For Sale

I'll often hang on to extra things I have 'just in case' but with ham radio stuff I think its time to let go of some things. I've been procrastinating on posting my surplus equipment for sale for a while now but I recently firmed up plans for a couple of road trips so I might be able to deliver the heavier items or at least move them closer to civilization. It would be great to see these things get into the hands of other amateurs that can enjoy them.

I did up a separate web page of the for sale items: https://www.qsl.net/ve8ev/ForSale.html

Update 5/26/21: Everything is sold except for the monster amplifiers and the rx array system.

Update 4/27/25: Still have the monster amps and the rx array.  Make me an offer if you're interested!

73

John VE8EV

The Missing Link

For years and years I tried to understand HF propagation from the Arctic.  At my location just above the Arctic Circle it was fairly easy to figure out when it would be bad.  The sun throws off high energy protons from the solar wind or solar energy particle events like flares and coronal mass ejections. The charged particles interact with the earth's geomagnetic field and the north and south poles of this magnetic field attract the particles just like iron filings on a magnet.  When the particles get dense enough to collide with molecules in the upper atmosphere they emit light energy visible at night as the aurora (although its still there in the daytime, just not bright enough to be visible).  Extreme levels of aurora tend to reflect higher radio frequencies (like 6m and VHF) back in the general direction of their source.  This can be great if the auroral oval is just to the North (or South) of you, not so great if you're right in the middle of it!  Radio frequencies in the HF range are scattered by the aurora and lose most of their energy with the majority of the attenuation occurring on the lower HF bands.

The auroral oval goes right over my head and most of the time we're right in the middle of it.

If the K-index was high that would indicate auroral activity and I knew to expect poor conditions. The 160 and 80 meter bands would go completely dead and usually 40 meters as well.  Sometimes the higher bands held up a bit better but as the aurora becomes more intense the degradation increases in frequency.  It was a simple matter to take a peak at the K-index and I knew at a glance how bad things would be.  

What I had a much harder time understanding, though, was why it happened frequently that the auroral activity numbers would suggest things should probably be ok but, in fact, HF propagation would be lousy.  Then I discovered the D-RAP.  "D Region Absorption Predictions" are provided by NOAA and they opened up a whole new world of understanding about what's going on up there in the ionosphere especially at high latitudes.   In the context of amateur radio, the lower ionosphere is cited as the reason the low bands are only open at night.  The sun causes it to absorb low frequencies during the daytime.  What is actually happening is that the same aurora-causing high energy protons given off by the sun tend collect in a specific region of the upper atmosphere known as the D Region.  Since the earth's magnetic field tends to concentrate these particles towards the poles we have this layer overhead almost all the time.  What the D-RAP predictions do is to quantify exactly what the effect of the particles (and x-rays as well) will have on any specific frequency at any particular point on the Earth.  It takes the solar wind strength into account and also measures the effects of other solar particle events like flares and coronal mass ejections. 

The little chart on the right side of the image breaks down the amount of attenuation in the red areas. Click on the image for a larger version.

The NOAA D-RAP site  provides the data in a pretty easy to understand set of graphics that show the level of absorption (in dB) at specific frequencies.  Now its easy to see the piece of the puzzle that had been eluding me for so long.  Solar particle events throw off huge amounts of charged protons and if they are directed towards the earth they stream into the upper atmosphere for days afterwards.  A quick check of the data at any time will show which bands are affected and how much.  By combining this lowest usable frequency (LUF) data with the maximum usable frequency (MUF) calculated by the solar flux index one can instantly know which is the optimum HF band for paths from (or through!) the Arctic in real time.  Unfortunately for me and the other high-latitude operators, periods of low solar activity tend to lower the MUF.  When a solar particle events occur right after or during these quiet times the net result of a low MUF and a high LUF is no HF propagation from up here on any band!  The trick is being on the air at the just right time to catch those opportune moments when the flux is high enough to support propagation on the upper bands but with low attenuation from the D Region.  That happens just often enough keep me tuning the bands waiting for these interesting opportunities to communicate.

