Re: Topband: Reverse Beacon Network
The reason PSK reporter is so one-sided to FT8 is that the WSJT software AUTOMATICALLY sends the spot to PSK Reporter. If you are on CW or SSB, you have to MANUALLY enter your spot on PSK Reporter. Don’t draw too many conclusions from the PSK graphs, they are substantially FT8 reports. However, they sure do give you an indication what bands are open and in what direction; but be advised that many FT8 operators forget to change the band selection on WSJT-X when they change bands. This results in erroneous band reporting on PSK but still a good indicator of band conditions. jay ny2ny _ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector
Re: Topband: Reverse Beacon Network
>"However going to reversebeacon.net and entering my callsign - I can find out that I am indeed getting out and the band is open..." If PSKReporter is to believed, total global CW activity across bands is now less than 1% of FT8. For example, look at the report for the last 12 hours (0.4%). This trend began rising dramatically during November, 2018. We can all pretend it's "band conditions" driving these statistics, but I think it's much more than that. The numbers show that FT8 has become an insatiable HF video game. https://pskreporter.info/cgi-bin/pskstats.pl I have no idea as to the accuracy of input drivers that make the reported statistics, nor how it's all compiled. Anyone? Paul, W9AC _ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector
Re: Topband: REVERSE BEACON
Last month, W8NN and I delivered a presentation to the SouthEast Michigan DX Association (SEMDXA) titled Using the RBN as an Antenna Performance Tool. You can download the presentation from: http://www.k8ut.com/tiki-list_file_gallery.php?galleryId=2 Among the topics is a description of our testing protocol, which we found required strict compliance to permit valid comparison of antenna A to antenna B to antenna C. Not included in the results are more recent tests that three of us, K8YTO, VE3CFK, K8UT have been performing on a variety of 160 meter antennas (inverted-L, sloper, Battle Creek special, vertical ground plane, 1/2 wave dipole). Although the results could be described as interesting, the poor band conditions on 160 only delivered spots from local stations - most within 500 miles, only one from as far away as 1200 miles. Since the three of us are more interested in 160m DX, we don't think we encountered the right conditions yet to allow us to classify anything as good, bad, or ugly. Especially on 160 meters, results varied widely from day-to-day; even from hour-to-hour. You may find the same is true by looking back through the history of spots for your old antenna as you compare it to your new antenna. My Advice (FWIW) -- You can: predict antenna performance with a modeling tool; measure actual performance under laboratory conditions; or try to gauge in the wild performance with something like the RBN. Proceed carefully if you decide to use the latter to make antenna decisions. -larry (K8UT) -Original Message- From: wa3...@comcast.net Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2012 11:16 PM To: topband@contesting.com Subject: Topband: REVERSE BEACON I am planning a new 160m transmit antenna to be erected in the next few weeks. Before I install it however I want to get a good history (over a few weeks) of spots from the reverse beacon network. My problem is that instead of going to WWW.DXMAPS.COM I would like to get the spots from the source. Is this possible? Is there a utility/program out there that will allow me to plug my call into it and collect all of my spots for me... displaying them on my computer ready to be archived/plotted.. whatever? My new antenna will be a 75 ft Vertical elevated about 8 ft above the ground to include 20 1/4 wave radials. This should be superior to my current Inverted L with 4 radials 6 ft above the ground that the deer keep getting into. WA3MEJ Long Live Seal Team VI http://www.qsl.net/wa3mej/index.htm ___ Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com ___ Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com
Re: Topband: REVERSE BEACON
Yes, there is a section on the reversebeacon.net website where you can download data files with all the historical spots. http://www.reversebeacon.net/raw_data/ Matt NQ6N On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 8:16 PM, wa3...@comcast.net wrote: I am planning a new 160m transmit antenna to be erected in the next few weeks. Before I install it however I want to get a good history (over a few weeks) of spots from the reverse beacon network. My problem is that instead of going to WWW.DXMAPS.COM I would like to get the spots from the source. Is this possible? Is there a utility/program out there that will allow me to plug my call into it and collect all of my spots for me... displaying them on my computer ready to be archived/plotted.. whatever? My new antenna will be a 75 ft Vertical elevated about 8 ft above the ground to include 20 1/4 wave radials. This should be superior to my current Inverted L with 4 radials 6 ft above the ground that the deer keep getting into. WA3MEJ Long Live Seal Team VI http://www.qsl.net/wa3mej/index.htm ___ Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com ___ Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com
Re: Topband: REVERSE BEACON
On 11/29/2012 2:55 AM, Larry Gauthier (K8UT) wrote: Especially on 160 meters, results varied widely from day-to-day; even from hour-to-hour. You may find the same is true by looking back through the history of spots for your old antenna as you compare it to your new antenna. I strongly agree. This spring, I used W6CQZ's JT65 RBN to try to compare two 160M antennas in real time. I did so by calling CQ for one sequence on one antenna, then the next sequence (2 minutes later) on the other antenna, and repeating that for at least an hour. On a typical evening, I got reports from receivers in MI, IN, and PA, (as well as some much closer) with QSB that was at least 2-3 times the difference in dB of the predicted difference between the two antennas. I put the numbers in a spreadsheet and carefully averaged them, and even after six or eight runs, was not able to establish that I was seeing the difference the model predicted. Depending on how the timing of the sequences correlated with the timing of the QSB, I could see the predicted 2dB advantage or not. 73, Jim K9YC ___ Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com
