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US-4408 Project TouCans POTA Activation Outside of Silverton, CO

 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'll be able to see all the QSO paths and their F2 skip paths (based on Boulder, CO ionosonde data at the time of the QSO.) If you click play again, you'll be able to see how the QSOs played out over time.


Notes

Difference in Altitude

I'm still working through getting the F2 traces to routinely emit from the ground. This time, Google Maps said the elevation here was 2982.468 m, but Cesium is happier with 2947.468 m, co about 35 meters lower than expected. Even then, we're not on the ground


SQL Query

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,

  'BC840' as ionosonde,

  2947.468 as elev_tx

from

  rm_rnb_history_pres

where

  dB > 100

  and timestamp > '2024-05-29'

  and timestamp < '2024-05-30'

order by

  rm_rnb_history_pres.timestamp desc

SQL Query for RBN and QSOs

Due to a bug/oversight in the system, I have to run with tx location coordinates set in the query when I want to include RBN spots, so here's that query

select

  -107.7179358 as tx_lng,

  37.8227611 as 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-4408' as park,

  'KD0FNR' as call,

  'BC840' as ionosonde,

  2947.468 as elev_tx

from

  rm_rnb_history_pres

where



  timestamp > '2024-05-29'

  and timestamp < '2024-05-30'

order by

  rm_rnb_history_pres.timestamp desc

References

Ionosonde Data

This was made possible with data collected by 



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