Finally, sunspots. The cycle begins,...or not.

Sunspots are important to some ham-radio operators. There are many or few sunspots depending on the state of the 11 year sunspot cycle. At least, thats what we all thought. For the last few years the sun was having a break and sunspots where not seen.
The sun stopped with her cycle at the lowest point and nothing could be done but wait in awe.

Finally after many spotless years the sun spotted again.

With all spots being near the equator, they must all be cycle 23 spots. A cycle 24 spot would be at a much higher latitude.
So are we seeing the old cycle(23) or the new one(24)?

Check out the sun real-time to find out if you can spot a sunspot.

JOTA 2008

The jamboree on the air 2008 was held during the 75 year reunion of Scouting group St. Christoffel Hengelo.

The station was build inside wooden shack that was setup during friday evening.
HF Anetenna was a 6 meter vertical Ground plane antenna with the foot of the antenna on a height of 28 meters.

30 march 2008

30 March 2008 14:30 DR1A r5 s7 3.789,20 MHz LSB Fulda Germany
30 March 2008 14:40 DA0CA r5 s7 3.766,60 MHz LSB Gronau Germany

27 January 2008

27 january 2008 02:12 UZ7M r5 s9 7.066 MHz USB Ukraine Lugansk, Yuri

JOTA 2007 log

This was the 50th JOTA. This golden-jubilee JOTA was 2 hours longer so instead of 48 hours its been 50 hours of PC1MH/J. The operators where Hugh PC1H, Paul PC1RBX, Marc PC1MH. Bands where very active and conditions where good. There where 2 shacks with HF and VHF. The main shack was set up with a Kenwood TS-570DG and a vertical GPA about 6 meters long and the ability to 'hot' switch to a diagonal G5RV . The secondary shack was set up with an Icom IC706MK2 and a 42 meter dipole antenna.



19 October 2007 20:35 LZ1YG r5 s9 14.260 MHz USB Bulgaria, Ivan
19 October 2007 20:40 EA5/ON4CAX r4 s8 7.084 MHz LSB Spain, Louis from Belgium on vacation in Spain
19 October 2007 21:49 GB50BC r4 s7 7.091,5 MHz LSB United Kingdom, Max


19 October 2007 22:00 PC1C/J r5 s9+30 3.163 MHz LSB Netherlands, Paul ON5PU is helping the Dutch scouts near the efteling
20 October 2007 10:50 9A2YM r5 s9 18.146 MHz USB Croatia, Steven
20 October 2007 16:58 IK5EKL r4 s7 14.255 MHz USB Italy
20 October 2007 18:13 SV2CXI r5 s8 18.159 MHz USB Greece, Kostas in north Greece
20 October 2007 19:06 EG5MGY r5 s9 7.095 MHz LSB Spain Valencia


20 October 2007 20:53 5Q2J r5 s8 3.698 MHz LSB Danmark, Jorgen
20 October 2007 21:00EG2SDA r5 s8 7.088 MHz LSB Spain Saragosa, Javier
21 October 2007 0:05 DP5G r5 s9 3.641,6 MHz LSB Germany, Roland
21 October 2007 1:10 GB2JAM r5 s9 3.662,13 MHz LSB United Kingdom England
21 October 2007 1:30 PC50JOTA/j r5 s9 3.662,13 MHz LSB Netherlands, Special JOTA call
21 October 2007 13:50 GB50FVS r5 s9 14.286 MHz USB Scotland