Backscatter ?

I have had two contacts in the last few days on 10m and 12m to stations in N.Wales and N.England, distances of 170 miles and 241 miles respectively.

Both of these stations, MW0ZZK, Steve, and G0SXC, Kevin, were using Yagi's pointing west and working Stateside, they both took a bit of working as my 5-2/3 signals were competing with 5/7+ Stateside.

These stations are too far way for it to be ground wave, and with no UK sporadic 'e' openings, both stations suggested it was 'backscatter'.

I have tried to google-ing 'backscatter' and have not found a lot of readable info, any thoughts or comments greatly appreciated !

73 Paul.

Better on 10m today.

Managed to crack the Atlantic on 10m just now (1630 local), Roland, K3RA in Baltimore but prior to that a new DXCC with Mexico and XE2AC, Luis with 5/5 exchanged, this makes 59 DXCC now worked.

Unusual contact on 10m.

10m was open yesterday afternoon into Europe and Stateside, however not for the want of trying, I could manage neither, well that's not strictly true as I did manage to contact G0SXC, Kevin in Clitheroe, Lancs.

Signal reports of 5/3-0 with qsb were exchanged and later as I did not get his full qth, I emailed Kevin as I was interested in his opinion as to what type of propogation occurred, it was too far for ground wave. 

Here is the email and the replies..

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thx paul not sporadic e   its out of season and i was beaming usa  had quite a lot of backscatter that direction so im sure you was too  so your signal was going half way across the atlantic and then bouncing back to me  dont know what antenna you were using if directiona i bet you were also beaming usa

--- On Sat, 23/10/10, Paul  wrote:

From: Paul
Subject: Re: 10m contact
To: "Kevin
Date: Saturday, 23 October, 2010, 21:09

Hi Kevin, sorry, yes 2E0PCZ, located in Torquay, Devon, tell me do you think the contact was sporadic 'e', I would have thought so as I had qsb on your signal, but after reading your page, not so sure..?

 

 

From: 

Sent: Saturday, October 23, 2010 9:06 PM

To: 

Subject: Re: 10m contact

paul you havent given your call sign so i do dontknow where your are was you down in torbay?? yes i use the antenna in the picture and im in clitheroe lancs --- On Sat, 23/10/10, Paul Colyer <> wrote: From: Paul Colyer Subject: 10m contact To: Date: Saturday, 23 October, 2010, 14:23 Hi Kevin,   Thanks for the brief qso a few minutes ago, it was very difficult to hear you and I never heard where your QTH is..   Was you using the big yagi I have just read about ?   I was using a 5/8 vertical, Kenwood TS-480, Heil GM5 mic and the 50 watts.   73 and thanks, Paul.

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Have a look at Kevins QRZ.com page at G0SXC, and here is a picture of his monster 10m yagi.

Worked into Ireland on 2m FM, then VK and the North of England !

Crazy lift, heard some VK, EI and English stations talking on 145.675, so guessed it was an echolink node, then they started talking about the Cork, Ireland repeater, so a google search later revealed the repeater needed a -600 Hz offset, and no tone required.

The lift easily lasted the hour or so I was on, with signals between a 5/1 to 5/5, very steady with little QSB, I also managed to copy Paul, M6PEW who was accessing a repeater in the North of England, so not sure what was going on there !

Rock Walk, Torquay and the Heaviside Layer.

Here on Torquay seafront we have a place called 'Rock Walk'. This used to be a nice scenic walk along the bottom of a steep cliff face, however nearly 3 years ago the area was deemed as dangerous due to falling tree's and small landslides, so the area was cordoned off.

Well £3 million pounds later it has been reopened to the public, and as I was away for the grand opening, and am also currently dogsitting for my Mother, we (Pepe and myself) decided to take a walk and have a look.

Basically all the tree's were removed as they were a danger, and a gentle stepped walkway now zig-zags to the top, where the views across Torbay can be enjoyed.

View towards Corbyn Head

View toward Torquay Harbour, with the Living Coasts centre top left.

Also dotted around the walk were some plaques with interesting local history, well this one caught my eye as it mentions radio and the ionosphere.

And here is the Pepe Pooch.

So there you go, so when someone mentions the Heaviside Layer, I'll know what they are talking about !

Back from holiday.

And back to work, hey ho, still I managed a little bit of radio, but only just..

As I am not yet an M0, I cant transmit abroad, still I decided to take a small handie, an Icom IC-7E, this particular handheld used to put out 1.5 watts, however it has a fault and puts out probably less than 100mW, so ideal as a reciever, with it's wideband 0-999 Mhz coverage.

Anyway it nearly didnt get through customs at Bristol as they took an interest in it, taking it away to be looked at, and after about 5 minutes, they gave it back to me and sent me on my way.

It proved to be very usefull however, as we went on a cruise holiday I could monitor the ship to shore transmissions around 156.500, only issue was my very poor French, Spanish and Italian language understanding, still I did understand when I heard the Captain of our ship talking to the pilot boat in the port of Rome, asking when we could depart, only to be told that we were last and we had to wait, how rude !