52 Week Ham Radio Challenge 2025 - Week 15: Monitor a transmission and take notes of the field strength

Challenge for 2025-04-07 - 2025-04-13:

Category: 📻 - Difficulty: 🟢

Monitor a transmission and take notes of the field strength
Monitor a beacon or transmitter that's transmitting continuously, such as the DWD RTTY transmission on 10100.8 kHz, and take notes of the field strength over the course of a week. What did you notice? Did it behave the same on all days or were there differences?


Toots mentioning this challenge

DateUserUser scoreStatusToot summary & link
2025-04-07 07:13:45DJ5CW@social.darc.de13Working on it...For #hamchallenge week 15 (#HC15) I will monitor the QRSS transmissions on 30m by S52AB. The reception usually follows a clear pattern: The signal appears in the morning when the skip zone gets small enough to arrive, during the day we see increased D layer absorption, and some time at night the signal disappears again. Interestingly, if often briefly re-appears at night, probably due to sporadic E. #hamradio @hamchallenge
2025-04-07 09:23:59mischk@bunt.social10Working on it...HC15: "Monitor a transmission and take notes of the field strength" Do I monitor the S-Meter or what value is asked for?@DJ5CW
2025-04-13 08:52:11DJ5CW@social.darc.de13Success!For this week's #hamchallenge I observed the QRSS transmissions of S52AB on 30m. They're running 24/7 so it's a good indicator for the propagation on this 800km path. Each day I noted the times when the signal became visible in the morning and when it disappeared. The results are tabulated below. Typically the signal comes out of the noise with a big peak in the morning and then becomes weaker again, the same peak can be observed before it fades out. HC15S @hamchallenge
2025-04-13 08:53:11DJ5CW@social.darc.de13Success!For this week's #hamchallenge I observed the QRSS transmissions of S52AB on 30m. They're running 24/7 so it's a good indicator for the propagation on this 800km path. Each day I noted the times when the signal became visible in the morning and when it disappeared. The results are tabulated below. Typically the signal comes out of the noise with a big peak in the morning and then becomes weaker again, the same peak can be observed before it fades out. HC15S @hamchallenge
2025-04-13 20:59:37ei7ijb@mastodon.radio5Working on it...For the 15th challenge, 'Monitor a transmission and take notes of the field strength’, I have to give it a pass for now. Not got a chance to think about it. #hamchallenge HC15 @hamchallenge
2025-04-14 17:02:03g7kse@mastodon.radio12Success!This one is a bit tardy but I am now regularly monitoring BBC R4 Long wave. Mainly because at some point it's going to go. Despite its signal strength being 59+ forever.Whilst the programming won't go entirely, I'll miss 198 kHz sounding great on my Lowe HF-225. long live the pipsHC15S

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