:

- VP9NM: Bermuda was in for a while on Sunday. I was hearing him regardless of direction. 

- PV8AAS: Seems like we got a little TEP. I only got a single decode, but lots of other stations were working him:

- Had a lot of band noise pointing towards the Caribbean and South America. 

- Finally got the LP-100A power meter installed on 6m. Wow, this thing is nice!

- Final score was 34Q in 16 grids for a grand total of 544!

Winter Sporadic E - shack rebuilding

 Last August I had some system integration issues with my station that kept me off the air for a number of months. May last log entry was from August 5th, with N2RJ on 6m FT8. I had a really tremendous 6m season in 2021, but my shack was in an epic wiring nightmare. Halfway through the season I integrated my Larcan 1KW and and also moved to using an Airspy R2 for my main RX. 

The result of both integrations was rats nest of splitters, pre-amps, relays, control boards, and DC wiring. Work and life got busy, I pushed it aside and started dreaming of the 2022 Es season. 

This past week I decided that I really missed having a working station, so I every so slow started to pull all the cables apart. At the same time I started integrating a new station computer, a mini system that has a ton of CPU and memory, but the size of a mac-mini. 

A clean slate. I got the 6M station wired up to the power supply and antenna and audio interface. Simple, nothing fancy. I could heard signals again!

I was somewhat surprised at the level of local 6m FT8 activity, it seemed like much more than last winter. This is a good thing. 

This Saturday evening, around 9pm local, I started to hear some mid-west stations calling and I managed to get a few in the log:

K9WKJ   EN44 
WO0Z   EN34 
K0DAS   EN42 
K9DLI   EN42
AA9JS   EN51
KX9X   EN50
WA8TTM   EM79
N0LWF   EN10
WB8EJN   EM48
K4XXX   EM77
KC9VVX   EN60
W4RXR   EM65
N9FN   EN60
KG5JJ   EM26
XE2X   EL06
WT9J   EM59
K0GU   DN70
NG1H   EL06
KC0MAS   EM28
WB8ZBT   EM55

N3CY   EM74

K0PHP   EM38

K4NO   EM64

N5BO   EM60

Not bad for January!