LA8AJA's homepage

I've been using Google Earth quite a lot lately. I liked the pathplots I wrote about earlier, which I also have used in several posts. I made a small how-to on that here. I wrote a post back in 2008 about Google Earth and Hamradio which you can see here. If you haven't heard about Google Earth, it's a free program from Google. Read more and download here.

The reason I'm writing "part 2", is that 9A5CW Patrik pasted a link to a screenshot where he had lots of nice stuff drawn up. I asked him how, and he gave me a link. His screenshot is attached here. The link he gave me, was to live muf by G7RAU. This is very useful for you so you can follow how the muf climbs and maybe predict an ES-opening on VHF. I also use it to quickly show the 6m openings in progress right now. I find it more useful to see the spots drawn up than looking at lots of spots. You need to create a login to get access to some parts of the site. To only see VHF spots and the live muf, there are a few links that doesn't require login. Click to check out G7RAU's site.

Another nice thing was to also show the realtime aurora oval based on data from NOAA. To get that in Google Earth, go here and choose the "automatically updating Aurora viewing map".

If you want to see where the 6M beacons are placed, take a look at OE1SMC's site and grab the kml-file to display in Google Earth.

And finally, the last overlay presented here is the TEC (Total Electron Count) map. The map is useful for studying the radio propagation. Grab the overlay here.

Here are some examples of how my Google Earth looks like with different overlays:

On Saturday, I got an e-mail from JI2EVL, my first JA-contact on 6M. Turns out he too made a recording of our qso on July 19th 2009. It was his first LA on 6M. Listen to the recordings below. Thank you Hiro!

Soundclip:

• LA8AJA 6M CW – how I sound like at JI2EVL's station
• JI2EVL 6M CW – how Hiro was like at my station

JI2EVL's homepage.

July 17th we has some openings on 6M again. I managed to work 2 new grids with KN65 and KN74. That makes total grids worked 645. I heard A92IO, but I have worked him before. I called cq dx, and was called by A92GE.

July 18th I would probably have had an opening to JA on 6M, but I was on too late. I noticed LA5UF did work into JA. The only station I heard, was JA9SJI, who I worked last year.

July 21st showed nothing on 6M, so I went to HF. KH7XS was worked on 15M for our fifth band. XU7ACY was worked on 15M CW with a nice signal. KQ7W was staying up late on 17M CW and had a nice signal into Norway this morning. I worked him easily.

Peter JW7QIA worked 7 contacts on 4M from JQ68tb. The first contact was OH5LID followed by OY3JE and then LA4LN on July 1st. On July 2nd, he worked OH1ND, then a miss with ES1CW. ES3RF, LA5ZK and LA8AV got in the log. A total of 4 firsts with OH, OY, LA and ES. Peter was running a 5 element and a modified FT847.

Here is a youtube video from OY3JE hearing JW7QIA on 4M:

July has been mostly quiet on 6M, but I have had a few openings. I worked C37NL on July 6th. On July 9th, I worked YL2MF in KO35 for a new square. 7X2ARA, EA9IB and CR3L was also worked that day. They were not new, but semi-rare from here. As the 6M ES-season is dying, I've turned a little to HF again. On July 12, I worked KH7XS on 17M CW and SSB. As always, he is loud. FP/K9OT was worked on 30M CW. Nothing new, but he is an LoTW user, and will be a new one there. Fred KH7Y was in with a good signal and pile-up on 20M CW and I logged him after a few calls. On July 14th I worked FO8RZ on 17M RTTY. That was #195 on RTTY. He uses LoTW and was confirmed later that day. HL5BMX was on 20M RTTY with a good signal. I managed to work him for #196 on RTTY. He too is on LoTW, so I hope to get RTTY DXCC on LoTW soon with only 8 to go.