Just like to draw peoples attention to the current state of affairs I'm noticing from my QTH at The Rock Hill.
Except for the few Tropo openings across the Bight around Christmas time and just before New Year, tropo has generally been quite poor at fairly low levels.
I've been taking inversion temp readings from my location on some temp probes that I have had set up at 6ft and at 50ft on my south tower for almost 7 years now. The trend has recently been changing. Almost every night or morning I could look at the probe read outs and see that the temp would rise between the 6ft and 50 ft probe. Meaning it was colder at ground level and got warmer with height to the 50ft probe.
This is a temperature inversion, temp rise with height. It is normal for the temp to drop with height rather than to rise.
I have weather extreme's data at my QTH recorded here http://www.vk2krr.com/vk2krr_weather_extremes.htm
At NO stage in January did I see the temperature rise with height. I have noticed this to be becoming the usual trend at present, which would appear to be quite a worry as the longer tropo conditions seems to be being affected by this trend also.
Over the past few months I have noticed very few times when the 50ft temp was higher then the 6ft temp and this is really going against the normal trend that I have noticed for the past 7 years.
Many many days the extended tropo condx have been very average. By extended I mean Mt Gambier 2m & Adelaide beacons.
I have over the past 6 months or so lost one valuable data source, which was 2m FM repeater signals, as I had removed my vertical yagis, I will soon get these back up.
One gain in valuable data has been the 162 MHz AIS Marine Tracking signals. Brilliant and very valuable source of information. My antenna system for this is currently fixed to Melbourne, which I will rectify soon, but still the data gathering has been quite amazing and will get even better when I am able to turn the antenna west.
http://www.vk2krr.com/ais_marine_162_mhz_dx.htm on this page I have all my AIS MArine data available and have been building graphs to display the information also. I have full graphs for January and starting new graphs for Feb and each month.
Watching the AIS data from many of the other stations around Australia it soon becomes apparant what the current tropospheric state is like in many locations. You can soon learn what is average distance and when things are really going strong. And from this I can also see that in most areas the conditions have been quite poor at most times.
Southern states Tropo update
Re: Southern states Tropo update
Leigh, thank's for posting your findings. Quiet a good read also keep us informed on new findings.
David
VK4KSY
David
VK4KSY
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VK2KRR
Re: Southern states Tropo update
Just thought I should do a quick update to this post as I dont want people thinking its all doom and gloom.
Just to advise that the tropospheric condx appear to have returned to normal, although its tricky as im still without the bread & butter bands of 2 &70, but using other methods its possible to get a picture of whats happening, and things seem good.
Over the past few months the temp inversion measurements have been returing to more normal figures, with equalised or hotter temps up higher during most favourable time periods.
Actually the biggest temp difference Ive ever noted was recorded in April, with a huge rise of 7.2 degC between the probe heights of 6 ft and 50 ft.
Also of note in the past, around 3 months, has been a big change in the wind speeds here.
Usually, ever since I have been here (+10 years) my location is noted for having big pain in the a*** winds, being over probably 40 km/h most days, and peak gusts for the month of between 62 & 82 Km/h! It is usually very rare and very welcome to have a day in a month when the winds are very calm for most of the day. Well, in the past 3 months (approx) the winds have started to become very very calm here. To the point where its becoming more common to have calm days than to have windy days. Even as I type now, the wind is on a big ZERO
It makes for some beaut weather here 
But also, as you may or may not know, the best tropo days usually happen in very calm weather.
I should add to this, that so far this month I have now seen the most number of Fata Morgana mirages (a rare type of visual inversion) that I have ever noted since being here(3), and the month is only new. And also in the past few months they have been noted a few times. This is a good sign.
So fingers crossed things keep improving.
Hope your long weekend has been a good one.
Just to advise that the tropospheric condx appear to have returned to normal, although its tricky as im still without the bread & butter bands of 2 &70, but using other methods its possible to get a picture of whats happening, and things seem good.
