Well, writing two blog posts on the same day must mean something special! Indeed, it does! 😉 We had the first real Sporadic-E opening here up Northeast. 😎 I’ve been hogging the station for over a week now but VHF condx have been very poor so far. Also today started with no conds and I didn’t expect anything to happen anymore when suddenly there was a cluster of ES clouds evolving in the Southwest early evening and MUF rising rapidly.
But first of all I was a happy camper in the afternoon when working EK7DX on a supposedly closed band on 6 m (this is where FT8 really shines). He provided DXCC #141 on Six as well as a new square (#655). 😎
Besides two Meteor Scatter contacts on MSK144 in the morning I also had a remarkable QSO with GM4FVM on 70 MHz around noon. He was a weak but steady signal but there were no signs of ES at all. So we both suspect it was some kind of Tropo (Scatter) as for Iono Scatter the power (at least overhere) was much too low. There was some tropo over the North Sea recently, too (but more from the U.K. to the Faroe Islands), so maybe that helped a bit? Jim has a nice blog, too, well worth reading!
Around 16z the 4 m band opened via Sporadic-E up here. It took a while until the first QSO as the pileups for the few audible stations were immense and JO73 was not perfectly positioned, signals were much stronger further west. IN50, IN92, IN71, IM76 were new squares but what really made my day was working SØ1WS in IL46 via double-hop ES over a 3.600 km path! Another new square (#162) and a new DXCC #37, of course. 😎
SØ1WS on 4 m:
SØ1WS in QSO with DL3BQA – Uwe couldn’t resist doing his first ever 4 m QSO: 😉
Unfortunately a number of stations were only QRV on FT8 during this good opening. I don’t get the sense of doing so when signals are good enough for CW/SSB which provide a better QSO rate for everybody! Is it just the lazyness of people? Or are they overwhelmed by the SSB pileups thus searching their luck in digimodes where they have more control? There must be a reason …
At 16:34z 2 m opened shortly and I could log EA4CZV. Ten minutes later I heard CT1EWD over 2.400 km which is a really difficult distance (normally already too much for a single ES hop) but another DL further west (think it was JO41/51) was stronger and until they had finished signals dropped down into the noise again. Pity!
Over the next half an hour 2 m opened every now and then for a maximum of 1-2 minutes each time only allowing for 4 more QSOs into Spain but with IM88 even providing a new square (#557) on 144 MHz, too. 😎
After 17:30z the MUF started dropping again still allowing a few more contacts on 4 m until propagation to Spain was gone there, too, around 19z. We had another short but strong opening into Malta quarter an hour later, then the MUF dropped below 70 MHz …
9H1TX on 4m:
Afterwards I called it a day and drove back into town … with a big fat smile on my face. 😉
------------------------------------------------------------------ TIME CALLSIGN LOCATOR TX RX BAND MODE PROP. QRB ------------------------------------------------------------------ 14:25 EK7DX LN2ØGE +02 -18 6 m. FT8 ES 2697 ------------------------------------------------------------------ 09:26 ON4FI JO2ØIV +05 -04 4 m. MSK1 MS 697 10:15 GM3NKG IO85AR +13 +00 4 m. MSK1 MS 1204 11:20 GM4FVM IO85WU -14 -18 4 m. FT8 TR 1092 ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:19 EA3AQJ JN11BI 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1596 16:23 EC1AJL IN73CI 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1829 16:31 EB4FJV IN8ØCP +05 -05 4 m. FT8 ES 1942 16:38 CT1EEB IN5ØQR 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 2201 16:48 SØ1WS IL46RD 55 59 4 m. SSB ES 3638 16:49 EA5TT IM99SL 59 55 4 m. SSB ES 1887 17:25 EA2CCG IN92AO 55 55 4 m. SSB ES 1677 17:26 EA1FDI IN53TF 55 57 4 m. SSB ES 1993 17:28 EA6SX JM19IK 55 59 4 m. SSB ES 1760 17:30 EA1TX IN71NQ 59 56 4 m. SSB ES 1911 17:48 EA1SI IN73DM +01 -03 4 m. FT8 ES 1812 17:56 EA1HRR IN83JJ +00 +07 4 m. FT8 ES 1679 18:09 EA1DDU IN73EM 55 55 4 m. SSB ES 1807 18:12 EA1ABN IN73EM 52 57 4 m. SSB ES 1807 18:20 EA1UU IN83GJ +15 +00 4 m. FT8 ES 1692 18:22 SØ1WS IL46RD -09 -01 4 m. FT8 ES 3638 18:28 EA7DUD IM76SR +10 -10 4 m. FT8 ES 2331 18:31 EA3HXF JNØ1OF +05 +04 4 m. FT8 ES 1647 18:56 EA6SX JM19IK -10 -18 4 m. FT8 ES 1760 18:58 EA3AWT JN11CQ -02 +01 4 m. FT8 ES 1560 19:15 9H1TX JM75FV 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1922 ------------------------------------------------------------------ 16:34 EA4CZV IN8ØDL 59 59 2 m. SSB ES 1952 16:46 CT1EWD IM58KP 52 hrd 2 m. SSB ES 2403 16:58 EA3GJO IN72AM 59 59 2 m. SSB ES 1904 17:05 EA4ADJ IM88JW 59 59 2 m. SSB ES 2066 17:09 EA5DIT IM99CD 59 59 2 m. SSB ES 1979 17:16 EA5EF IM99SM 59 59 2 m. SSB ES 1883 ------------------------------------------------------------------
Now two more days left that I can and will spend in the shack. Will there be additional openings? Well, with my bad luck this year they will probably all occur from Thursday to Sunday when I drive down to Friedrichshafen for this year’s HAMRADIO fair and back to Cologne afterwards. 😉