G0KTN Amateur Radio - 2026 current projects and technical notes

  CQWW CW from a Back Garden: What a Wellbrook Loop Can Really Hear A technical reflection on 48 hours of contest-weekend propagation from IO81ti Every year, CQWW CW gives HF radio a proper stress test, with stations worldwide lighting up the bands with thousands of signals. For those that enjoy the propagation and technical side of the hobby, it’s also one of the best opportunities to observe how the ionosphere behaves under heavy and continuous loading. This year (2025) I decided to treat the contest as a propagation experiment. My Reverse Beacon Network (RBN) node, which normally runs continuously on all HF bands, was pointed at the six HF contest bands for the entire 48-hour period: 160, 80, 40, 20, 15 and 10. The receive antenna was not a tower-mounted Yagi or a phased Beverage farm… but a Wellbrook 1530LN magnetic loop mounted about 2m above ground in a typical UK suburban back garden (QRA IO81ti). The question was simple: what can a modest receive system really hear du...

  A Year on Ten – What 100 Milliwatts Can Do: An Experimental Analysis Between August 2024 and July 2025, I ran a WSPR beacon continuously on the 10m band (28 MHz). The operational period coincided with the peak and plateau of Solar Cycle 25. The transmitter, Zachtek multi band, with the output suitably attenuated ran 100mW to a CIRO Mazzoni Stealth Loop mounted about 7 ft (2.1m) AGL on the flat roof of a suburban garage in southern England. The combination of an extremely compact antenna and QRPp power was designed to test the limits of weak-signal digital modes in restrictive environments. The CIRO Stealth Loop — A Compact Magnetic Radiator Although marketed as a “loop antenna,” the Ciro Mazzoni Stealth Loop is not a conventional circular magnetic loop. It is actually a flattened, rectangular radiator fabricated from TIG-welded aluminium alloy. In electrical terms, it behaves as a compact magnetic radiator. The design includes a gamma-match feed, which is short-circuited to t...

  Exploring 40MHz Propagation with WSPR  Over the past year, I have been running a 40MHz WSPR beacon under a UK Ofcom Trial and Innovation Licence. Operating at 1W into a dipole (08:00–20:00 UTC daily), this beacon has provided a unique opportunity to study propagation at a seldom-used part of the spectrum — sitting between the well-known 10m (28 MHz) and 6m (50MHz) amateur bands. WSPR (Weak Signal Propagation Reporter) proved invaluable here. By capturing reports far below the noise floor, and thanks to the WSPRnet permanent archive the dataset reveals detailed trends in signal-to-noise ratio, distance, and time of day across thousands of reception reports. Key Findings Sporadic-E dominates : Most spots fell in the 800–2,200 km range, especially during summer. F2-layer events — rare but remarkable : On 29 November 2024 , the beacon was received over 8,600 km away , a clear signature of F2-layer propagation. The F2 region, forming 250–400 km above Earth,...