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Cluster Activity

Spots per uW band today:
UK spotter or spotted only.

Solar data:
SFI
225
A-Index
38
K-Index
4
Exp.K
0
Sunspots
165
Activity
act
GMF
min
Aurora?
no

My Weather

ArrayDate:09/10/24 Time:07:15
Temp:12.5C
Wind Speed:12.5mph
Wind Dir:0deg
Pressure:986.68mB
Humidity:118%
Dew Point:16.1C

6m : 50MHz

6m is a very interesting band for VHF, it has some good sporadic E openings in the summer and F2 layer openings at other times of the year..
The first experience i had of the 6m band is with TV DX in 2000 i think.... This is watching for TV stations on VHF band I in European countries when the conditions are favourable.

I used an old black & white TV set that had the low band on for early tv reception and made a dipole antenna which was in the loft, with this i was able to watch TV stations anywhere from Germany to Iran and the middle east countries when the conditions were good.
Watching for these TV signals is a good indicator of when the 6m band is opening up as the TV stations are running hundreds of KW in some cases! much more than the ham stations so even a little enhancement is noticed.

Identifying the TV stations becomes quite a challenge as they could be anywhere in Europe, some have recognisable logos but some have nothing and are very hard to tell where they are from. There are some websites with lists of logos that are handy and you could also look up the TV carrier frequency to a few Hz to identify it as well. take a look at http://www.skywaves.co.uk for more information and you can also join the skywaves mailing list there for more information on FM and TV DX.

Unfortunately most of the western European NHF TV stations are now closed down and changing to digital systems on UHF so TV DX is much harder than it used to be BUT Eastern Europe still has Analogue TV on air....

More recently (2012) i have been playing with backscatter radar on 6m with a chirp beacon.... see that page for more information.
















Last page added:25/03/00 18:32
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