Copasetic Flow

 POTA activation from Silverton in twenty-one minutes! Project TouCans had one of its highest ever antenna placements. It showed in the QSO data. Check out the number of 599 reports, (white qso paths.) (All QSOs are shown with their associated F2 skip paths.) I'm loving the, (very real), yet very sci-fi look of what's going on with the F2 skips from this rig at this location Most of the F2 paths actually cleared the mountain, so I didn't have to think about diffraction or other radio optics effects. VE3EID did plow just a little bit into the mountainside It did come out the other side. (By the way, you can look at all of this on your own in the map below.) But, if Ontario plowed into a peak a little bit, how did Puerto Rico KP3CW spot the rig?  Turns out, it's line of sight between mountains from here QSO Map Here's the map you can steer around in on your own! Remember, click play in the lower left hand corner, then move the time slider all the way to the left. You...

 We got to camp a bit more in the middle of nowhere than we usually do while traveling across Utah last weekend. My partner found the Burr Trail Scenic Byway. I've looked for a route across southern Utah for the last several years, but had somehow missed this really nice, well-paved, little road. We camped at the foot of an East-facing cliff, and the QSO map for the POTA reflected that fact pretty nicely: Based on this overall map, I didn't think we could hit the West Coast because of this cliff face. Almost all of the QSOs and spots paid attention to that cliff face. And then, there was N0OI: How? How had the signal cleared the cliff and skipped out to Perris, CA? Using data from the Boulder, CO ionosonde , at the time Project TouCans was spotted in California, the F2 layer skip is modeled in the gif below. Note that it clears the mesa, (just barely.) The other skip off to the Southeast was headed to the Cayman Islands. All of the skewing around is to convince myself that the ...

 Here's the query I'm using for Burr Trail ============================================ select   tx_lng,   tx_lat,   rx_lng,   rx_lat,   rm_rnb_history_pres.timestamp,   rm_rnb_history_pres.dB,   rm_rnb_history_pres.Spotter,   haversine(tx_lat, tx_lng, rx_lat, rx_lng) as total_path,   gis_partial_path_lat(tx_lat, tx_lng, rx_lat, rx_lng, 200) as el_lat,   gis_partial_path_lng(tx_lat, tx_lng, rx_lat, rx_lng, 200) as el_lng,   id,   strftime('%Y%m%d', timestamp) as date,   strftime('%H%M', timestamp) as time,   'US-4399' as park,   'KD0FNR' as call,   1770.829467773438 as elev_tx from   rm_rnb_history_pres where   dB > 100   and timestamp > '2024-05-27'   and timestamp < '2024-05-28' order by   rm_rnb_history_pres.timestamp desc ======================================================= At some point I'll add an ionosonde field using this map for each QSO. For the Boulder, CO...

 The F2 skip traces in Cesium have looked a bit odd: Whyyyyy????? It's because they're starting from sea level, not the altitude of the station.... I think... What follows are somewhat random development notes. Relative to Ground: True, Alt: 0 Relative to Ground: True, Alt: 3600 meters Relative to Ground: True, Alt: 1772.717 Almost!!! Relative to Ground: true, elevation: 1770.829467773438 I got the more accurate elevation from the elevation plugin using: {{ tx_lat }},{{ tx_lng }}|{{ rx_lat }},{{ rx_lng }} Not quite there yet.... To get this close, I had to run with  But the CZML schema says: So, it seems like the correct altitude in this case should be 0. (Start the line on the ground.) But, if I put in zero for altitude, I get the result shown above Found a reference to quaternions. Ahhhh, quaternions. References Ionosonde Data This was made possible with data collected by  Reinisch, B. W., and I. A. Galkin, Global ionospheric radio observatory (GIRO), Earth, Pla...

 The recent pair of QSOs to Japan from Project TouCans from Great Basin National Park has me wondering about F2 layer ionospheric skip propagation again. I got our F2 skips working for CZML. Here's a look at the skip path for JJ2JQF de KO6BTY. Notice the Earedson ionosonde is almost right in the middle Here's the map to take a look at  Note that the path goes for a little while underground. However, Hugyens: Check out the mountains that can act as a knife-edge barrier creating  new source. Query for JJ2JQF select   tx_lng,   tx_lat,   rx_lng,   rx_lat,   rm_rnb_history_pres.timestamp,   rm_rnb_history_pres.dB,   rm_rnb_history_pres.Spotter,   haversine(tx_lat, tx_lng, rx_lat, rx_lng) as total_path,   gis_partial_path_lat(tx_lat, tx_lng, rx_lat, rx_lng, 200) as el_lat,   gis_partial_path_lng(tx_lat, tx_lng, rx_lat, rx_lng, 200) as el_lng,   id,   strftime('%Y%m%d', timestamp) as date,   strftime('%H%M...

 Today KO6BTY made a QSO to Japan from Great Basin National Park!!! Not only that, but she also made her first POTA activation! She was operating from Project TouCans as KD0FNR/KO6BTY on 20 meters. Here's the QSO map , (after hitting play in the lower left corner, all the QSOs will shown for a brief moment; if you click pause you can zoom in/out and view all of them at once; continuing with 'play' will remove all QSOs and display each QSO as it happened in time during the activation):

 The fact that KO6BTY and I both made our POTA contacts with Japan while it was still very much nighttime in Japan, fascinates me. Here's what my QSO with JG0AWE looked like with respect to the night sky and the grey line. K06BTY's QSO was even earlier in the morning for us, so even further from sunrise in Japan.

  This morning at the 2nd POTA activation here, I got to talk (OK, CW), with JG0AWE again! Just like last year! I was using a bit more power this year. Project TouCans is running somewhere between 3 and 5 Watts at the moment. He caught me just before the gang go the oatmeal ready, (we're camping on the edge of Great Basin National Park), On top of that, a RBN station in Japan had spotted Project TouCans about half an hour before. There wasn't a grey line between our locations, so I'm curious about what was going on, but delighted to have made the QSO! Here's the activation in Cesium so you can see where the sun was in relation to the QSO. The QSO takes place at 14:49 near the end of the animation.

 Washi tape to the rescue again! Tuesday morning, with Project TouCans working better that it had in days, I noticed that the ends of our stranded wire antenna had begun to fray out. I grabbed a roll of washi tape from my pocket, (who doesn't take washi tape on a radio outing?), and a few minutes later, voila The end of our antenna was no longer frayed, and nosie was down significantly! Here's a view of our activation site from the opposite angle looking out over the Great Basin of Great Basin National Park US-0032.

 The band's looking alright to Project TouCans this morning! The map covers the following half hour table. Project TouCans is still running five watts or less.  spotter  ●  spotted  distance mi freq mode type snr speed time seen    K3PA-1    KD0FNR/6 1360  mi 14057.4 CW CQ 8 dB 18 wpm 1244z 17 May 3 minutes ago    ND7K    KD0FNR/6 385  mi 14057.3 CW CQ 7 dB 18 wpm 1244z 17 May 3 minutes ago    W6YX    KD0FNR/6 207  mi 14057.4 CW CQ 13 dB 17 wpm 1244z 17 May 4 minutes ago    W1NT-2    KD0FNR/6 2601  mi 14057.4 CW CQ 8 dB 17 wpm 1243z 17 May 5 minutes ago    W1UE    KD0FNR/6 2579  mi 14057.4 CW CQ 4 dB 18 wpm 1242z 17 May 6 minutes ago    KO7SS    KD0FNR/6 533  mi 14057.3 CW CQ 6 dB 18 wpm 1239z 17 May 8 minutes ago    TI7W    KD0FNR/6 27...