Spectrum display at dusk - Like watching a sunset...

 

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Spectrum display at dusk - Like watching a sunset...

Being out of the ham loop for so long, I'm really enjoying the adventure of experiencing technological advances in the hobby. In the old days I operated a lot on 15 meters. As the evening approached I'd realize that stateside signals were dropping off and Asian stations would begin appearing. Then as the sun set the whole band would fade into white noise. But I could only hear it happening. There was no visualization.
Today I monitored http://outside.wallawalla.edu:8901/ (20 meter WebSDR) while doing other things in the office. How cool it is to see a whole spectrum of frequencies and to be able to quickly jump from one QSO to another at the click of a mouse.
Then as dusk arrived I could see the whole band losing propagation. The screenie below was taken at about 4:30 PST. An Arizona station held out and connected with a few hams in Japan and it wasn't too long before nearly all the little blotches and smears had faded into the blue background. It was kind of like watching a sunset. I never saw a sunset in my dial.

QRZ Forums / Sun, 10 Jan 2010 01:07:12 GMT

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