Wow … that’s been a great evening on VHF again! 6, 4 & 2 m were hot all day long but unfortunately I had to spend the day in QRL. There were some massive 2 m ES openings but I was too close to the clouds anyway so not too disappointed not being able to join the show. Nevertheless I tried to follow what’s going on closely, no problem nowadays with several smartphone apps, mobile browsing, etc.
Finally came home around 8 pm local time and had a chance to switch on the radio. Sporadic-E was still strong but I was still too close to the several E-cloud clusters even on 4 m. But the band opened every now and then albeit spotty but nevertheless enabled me to work a few nice QSOs and with IN79 (good old friend Dave, G7RAU, moved permanently to Lizard Point), IO65 and JO00 even 3 new squares on 4 m, now #165. 😎
------------------------------------------------------------------ TIME CALLSIGN LOCATOR TX RX BAND MODE PROP. QRB ------------------------------------------------------------------ 18:16 GU6EFB IN89RK 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1233 18:37 G8XXJ JOØØBS 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1000 18:46 GØIUE IO81VK 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1130 18:56 G7RAU IN79JX 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1383 18:59 MIØMPX IO64VS 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1341 19:04 GM3WIL IO75QL 59 57 4 m. SSB ES 1243 19:10 2IØIOI IO65PE 59 55 4 m. SSB ES 1373 19:12 EI7HBB IO53SQ 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1496 19:13 G4VCJ IO94JQ 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1020 19:16 GI4OPH IO74EP 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1304 ------------------------------------------------------------------
Switched to 2 m later on while still having the antennas pointing to the UK when I heard a weak signal on 144.310 MHz. After optimizing the antenna for the best signal strength I couldn’t believe my ears when Chris, GM4ZJI, sent his callsign! Wow, seems I got into a nice tropo duct to Scotland! There was some tropo across the North Sea during the last few days several times but extending over another 300 km land to my location was really not expected! Maybe I should have checked the F5LEN tropo forcast a little earlier as it showed the path to probably open, although rather weak. All stations worked were close to the sea except G3SMT far inland close to the Welsh border so Peter had to pass all of England, too, before reaching the North Sea. Judging from the picture on his qrz.com site he seems to have a nice hilltop QTH so this probably helped to get into the duct from his side as well. I remembered working him back one and half years ago when he was the only one making it into the duct (to overhere), too. Seems there’s some magic to his QTH. 😎
------------------------------------------------------------------ TIME CALLSIGN LOCATOR TX RX BAND MODE PROP. QRB ------------------------------------------------------------------ 19:33 GM4ZJI IO86KE 55 59 2 m. SSB TR 1159 19:35 2MØEWY/P IO86JK 57 56 2 m. SSB TR 1169 19:38 G4KUX IO94BP 59 59 2 m. SSB TR 1063 19:40 M1GSM IO94DR 51 55 2 m. SSB TR 1053 19:52 GM4ILS IO87IP 54 55 2 m. SSB TR 1206 19:53 GM3WOJ IO77WS 55 55 2 m. SSB TR 1257 20:39 G3SMT IO82KV 51 53 2 m. SSB TR 1156 20:40 G4SWX JOØ2RF 59 59 2 m. SSB TR 864 20:54 GM4FVM IO85WU 51 55 2 m. SSB TR 1092 20:57 GM4ZJI IO86KE 57 59+ 2 m. SSB TR 1159 ------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris, GM4ZJI, called in one more time around 21z to tell me I was now 59+20 (and he was stronger than earlier, too), but unfortunately no more stations worked. Called it a day then and joined the family again …