Over the past few months the temp inversion measurements have been returing to more normal figures, with equalised or hotter temps up higher during most favourable time periods.
Actually the biggest temp difference Ive ever noted was recorded in April, with a huge rise of 7.2 degC between the probe heights of 6 ft and 50 ft.
Also of note in the past, around 3 months, has been a big change in the wind speeds here.
Usually, ever since I have been here (+10 years) my location is noted for having big pain in the a*** winds, being over probably 40 km/h most days, and peak gusts for the month of between 62 & 82 Km/h! It is usually very rare and very welcome to have a day in a month when the winds are very calm for most of the day. Well, in the past 3 months (approx) the winds have started to become very very calm here. To the point where its becoming more common to have calm days than to have windy days. Even as I type now, the wind is on a big ZERO
It makes for some beaut weather here But also, as you may or may not know, the best tropo days usually happen in very calm weather.I should add to this, that so far this month I have now seen the most number of Fata Morgana mirages (a rare type of visual inversion) that I have ever noted since being here(3), and the month is only new. And also in the past few months they have been noted a few times. This is a good sign.
So fingers crossed things keep improving.
Hope your long weekend has been a good one.
-
VK2KRR
Re: Southern states Tropo update
As an update to the last post, the total number of mornings with visual inversions ended up being 4 for June and 6 in July! amazing.
But for this update - Have the winter tropo blues finally broken in WA (VK6) ?
Its been noted today that tropo conditions were improved on the west coast of VK6 today.
Phil VK6ADF mentiioned to me things were good and I had a look at Alek VK6APK's 162 MHz Marine Tracking station stats and it showed things were also looking excellent from near Bunbury. Aleks station was hearing close to 2000 km from its omni directional vertical.
The last time signals were up at these levels would be before winter started. As you can see in this image from Aleks stats page, the last close to 2000 Km signals were heard in early April. Its now early August, thats around 4 months. Here is a graph of the big winter depression at VK6APK's -
Hopefully conditions improve from here on into summer.
But for this update - Have the winter tropo blues finally broken in WA (VK6) ?
Its been noted today that tropo conditions were improved on the west coast of VK6 today.
Phil VK6ADF mentiioned to me things were good and I had a look at Alek VK6APK's 162 MHz Marine Tracking station stats and it showed things were also looking excellent from near Bunbury. Aleks station was hearing close to 2000 km from its omni directional vertical.
The last time signals were up at these levels would be before winter started. As you can see in this image from Aleks stats page, the last close to 2000 Km signals were heard in early April. Its now early August, thats around 4 months. Here is a graph of the big winter depression at VK6APK's -
- VK6APK distance
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VK2KRR
Re: Southern states Tropo update
Conditions still looking good for southern states operators.
Have been updating some parts of my website and noticed the following statistical info:
Currently we are only 4 months into the 2012/2013 season and already from here there has been 7 openings to VK5 (Adelaide area).
In contrast, the full season totals of VK5 openings for -
2006/2007 was 3
2007/2008 was 3
2008/2009 was 8
2009/2010 was 12
2010/2011 was 15
2011/2012 was 10
So being 4 months in with 7 openings is good to see. Years prior to 2006 back to 2003 had around 20 to 30 openings each season. Hope we are in for one of those seasons.
The amount of openings to VK6 is about normal with 1 so far from here.
In general, I think things are looking up.
Have been updating some parts of my website and noticed the following statistical info:
Currently we are only 4 months into the 2012/2013 season and already from here there has been 7 openings to VK5 (Adelaide area).
In contrast, the full season totals of VK5 openings for -
2006/2007 was 3
2007/2008 was 3
2008/2009 was 8
2009/2010 was 12
2010/2011 was 15
2011/2012 was 10
So being 4 months in with 7 openings is good to see. Years prior to 2006 back to 2003 had around 20 to 30 openings each season. Hope we are in for one of those seasons.
The amount of openings to VK6 is about normal with 1 so far from here.
In general, I think things are looking up.