Re: Topband: REVERSE BEACON
After watching these kind of results for months and months until I was bleeding from the eyeballs, I came to some conclusions. 1) There are calm steady propagation nights, and there are wildly varying propagation nights. The former is like a windless night, and the latter windy. The latter is FAR more common. The former can tell you all kinds of things. 2) On calm propagation nights, shorter distances, equivalent to one hop, will compare antennas very well, without worrying about further insight. But you need to watch measurements for a decent period to make sure things are steady. Most nights steady doesn't describe anything. I haven't seen a steady night on 160 for a while now. 3) On normal varying propagation nights, you can tell a great deal in a contest where you have an evening and wee hours full of spots. If you get a graph on your station vs another station at a single RBN (use spot analysis tool on the RBN web page) and filling in the dots you see what appears to be a string of mounds with deep fades, graph the high points of the mounds. Ignore things that look like spikes in the graph. This gets you a comparison of two close stations, where the differential in that direction will repeat as long as the stations don't change equipment and antennas. It appears to be good to a dB or two. If you see persistent differences of four or five dB or more, accounting for power, then you have an reliable difference that has something going on feedline/antenna/matching to cause it. It is quite surprising how many times these accounted-for-power differences exceed ten dB. It is surprising how many times before and after changes vs. an unchanged local will amount to 7 or 10 and even 15 dB. There ARE seemingly endless ways to run up surprising, severe by any definition, losses not predicted in models, or in literature, or in common parlance. If the improvement in performance is 8 plus or minus 3 dB, that is STILL a severe improvement regardless of the fuzzy accuracy, and it will make a difference to the DX. With care, RBN easily gives you that. Still waiting for someone to build a $25 dollar RF field strength meter that does not have the diode problem: A meter, that even if 1 mV/m on the scale is plus or minus 100%, whatever 1 mV/m on the display actually is reliably repeatable, and so will still show CHANGE in power level to a reliable 1% accuracy. Elecraft??? Wayne??? Until everyone who has an SWR meter has that FS meter, we are still going to be on the short stick detecting smaller losses and accumulating small improvements to max out the dB, and doing poorly in accumulating an accurate modern acumen for circumstances of the common man. In the meantime, we definitely can help the fellows with undetected unexpected huge loss problems, and measure significant changes reliably with RBN. If the numbers are there, you are. If not, you're not. 73, Guy. On Thu, Nov 29, 2012 at 12:13 PM, Jim Brown j...@audiosystemsgroup.comwrote: On 11/29/2012 2:55 AM, Larry Gauthier (K8UT) wrote: Especially on 160 meters, results varied widely from day-to-day; even from hour-to-hour. You may find the same is true by looking back through the history of spots for your old antenna as you compare it to your new antenna. I strongly agree. This spring, I used W6CQZ's JT65 RBN to try to compare two 160M antennas in real time. I did so by calling CQ for one sequence on one antenna, then the next sequence (2 minutes later) on the other antenna, and repeating that for at least an hour. On a typical evening, I got reports from receivers in MI, IN, and PA, (as well as some much closer) with QSB that was at least 2-3 times the difference in dB of the predicted difference between the two antennas. I put the numbers in a spreadsheet and carefully averaged them, and even after six or eight runs, was not able to establish that I was seeing the difference the model predicted. Depending on how the timing of the sequences correlated with the timing of the QSB, I could see the predicted 2dB advantage or not. 73, Jim K9YC __**_ Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com ___ Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com
Re: Topband: REVERSE BEACON
You can download the RBN raw data from: http://www.reversebeacon.net/raw_data/ After uncompressing the CSV files, you can use a the find command at a DOS prompt to collect your spots: find WA3MEJ *.csv wa3mej.csv After that, it's straightforward to import into Excel and analyze from there. 73, Rick -Original Message- From: Topband [mailto:topband-boun...@contesting.com] On Behalf Of wa3...@comcast.net Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2012 5:17 PM To: topband@contesting.com Subject: Topband: REVERSE BEACON I am planning a new 160m transmit antenna to be erected in the next few weeks. Before I install it however I want to get a good history (over a few weeks) of spots from the reverse beacon network. My problem is that instead of going to WWW.DXMAPS.COM I would like to get the spots from the source. Is this possible? Is there a utility/program out there that will allow me to plug my call into it and collect all of my spots for me... displaying them on my computer ready to be archived/plotted.. whatever? My new antenna will be a 75 ft Vertical elevated about 8 ft above the ground to include 20 1/4 wave radials. This should be superior to my current Inverted L with 4 radials 6 ft above the ground that the deer keep getting into. WA3MEJ ___ Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com
