November 2000 QST

Many of the HSCW web sites have a few
sample pings that can be downloaded to see
what the different speeds and strengths are
like. After a few minutes spent playing with
the program and learning the main
functions, further “practice” is of little
value. Now it’s time to join the HSCW
Reflector and request a sked. (The meteorscatter
reflector is often used in Europe.)
What can you expect This depends
upon your location, equipment, distance to
the other station, the other op’s equipment,
the time of year, the time of day—and
maybe what your dog had for breakfast! For
two small- or medium-size stations at an
appropriate distance, ping rates may vary
from only a few during any half-hour period
to as many as 20 pings per minute.
Conditions can vary greatly.
Does it work The Europeans knock our
socks off when it comes to routine MS
QSOs. Also, Europe has many more active
HSCW stations The biggest disadvantage
to HSCW in the Western Hemisphere is the
lack of stations—there just aren’t enough
stations using this mode.
Tips and Tricks
Once you start running HSCW
schedules, you may immediately notice
how radically the number of pings varies
from month to month, day to day and even
minute to minute. The best time of year
for sporadic meteors is July to January, with
February to May being the poorest. HSCW
will allow you to complete contacts on
almost any day of the year, although certain
periods will likely be easier than others.
The number of sporadic meteors reaches
a maximum at about 6 AM local time because
the morning side of the earth is facing toward
the direction of its orbital travel, sweeping
up even slow-moving meteors. Around 6 PM
local time, your location is on the trailing
side, so only those meteors fast enough to
overtake the earth will be captured (this is
why MS is much easier in the morning).
Meteor showers may be an exception—as
long as the radiant is above your horizon. For
information on daylight meteor showers, see
the listings on listings the HSCW/MS “Hot
News” Web page. 19
On 144 MHz, one-second pings are
excep-tional. Most pings are shorter than
this, and many are much shorter. Because
HSCW requires pings of at least a tenth of
a second at 10,000 WPM (2000 WPM),
only a fraction of the total pings are likely
to contain usable information.
Other interesting things to watch for are
Doppler shift, doubles, ionospheric scatter
and—who knows Doppler shift isn’t often
observed on underdense pings, but if you
observe Doppler effects on one ping you’re
more likely to see them on other pings.
Another phenomenon you may notice
32 November 2000
Val, WD8KVD, operating W8WN’s rig in
Kentucky in December 1997. This was her
highest-speed-ever contact with KO0U.
(especially during certain showers) is that
pings seem to sometimes come in pairs. At
first glance, this would appear to mean that
some meteors are traveling together,
separated by a second or so. Scientists have
long contended that this is only a statistical
fluke, but hams have noticed the phenomenon
for many years, and visual observers
have recently been reporting it. (It will be
interesting to see what ideas the predictions
of Asher and McNaught eventually bring
to this idea. 20 )
Finally, traces of ionospheric scatter are
sometimes observed when two EME-class
stations are running HSCW schedules. So
when you’re doing this type of operating,
remember to be alert for unusual occurrences!
HSCW MS is much easier than other
types of MS operation and has the advantage
of visually displaying the pings, which
makes it easier to carry out other observations.
MSDSP also gives you the ability
to save particularly interesting pings for later
study. (If it all becomes too easy and you
want a real challenge, see Maj. O. R.
Disaster’s collection of the works of that
great wireless pioneer, Owa Taboo Byam. 21 )
Conclusion
If you’re serious about VHF DX, you
almost certainly have a multimode rig with
an amplifier, a decent antenna and a computer.
Don’t let the “CW” in the HSCW scare you
away. You can slow the received signal down
to any reasonable speed. At least try HSCW
MS. If you’re an active VHF DXer already,
you may be pleasantly surprised!
Acknowledgements
Thanks to everyone who helped me with
this article and to those who helped get HSCW
MS started here in the states. Special thanks
go to my wife Lora, WD8LPN; to Val,
WD8KVD; to Steve and Alisca for the use of
their homes when operating portable in
Minnesota and Michigan; to Steve Harrison,
K0XP, for three years of schedules while we
tested all of the things listed above; to Maarten,
W1FIG, and Joe, K1JT; to the MSDSP Alphatest
group for all of its work with the many
versions of 9A4GL’s program; to Ilkka,
OH5IY, whose multi-part MS-Soft program is
used by nearly every MS operator around the
world; to Peter, DL3JIN, and Tihomir, 9A4GL,
whose programming abilities and hard work
started the modern age of HSCW operation;
and to those HSCW operators in North
America and Europe who have helped with
testing, ideas and operating suggestions.
Notes
1
Rick Lindquist, N1RL, “VHF-UHF Pioneer
Paul M. Wilson, W4HHK, SK,” Happenings,
QST, Feb 2000, p 75.
2 Emil Pocock, W3EP, ed., Beyond Line of
Sight, pp 95-96. (A book of classic propagation
reprints for the VHF DXer, available
from the ARRL.)
3 Emil Pocock, ed., Beyond Line of Sight, pp
104-105.
4 Walter F. Bain, W4LTU, “V. H. F. Meteor
Scatter Propagation,” QST, April 1957, pp
20-24, 140, 142, 144.
5
Walter F. Bain, W4LTU, “VHF Propagation
by Meteor-Trail Ionization,” QST, May 1974,
pp 41-47, 176. Reprinted in Beyond Line of
Sight, pp 108-115.
6
See the sidebar, “HSCW Meteor Scatter
Records are Made to be Broken,” on page
38 of Apr 1998 QST.
7 http://www.qsl.net/w8wn/wd8kvd/
wd8kvd2.html.
8 http://www.qsl.net/w8wn/hscw/papers/
archive.html#w8wn/k0xp.
9 See the North American “Procedures” paper,
available on most of the HSCW Web sites,
for more. (The Region I procedures can be
found at http://www.scit.wlv.uk/vhfc/
iaru.r1.vhfm.4e/5B.html.)
10
http://www.dxworld.com/hsms.html.
11 To join, send a message to “Majordomo@
qth.net” with “subscribe hsms” as the text.
12 Start with the W6/PA0ZN Main NA HSCW
Web Site at http://www.nitehawk.com/
rasmit/ws1_15.html, or the HSCW section
of W8WN’s Web site at http://www.qsl.net/
w8wn/. Both have many links to other sites.
13
For a discussion of keying methods, see The
FCC Rule Book, available from the ARRL.
See the publications ad in this issue.
14 Jim McMasters, KD5BUR “High-Speed CW
and Meteor Scatter - An Exciting VHF DX
Medium!,” QST, April 1998, pp 34-39.
15
Kenneth Davies, Ionospheric Radio Propagation,
U.S. Dept. of Commerce, 1965, pp
351-376.
16 See the text files bundled with OH5MS’s
“MS-Soft” meteor program, available at
http://www.sci.fi/~oh5iy/.
17
WinMSDSP is available at http://ham2.
irb.hr/9a4gl/index.php3 or VE5EF’s mirror
site, http:// www3.sk.sympatico.ca/freed/
projects/9A4GL. It and other HSCW material
are also available at the W8WN Web
site.
18
See http://www.qsl.net/w8wn/.
19 http://www.qsl.net/w8wn/hscw/papers/
hot_news.html. Much more also on the
“Archived News” page.
20
See several articles in Sky and Telescope,
June 2000, pp 30-40. A brief summary of
their predictions is also available at http://
www.qsl.net/w8wn/hscw/prop/
leodust.html.
21 http://www.qsl.net/w8wn/hscw/papers/
lose-qso.html.
You can contact the author at 465
Springfield Rd, Elizabethtown, KY 42701;
w8wn@arrl.net.