12m duck broken

After reporting that I hadn't ever worked a contact on the 12 metre band well I'm pleased to report that I have made multiple contacts today on 24.917 MHz using JT65A.
The first one was Alexander UT1AN in Ukraine who gave me a -7db signal report me giving him a -5db report. This was closely followed by Nick SV1BHF in Athens who gave me a -1db to his -5db.

The band suddenly became active in the UK at around 13:28 UTC and I continued to work multiple contacts throughout the afternoon.

Then the band suddenly, without warning, went dead - what an odd band!

HF Band analysis using JT65-HF-HB9HQX

I use JT65-HF-HB9HQX for JT65 for on all bands from HF to 6m. A great feature when displaying the "Band Statistics" window shows a number of useful items:

• QSOs - shows the total number of contacts per band and a total for all bands
• Stations - shows the total number of unique stations contacted per band and a total for all bands
• Grids - shows the total grid squares worked per band and a total for all bands
• DXCCs - shows the total number of DXCC entities worked per band and a total for all bands

Band Statistics window in JT65-HF-HB9HQX

VOAProp

The late Julian Moss G4ILO wrote a great piece of software (indeed he was a very prolific software writer) called VOAProp. This makes use of  VOACAP "the result of more than 50 years of R&D into HF propagation" and displays it in simple graphical form in a window that you can keep running all the time.
It automatically downloads forecasts from VOACAP and you can select whichever amateur band you are currently operating on and see the predictions for the current day. I have found it invaluable and have made a lot more 30m contacts in one day than the previous year since installing the software.

Here the 40m band is shown with predictions for likely signal strengths
based upon the current time, my QTH and VOACAP predictions.

New version of JT65-HF-HB9HQX and JTAlert released.

JT65-HF-HB9HQX

I have just installed Version 1.0 of JT65-HF-HB9HQX and it looks slightly different. You can't install this directly over the top of older pre 1.0 versions as it uses a different directory structure. No matter as HB9NQX has a readme with the software that tells you what to do. Essential copy the contents of the old JT65-HF-Appfiles folder into the new one which is just called Appfiles now.
I also copied the contents of JT65-HF-Logfiles into the new logfiles folder.

When you start the software you have to enter some information Callsign, Location data etc, and set the output level to your sound card. Oh you also need to reconfigure for the soundcards you have in use. None of that data comes across from the old versions.

You can now automatically upload to eQSL.cc - I don't believe that was possible before.
There is:

• Full integration with Ham Radio Deluxe 
• CAT integration with Omnirig, HamLib, CI-V Commander. 
• Logging to HRD, DXKeeper, Log OM and MixW2

How different two days can be

Yesterday on 40m, 20m, 15m and 10m bands produced bumper crops of contacts on JT65A - today Friday 2nd October 2015 has only 4 contacts on 40m and 15m.
This is the un-predictable nature of propagation.

Just when I thought the summer low was coming to an end.

Dx PS30SWII Switching power supply - review

The additional power supply arrived yesterday and I had chance to connect it to the HF rig and try it out.

DX PS3-SWII Front Panel

Construction

The power supply is housed within a black coloured compact aluminium box which is essentially a huge heatsink. 

It measures 190 W x 69 H x 181 deep (millimetres) and weighs approximately 2.3 kg. The front panel housing all the controls and some connectors is held to the box with 4 screws.

The rear panel comprising a pair of screw terminals, a fuse, a selector switch, mains power connector and a small extract fan is similarly attached.

Watson W-30AM Power Supply

I've had this great linear power supply for a number of years now and it has served me well. Since getting higher powered rigs I've come to the conclusion that the fan noise is now unacceptable.

Supplying 10 Amps to the FT-450D whilst it was
transmitting 35 watts.

The Watson W-30AM is a bench power supply supplying 30 amps continuous (35 amps peak) at 13.8 Volts.