Mar 20

Partial Solar Eclipse

Today's Partial Solar Eclipse was a disappointment for us. Clouds arived just in time. We met at the local observatory and we had lot of school children visiting us. We realized that it became much darker and it brightened up again without us seeing the sun. That is the whole story and no images. Just 50 km south weather was got enough to follow the event.

Posted by Christoph Petermann

Mar 18

The big Aurora of 17 March 2015 (Updated)

The afternoon and the evening of 17 March showed the strongest Aurora for the last 10 years. Radio signals were extraordinary and the evening showed a wonderful colourful spectacle in the sky. I have not seen this for many, many years. Images are now here.

In many parts this Aurora reminds me to the biggest Aurora ever recorded on 13 March 1989. That one was really big ...

Posted by Christoph Petermann

Mar 16

Jupiter in the box

In the evening of 10 March (OK, should be March, 10th) I set up my equipment for planetary imaging. I did not do this for a long time now. I made experiments with eyepiece projection and barlow lens projection. I found out that my expensive barlow lens has a fault. Now with the eyepiece projection I have a fairly good result of Jupiter images.

Click here or on image

Posted by Christoph Petermann

Mar 9

Antennas down, antennas up

My antennas are down - the rotator is broken and I have to wait until the replacement is here. So I have put up some red and green glasfibre tubes and put the 40m antenna to the top. Its centre is up 16.5 m
(Click here to see a big picture)

Listening sounds as if I am in another world than before. Signals are very much stronger and almost every CQ call produces a small pile-up. Big fun with this here. While writíng this text I am listening to some Japanes stations coming in fine. Some of them are already known and they are much stronger now. I again heard Brian, ZL3XDJ, who was at 599 level in CW - never heard him so strong before.

I ran WSPR last night and my 2 watt signal has been copied by about 100 stations around the world within 19 hours. Best before was 60 stations within 24 hours.

But when the other antennas will go up again, this fine antenna goes to its old place 7m meters lower. What a pity ...

Posted by Christoph Petermann

Mar 2

Radioactivity January/February/March 2015

Since 10 January I cannot turn the antenna, so almost nothing worked.
144 MHz
04 January 2015 Widespread Aurora. Worked GM, LA, SM, ES, OH and YL3IQ (KO17 new GridSquare). Moon was too bright to see the Aurora, even it was strong enough.

50 MHz
17 March 2015 Very strong Aurora ! With my 40m antenna (the 6m antenna is still down) I worked one Station (DF9OX) and heard many as far south as Italy and this for many hours,
07 January 2015 After more than 12 years I first time received F2 signals. They were weak, but I identified W1JJ and K1SIX. In early evening the band opened with SporadicE and I got stations from LZ, YO, YU and SV. Heard was 4X1RF in Israel with a very good signal.
04 January 2015 Large Aurora opening. Activity was low, but I could get a number of stations from OZ, LA, SM, OH and ES.
03 January 2015 A few stations worked via Meteorscatter in JT6m Mode
02 January 2015 Good aurora on 6m. Worked a number of stations from OH, SM, LA and OY9JD

Shortwave
7 March 2015 The provisional 40m antenna is up at 16 meters and working very well.
21/22 February 2015 About 60 contacts in ARRL DX CW contest on 40m band. I spent about 2 hours looking for U.S. states. I got 27 US and 2 Canada. Highlight were two longpath contacts to San Diego, California and Seattle, Washington.
January/February 2015 A number of new DXCC Areas on 40m and 15m are in the log. The 40m dipole is working as well as it could in a height of 9m. I have a small YEASU FL2100 shortwave amplifier with 450 watts now. But the 6 dB power increase did not help with the K1N Navassa Island and EP6T Iran expeditions, which I both did not work although they were very strong.

Posted by Christoph Petermann