I noticed this morning that I had heard OZ1BJF in Denmark on Sunday via FT8 on 144 MHz. It's unusual for me to hear a signal like this at the distance is 1387 kms as I'm only using a simple home made Slim Jim vertical half-wave in my attic.
Was it via meteor scatter? Tropo? There is a high pressure system over the UK so I suspect it might have been tropo.
I also heard PD1DL in the Netherlands at 921 kms which is another sign of good tropo.
I've been on the radio for the best part of 40 years and it still amazes me just how far signals travel on VHF. I never get that sense of wonder with HF bands like 20-metres.
3 comments:
I heard a station 30 miles from me in GI land coming in very loud on my FM handheld and heard him mention a Welsh callsign. A quick sprint to plug a radio into my 5 element beam and there was the welsh station loud and clear. He faded after a minute or so but it was rather exciting to hear.
Hi John,
first of all: congrats to your informative blog!
How long have you heard OZ1BJF?
If you heard him for just one or two periods, it should have been MS.
That´s not unsual and can produce strong signals.
When I´ve been at my irish home in IO53HN last October, my CQs in FT8 have been heard in the east of Sweden, without any signs of tropo.
In the big opening from Germany to Belarus last September, myself and other german stations monitored FT8 signals for just a single period from Ukraine up to more than 2000 km. As you can see in my blog, these were seperated from the tropo signals.
http://www.dj5ar.de/?p=3597
vy 73 de Andreas, EI8HH / DJ5AR
Hi Andreas, I only looked at the map the next day so I'm not sure how many times I heard the signal. It must have been a reasonably strong signal for me to hear it with an indoor antenna.
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