It looks as if the new 40 MHz or 8-metre band has just been added to the DXMAPS website.
This website which is maintained by Gabriel EA6VQ is one of the main VHF websites in Europe and is very useful for tracking Sporadic-E propagation during the Summer months.
It's probably safe to say that the vast majority of radio amateurs in Europe or the USA have no idea that there is even an allocation at 40 MHz anywhere in the world. By having it listed on a website like this, it should at least raise the bands profile somewhat.
Up to now, 40 MHz spots on the DX Clusters such as DXSUMMIT or DXWATCH have been hard to find as it's such an unusual band. Lots of people do searches for 50 MHz or 28 MHz and of course, the 40 MHz spots fail to appear in these.
It's a small step but hopefully a few more might try transmitting and listening on the band during the Summer months.
2 comments:
Good forward thinking on the part of EI7GL. Here in ZL some 6m operators look for VK Data on 40.430Mhz. This can be a great tool for 6m VK/ZL openings. Several years back the Snotel data was seen at good signal levels from Utah. It can be a very long time between contacts on 6m.
It has been over two years and nine months since this article was released and there still is not another dedicated 8 meter (40 MHz) DX Cluster Spotter besides DXMAPS.
Regards,
Mike Schaffer
KA3JAW
Easton, Pennsylvania, USA
GACTVDX
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