70 MHz Sporadic E contacts

This week now and then the 4 m band opened because of Es.

I made FT8 QSO's with Spain (EA6SX) and Greece (SV2DCD, SV2JAO..) on 70.154 MHz

One QSO has already been confirmed by eQSL:

Path to OH is also open once in a while;

Radio Caroline

Lately I have been experimenting with a KT0936M module on the medium wave. I discovered that Radio Caroline puts a firm signal strength at 648 kHz at my QTH. The music they play is from the 60’s-90’s. Like to hear their music through my 5 Watt tube amplifier 😊

Here   https://www.radiocaroline.co.uk/#648_am.html   you can read that Radio Caroline returned to the medium waveband on 648 kHz AM as a legal broadcaster at the end of 2017, after applying for, and being granted, the Ofcom licence for the Essex and Suffolk areas of South Eastern England. Radio Caroline is using an RF power of one kilowatt from a Nautel ND2.5 transmitter.

More:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Caroline

 

 

First steps in satellite communications

The Satrover QO100 transverter enables you to use the geostationary OQ100 (Es’Hail-2) satellite. I was able to explore this equipment with Gerard PA2G. With the use of an IC-705 and the satellite dish aimed at the OQ100 satellite (elevation 27 degrees, azimuth 153 degrees in the Rotterdam area) we were able to receive satellite SSB/CW/FT8 signals at appr. 10 GHz (converted to 144 MHz by the transverter).

Making an uplink at 2.4 GHz will be the next step.

SATROVER transverter and LNA/Helix antenna