Was occasionally checking the F5LEN Tropo Forecast and saw there might be some lift yesterday but was stuck with other duties so couldn’t make it to the station. Indeed there were tropo contacts well above 1.500 km from eastern Poland to the U.K. and even this morning still a few good contacts reported. But tropo shifted fast so there was not much left in the afternoon, only locals to be heard when back from QRL. Conditions came up a bit again later today but still with lots of QSB and most signals weak and in & out fast, obviously not comparable to yesterday. Under these condx FT8 does have an advantage and I was lucky to make use of it. None of the QSOs would have been possible in CW & SSB except G4CDN but I can work Richard daily anyway, even in CW. 😉
MØCGL was very loud at times, too, and I wondered why he had difficulties to pick up my signal and why he gave me such a bad signal strength report compared to his own signal, a difference of almost 20 db! Up to 10 dB difference is not unusual (assuming comparable equipment +/- a bit) depending on local circumstances like noise, QRM, (no) preamp, a.s.o. It took me a while to recognize I simply had forgotten to switch on the PA again after the condx break of 45 minutes. 😀 So the QSO was made with just 8 watts and the 9 ele GØKSC LFA Yagi over here. 😎
------------------------------------------------------------------ TIME CALLSIGN LOCATOR TX RX BAND MODE PROP. QRB ------------------------------------------------------------------ 15:37 MØCVX IO93RE -04 -03 2 m. FT8 TR 981 15:59 G4CDN JOØ2SS +15 +05 2 m. FT8 TR 848 16:01 G4TRA IO81WN -18 -17 2 m. FT8 TR 1120 16:12 G4HGI IO83PL -08 -13 2 m. FT8 TR 1121 16:58 MØCGL JOØ3BF +05 -16 2 m. FT8 TR 936 17:05 G4GFI IO91VH -15 -14 2 m. FT8 TR 1001 17:06 PDØNUD JO21NT -16 -11 2 m. FT8 TR 633 17:10 G4IJE JOØ1HP -10 -14 2 m. FT8 TR 935 17:37 2EØWDX IO94FW -14 -09 2 m. FT8 TR 1043 17:41 MØWGF JOØ1JK -10 -12 2 m. FT8 TR 931 17:51 G4ATX JOØ1MI -16 -09 2 m. FT8 TR 917 17:53 G4DHF IO92UU -14 -11 2 m. FT8 TR 969 17:58 MØPYU IO93SA -14 -12 2 m. FT8 TR 977 ------------------------------------------------------------------