This page presents operating and training events at the Highland Road Park Observatory.
HF Radio Mentoring – 20 March 2025
David Butler, KJ7RMO, attended a session with WA9JBR and WA5MLF for better acquaintance with SSB, CW and digital (FT8) modes on the HF bands. On the 15 m band we logged multiple contacts, using the existing tri-bander Yagi antenna. Our signal was received over much of the USA as well as South America and Europe, as shown in the screenshot below from the PSK Reporter website. Since our activity was on the Spring Equinox, the boundaries of daylight and darkness in this screenshot are vertical. Signal reports and other details are available by placing the mouse pointer over any brown oval on this map view. The drop-down menus across the top of the window enable the operator to choose what is displayed in terms of band, callsign, time, etc.
The screenshot below shows the operating windows of the WSJT-X and JTAlert software.
HF Radio Mentoring – 6 March 2025
Bill Buck, KJ5IVB attended this session with WA9JBR and WA5MLF to learn about operating SSB, CW and digital (FT8) modes using our club’s HF station. On the 15 m band Jon called CQ on CW and we viewed the Reverse Beacon Network page, as shown in the screenshot below.
Another view of the page shows a list of stations that received our CQ transmission.
Switching to FT8 we captured the view of where our signal was received around the globe. With the mouse pointer hovering on the brown oval on New Zealand, the details reported by ZL2JAA are shown in the bottom left corner. Each of the brown ovals leads to a signal report and other details from the perspective of that station. Naturally, there were lots of reports from the USA and many from Europe at that time of day.