On-Line QSL Request

OQRS page is now here.

You're Not in Kansas Anymore

When I first got started in Amateur Radio back in 1993 it was quite the learning experience. Without an experienced Elmer for guidance I had to figure it all out on my own. The ARRL Handbook and the occasional magazine was the source of most of my information. Unfortunately, it took years to figure out that a lot of that content didn't really apply to my situation. Why doesn't my dipole work? How come I can't hear anyone on 80m? I didn't understand why many of the situations and ideas wouldn't work for me. With 20-20 hindsight I now understand what the main differences are. Here's what makes Amateur Radio from up here a whole different ball game than from "down South":

1. There's No One Else Out There

Draw a 500 mile radius circle from your location and take a guess how many active hams there are within that circle. On HF? On VHF? 6m? More than 1000? Maybe more than 10,000? Short-hop skip is the bread-and-butter of ham radio. You can load up the rain gutter on the house as an antenna and make LOTS of contacts. QRP can be fun! Every night on 40m and 80m there are hundreds of 20-over-S9 signals. It's easy! From here my circle is pretty barren. There's a few KL7's and a couple of VE8's and VY1's. That's all. And the next 500 miles after that are almost the same. I coined the phrase "It's All DX From Here" because it's true. Almost everyone I work is long-haul, double-hop skip. And that's hard to do from here because:

2. We're Right in the Middle of the Aurora Zone

You know those days when you can't work over the pole because the K-index is up? For us that bright orange auroral band around the North Pole is right overhead. ALL THE TIME! When the K is high we hear nothing on the radio. That's right, NOTHING! No shortwave broadcast stations, no WWV, zippo. And the K is high a lot. When it's not high things change from impossible to just difficult. Signals are still attenuated like crazy. It's a lot like using a VHF handheld inside a big building. When I first started it didn't take me long to figure out that if I could see the Northern Lights outside I wasn't going to be able to hear much on the radio. To make matters worse, for some reason (likely to do with wave angles) it seems to attenuate my transmitted signal much more than it affects received signals. This contributes to:

3. Diode Propagation

It's the November Sweepstakes contest. Everyone is looking for the elusive Northern Territories (it's NOT Yukon!) multiplier for the Clean Sweep award. I'm on 20m listening to two ops discussing the contest and lamenting that there's no VE8's on to give them the Sweep. And I'm calling them over and over and over but they don't hear a thing. Diode propagation is one of the more frustrating aspects of operating from up here. It's caused by three main factors. First and foremost is the auroral absorbtion. The second is the lack of noise. The noise floor here is extremely low. Very little man-made or natural noise is propagated here mainly because of (1) and (2) above. The end result is we can hear VERY weak signals. I've made many, many contacts where a true signal report would be five and zero. In most cases "down South" the noise floor is much higher so they just can't hear me over the noise. The third factor is directional antennas. Yagi's, four-square arrays, beverages, all work wonders to improve signal-to-noise in a particular direction. Unfortunately, "Northwest" is not a direction that people usually listen to. I can't count how many times I've struggled to make a contact and finally the guy at the other end says "Let me turn the beam" and SHAZAAM! He's 10 over S9. And when guys ARE pointing up here they don't want to talk to me. They're working Asian DX or West coast to Europe.

So what's the answer? Just accepting it for what it is helps a lot. Being diversified is also a good solution. Nothing on HF? Work satellites! Try different modes. CW is a good one. The Coast Guard radio station here is the last one in Canada that still operates CW because many times it is the only mode that can get through. My CW skills are sorely lacking but it is something I'm working on. One solution I've found is to operate during contests when there's lots of activity. The best answer, though, is to adopt a "Go Big or Go Home" philosophy. High-gain, low angle antennas and lots of power help a lot. QRP is NOT an option.

Note: The above piece was written at the bottom of the solar cycle based on experiences at the bottom of the previous cycle. I missed the last solar maximum and I'm looking forward to seeing what its like.