VK5RBV chirping away again this morning. Fairly constant scatter with MS enhancements.

Long burn from VK5RBV this morning at 2153z, lasting just over 1 minute 30 seconds.

Another very quiet day. Steve VK3OT did re-established the VK3RMV beacon on 50.293MHz today, and was instantly heard here.

And just now a very brief and unusual carrier burst on 50.110MHz!

A burst of winter Es - VK7RAE in just after sunset.

Still very quiet on 6m... even 10m is almost dead... though the occasional burst from VK5RBV (50.315MHz) still coming through.

New Jetstream 1,500w 4:1 balun just arrived (very quick delivery from USA). Now do I make a 80m OCF dipole, or a 40m OCF dipole!

Cold, wet and overall miserable day. SFI predicted to reach just 99. Midst way into winter Es season with little hope of much propagation. But VK5RBV beacon in weakly at present.

A nice way to start on 28MHz this morning... turned yagi to EU via the LP and could just hear Lou IK6CWQ calling CQ. Within about 5 minutes Lou was at a very workable RS57 (QSB between 55 and 59) and by 2147z Lou was RS59+10.

At last a non-VK signal on 6m. Bob ZL1RS CQn 50.110MHz at 03:11:30z.

And then again at 03:28z.

50MHz has been very quiet of late. Whilst a few openings have occurred, overall the winter Es have been poor.

Over the weekend, the Winter VHF/UHF Field Day 'contest' was conducted. A few stations were heard operating portable and I tried to provide some valuable Qs for efforts on 50, 144 and 432MHz resulting a final performance for the Field Day (as a 'Home' station) of:

Band     QSOs      Band
              Made        Total

50          13              63

144        11              153

420        10             250

Final Total:             466

Monitoring 6m as I type, and VK5RBV is weak, but audible... as seen in the SpecLab screen grab below.

While 50MHz continues to remain dormant during our winter, 28MHz has continued to 'fire' with LP to EU again today. This represents condx being favorable for 9 out of the last 10 days.

That said... some good bursts of CW was heard on 50.1106MHz this morning via MS.. no callsign ID'ed just single letters copied. But signals on pings were RST539 as shown in screen grab below.

First Es 6m propagation today... ZL2WHO/B heard at 0357z with a very noticeable drift!

An interesting morning on 28MHz... ZLs reporting EUs via LP but not extension into VK4.. monitored both CW and SSB segments. The first morning in over a week which failed to produce LP contacts.

Given this, I switched the WSPR station on and ran it on 28MHz working numerous W and VK stations. However, contrary to the lack of EU LP contacts earlier, CN8LI reported receiving my WSPR transmission, and a short while later I heard CN8LI.

Found this great old cartoon today with the caption "The more time changes the more it stays the same".......how true it is!

An early start.. tuning around on 6m and came across an interesting 'tock tock tock tock brrrt' signal on 50227.2KHz... following is a screen shot from SpecLab of it. Any suggestions?

Been fairly busy so far today, and besides two quick contacts this morning with EU (see map below) via the longpath, and Central America, I'm just having a chance to monitor 6m.

NZ1 TV1 video carriers are currently in, as to is the ZL3SIX beacon (as shown in the screen grab from SpecLab below.)

Another momentous day as Australia progresses towards the removal of low band analogue TV with the shut down of the ABMN0 Transmitter on Mt Ulandra at 23:00:15z June 4, 2012.

Just one more to go.... Tamworth scheduled for November 27, 2012.

Finally after a week of rain and wind, this morning I had the opportunity to raise Tower #2 back to full height and now the 10m yagi is finally installed in it's proper place at ~20m AGL.

As can be seen, the 40m dipole is still dangling from the tower and will be fixed in the next 24 hours!

But as with tower work it wasn't without incident! With the second section 2/3 raised, the winch cable snapped. Luckily I had been winching in small increments and then climbing to place a 'lock' (block of hard wood) in the tower and cable tying the hardline to the tower sections. This meant that the free fall was only about 100mm. A quick trip to the local trailer repair shop and new winch cable was purchased and installed on the tower for the final lift into it's fully extended height.

Been very quiet on 6m for a while now... even this random carrier on 50.110MHz at 0840z was something to get my attention!

Wet, cold and miserable day in QG62lp. Wasted some time by creating a 'schematic' of the antenna systems here at VK4CZ using an image from NearMap.

Condx this evening on 10m WSPR are good. Reports from Western WU through to the Middle East have been received... all the time while I've been busy doing other things. WSPR certainly has a role in the ARS.

Over the last three hours the VK4CZ 10m WSPR station has delivered:

Hearing: DB0ZDF, DL6NL, RA3UDF, VK2FLR
Heard by: A45WT, DB0ZDF, IW2DZX, OZ7IT, RA3UDF