And now in 1997! (see below)
On the evening of July 10th 1996 at around 20:30 GMT the JW beacon started coming into the UK at some considerable strength. For over half an hour it varied between s4 and s7.
Listen
to the JW7SIX 6m beacon ! |
The JW7SIX Beacon and Peter, JW7QIC are located in JQ78 |
Neil, G0JHC, rang Matt, JW5NM, only to discover that he was not at home. Later Chris, G3WOS, in desperation rang Ole, JW8GV, who then said he would go to the shack. He said he was not too optimistic about getting the station on the air for some reason. Neil explained to me later that they needed to disconnect the beacon antenna and connect it to an HF transceiver / transverter arrangement. After ten minutes, which seemed to be an eternity, the beacon stopped keying for a few seconds and then restarted. Are they in the shack? A couple of minutes later the beacon shuts off! They ARE there! A quick call to Neil revealed that they had already faded out in the north of England much to his annoyance.
Tuning the band suddenly reveals Peter, JW7QIA, calling CQ on 50.090MHz. I called but there was no response - wasn't he hearing me? This happened about six times, then suddenly I get a 'G3W?'. It was then but a few minutes to complete a QSO and get a 'TU'. Mayhem then broke out and at least G3FPQ and G3IBI got into his log. The QSOs took place at around 21:20 GMT. As it turns out, Peter was only visiting the island and working a few stations while there.
Listen
to JWQIA working G3IBI.It was reported in the November 1995 issue of Six News that 21:00 to 21:30 has been the best time to hear the beacon. It looks like that is correct.
I spoke with Ole, JW8GV, on the landline today (14th July). He says that he is the 'real' 6m metre guy in JW but he was unsure of his cw capability so he let Peter, JW7QIA operate the station following my call. To operate they have to disconnect the beacon antenna and change it over to a transceiver owned by Ole. Ole is in JW for another twelve months but is leaving to go back to Norway for a holiday between July 25th and August 27th 1996. Ole was really surprised at the strength of the signals (s9+) on 6m and is planning to put up another antenna separate to the beacon. It seems Matt, JW5NM, is less interested in 6m.
He has no problems with anyone ringing him to tell him that the beacon is being heard. Ole's number is (47) 790 21583. If he is not there Matt's number is 47 790 21152. Please remember though that the shack is about a mile away from the living accommodation.
Their station is now at sea level with the antenna pointing straight into 1000m high mountains!
Listen and good luck!
For further information by LA0BY click here.
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Peter's QSL card
JW opening on the 24th August 1997
We had a nice opening to JW this evening. JW8GV (JQ78)was worked here at 559 by myself (IO80) and several other G stations including G4IGO (IO80) and G3SYC (IO93). The JW7SIX beacon was first copied at 18:21 and signals from JW were audible until 22:01 here.
In telephone calls to and from Ola later this evening he said he would be leaving in December to return to Norway as his 3 year tour of duty was coming to an end. Ola has to drive over 1 mile to his shack / beacon site to be able to use the 6 metre rig. At the time of the qso's it was broad daylight at his qth, and the wx was rather warm at +1 deg C !!
Ola said that these were the first cw qso's he had ever had on 6 and was really pleased at catching the opening. All of these qso's took place on the beacon frequency (50.047 Mhz). Ola only works slow cw, less than 10 wpm, so if you hear him - slow down !
Most of the G signals copied here at the time were weakly auroral.
73 de Roger, G4HBA.
