Monday, October 1, 2012

Conditions on 28 MHz...Sunday 30th Sept 2012

Following on from yesterday, I had a listen on 28 MHz again on Sunday. If anything, conditions were better.

Sunday 30th Sept 2012
28289.5 N1KXR/B      FN32PH                   1944 30 Sep   United States
28232.0 N2MH/B       FN20UT                   1836 30 Sep   United States
28249.4 KA3JOE/B     FN20                     1819 30 Sep   United States
28480.0 XE1YQQ      EK09MM                   1758 30 Sep   Mexico
28275.8 K4UKB/B     EM77NP                   1743 30 Sep   United States
28197.0 VE7MTY/B    CN89PF                   1725 30 Sep   Canada
28265.4 VE3WE/B    FN03 Looooong msg        1714 30 Sep   Canada
28249.5 K7EK/B     CN87TB                   1704 30 Sep   United States
28300.0 K6FRC/B    CM97HP                   1652 30 Sep   United States
28222.4 N4QDK/B     EM96                     1636 30 Sep   United States
28272.4 N1KON/B     EM79LT                   1632 30 Sep   United States
28274.0 PY4MAB/B  GG68RE                     1549 30 Sep   Brazil
28200.0 ZS6DN/B    KG44DC                     1538 30 Sep   South Africa
28193.2 VE4ARM/B    EN09                     1524 30 Sep   Canada
28214.1 N4PAL/B      EM70                     1521 30 Sep   United States
28246.4 KI4LEV/B     EM66                     1506 30 Sep   United States
28249.2 ER1TEN/B    KN47IB                   1501 30 Sep   Moldova
28286.5 W0ILO/B   EN16                     1451 30 Sep   United States
28286.9 K3XR/B     FN10                     1450 30 Sep   United States
28287.9 N8PUM/B    EN66                     1444 30 Sep   United States
28291.7 VA3VA/B    EN82                     1439 30 Sep   Canada
28291.7 N5MAV/B   EM04 TX                  1437 30 Sep   United States
28296.1 W3APL/B     FM19NE                   1420 30 Sep   United States
28202.9 K4MTP/B     FN21                     1321 30 Sep   United States
28202.9 KB1QZY/B    FN32QC                   1320 30 Sep   United States
28205.5 N3NIA/B     FN01PK                   1310 30 Sep   United States
28208.8 N8PVL/B    EN82GJ                   1306 30 Sep   United States
28236.1 W8YT/B     FM19AJ                   1253 30 Sep   United States
28240.7 W4RKC/B    FM09WE                   1247 30 Sep   United States
28250.1 K0HTF/B     EN31DO                   1239 30 Sep   United States
28267.4 OH9TEN/B     KP36OI                     1234 30 Sep   Finland
28275.5 KG4GVV/B   EM93                     1228 30 Sep  United States
28293.2 ND4Z/B      EM94JA                   1220 30 Sep   United States
28295.3 IZ0CWW/B   JN61VL                   1213 30 Sep   Italy
28298.1 K5TLL/B    EM51GG                   1208 30 Sep   United States
28299.9 KF4MS/B    EM70VM                   1205 30 Sep   United States
28182.1 VY0SNO/B    FP53RS                   1139 30 Sep   Canada
28260.2 VK5WI/B    PF95HG                   1126 30 Sep   Australia
28245.4 SV2AHT/B     KN10NO                   1123 30 Sep   Greece
28228.6 OH5SHF/B     KP30HV                     1116 30 Sep   Finland
28222.5 IZ0KBA/B    JN61KX                   1110 30 Sep   Italy
28203.2 PY2WFG/B   GG77FF                   1104 30 Sep   Brazil
28219.1 5B4CY/B      KM64PR                   1046 30 Sep   Cyprus
28193.2 LU2ERC/B    GF15AD                   1036 30 Sep   Argentina
28188.8 SV5TEN/B     KM46CK                   1032 30 Sep   Dodecanese
28271.0 SV2HQL/B    KM09UV                   0854 30 Sep   Greece
28261.8 RK3XWA/B    KO84DM                   0844 30 Sep   European Russia
28230.0 IQ8CZ/B     JM88HV                   0840 30 Sep   Italy
28224.9 IT9EJW/B     JM77NN                   0837 30 Sep   Sicily
28182.7 SV3AQR/B   KM07QS                   0832 30 Sep   Greece

After starting with the usual one hop F2 propogation, I heard VK5WI/B in Adelaide, S Australia at 11:26 UTC! It never ceases to amaze me when I hear Australia on 10 metres.

Beacons heard on 28 MHz on Sunday, the 30th of Sept (Outside of Europe and N.America)

The distance to VK5WI/B is roughly 16,800 kms. Considering it was an hour or two after sunset in Australia, the signal may well have been enhanced by a tilting in the ionosphere and the signal arrived by chordal hop rather than the usual multi-hop reflections using the ground.

Other non-European signals heard during the day were from South Africa, Argentina and Brazil....~9,400 to 10,800 kms. Nice distance but North-South propagation is nothing special on 10 metres.

North-America......A large number of beacons were received again from N.America although the pattern was slightly different. On Sunday, there were fewer beacons from the arc from Florida to the Great Lakes but there were more from the north-east area of the US.


CW Beacons received from N.America on 28 MHz on Sunday, 30th Sept.

This was possibly because conditions were better than Saturday....i.e. MUF higher.....i.e. skip distance shorter. Again, there was an opening to the west coast as well with the beacon on Baffin Island making an appearance again.

Later in the day, a station in Mexico City was heard as well as the person he was talking to in Newfoundland....single hop and double hop distances.

Other observations over the weekend......
1) Fishing Buoys........Those fishing buoys with the two letter cw id were heard again. Location? Could be anywhere.
2) OTHR..........On two occasions, I noticed a signal which I presume was OTHR....Over The Horizon Radar. It was 20 khz wide and was loud buzzing sound. It only seemed to last for a few minutes and it seemed to hop around as well. I heard it once on 28.290 MHz and also up around 28.320 MHz.
3) Aurora.........There was an aurora on Sunday night and that really seemed to kill the band. On Monday, it was very poor with only some Sporadic-E signals from Spain making it through.
4) GB3RAL.......I noticed the GB3RAL beacon is back working again. I heard several meteor bursts from it........'GB3R'......'AL IO'....and other fragments. All close to the early morning meteor scatter peak around 6am UTC. The signals are never very strong but considering the low power and the lack of gain on the transmit antenna there and the receive antenna here then it's not suprising.

Overall........some nice conditions on the 10 metre band over the weekend. Not exactly wide open but still good solid F2 East-West signals which is a good sign. The signals I heard were nearly all beacons. I'm sure there might have been other DX signals on the band but beacons are a very good way to gauge conditions. If it's like this now, I wonder what will it be like in November and February???

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