QST Product Review Summary

N4KC shared this summary of QST Magazine product reviews for HF transceivers or receivers.  It provides a nice color-coded table with key measurements.

Thanks, Don!

March 8-9 Solar Events

The snapshot above tells the story of what propagation was like on March 9. We noticed much weaker than normal signals on 75 m during our morning QSO. Others reported 40 m to be weak, too. I have not heard about the upper bands.

Here are two of the many links that describe the flares and CMEs:
Biggest solar storm in years
Solar storms ramp up

Bell Ringers at BirmingHAMfest

Bell Ringers and friends gathered at the BirmingHAMfest on March 3. See the photos here.

VoIP Roundtable on 60 m

This morning we started on 75 m, with a few (remote or mobile) members of our group connected via Skype to Carl's rig. This used the VoIP HF roundtable arrangement that Carl perfected and documented a few years back (QST September 2009). When propagation faded to marginal levels, it was suggested that we try 60 m. Since several of us do not have 60 m capability, we were added to the Skype roundtable conference call that Carl had in progress. Below is a screen shot from my PC showing the 7 parties (plus myself) connected on Skype, along with a view of our chat room text on the left. Click on the image below for a larger view.

Carl continued the roundtable on 60 m with 3 other stations while the rest of us shared his rig via Skype.

Thanks, Carl!