Opening on the 40 MHz band between England & Croatia - 28th Apr 2022

Thursday 28th April 2022: The Summer Sporadic-E season has started to get into full swing in Europe with openings being reported on the bands from 28 MHz to 70 MHz.

On the 40 MHz band, there was an opening from England to Slovenia and Croatia.

Roger, G3XBM reports hearing the FT8 signals of 9A2Y in Croatia while 9A2Y heard the FT8 test transmissions from G3XBM who was carrying out experiments with his 'Innovation and Trial' permit from Ofcom.

Receive log for G3XBM...
 Txmtr Band Mode Distance Time (UTC)
9A2Y 8m FT8 1567 km 16:07:57
S50B 8m FT8 1220 km 14:44:42

Quite a few stations heard the FT8 transmissions from 9A2Y and it shows the growing interest in the 40 MHz band.

Stations hearing 9A2Y...
Rcvr Band Mode Distance Time (UTC)
G7PUV/A 8m FT8 1498 km 16:08:00
G4FTC 8m FT8 1575 km 16:07:59
G3XBM 8m FT8 1567 km 16:07:57
G0DJA 8m FT8 1716 km 16:07:56
EI9KP 8m FT8 2206 km 16:07:56
G8BQR/OWRX 8m FT8 1710 km 15:51:45
G9PUV 8m FT8 1503 km 15:48:00
ON5QRP 8m FT8 1093 km 15:47:56
G4APB 8m FT8 1527 km 15:13:12

DX-Cluster: The spots on the DX Cluster show that the Danish beacon on 40.071 MHz was heard in Croatia, France & Spain and ZG6GC from South Africa was heard in Spain.

9A3TN 40071.0 OZ7IGY/B 16:33 28 Apr JN85UH<ES>JO55 Denmark
F6HTJ-@ 40071.0 OZ7IGY/B 16:27 28 Apr JO55wn<ES>JN12kq 8m band sri Denmark
EA3ERE 40071.0 OZ7IGY/B 16:25 28 Apr JN11CX<ES>JO55WN cw pi4 -10 Denmark
S50B 40680.0 9A5CW 16:01 28 Apr cq Croatia 
S50B 40680.0 G9PUV 15:51 28 Apr England
EA3ERE 40680.0 ZS6GC 15:51 28 Apr <TEP> FT8 cq South Africa
EI9KP 40680.0 G9PUV 15:09 28 Apr IO54MB<>JO00AU FT8 -12dB England
S50B 40680.0 EI9KP 14:40 28 Apr Ireland
EI9KP 40016.0 EI1CAH 10:21 28 Apr IO54MB<>IO53CK PI4 -5dB Ireland
EI9KP 40013.0 EI1KNH 06:50 28 Apr IO54MB<>IO63VE WSPR -24dB Ireland

First contact between Croatia and South Africa on the new 40 MHz band - 13th March 2022

Back in October of 2021, I reported on the first ever contact between South Africa and Slovenia on the 40 MHz band. See post HERE.

On the 13th of March 2022, there was another 'first' 40 MHz contact when when Milan, 9A2Y in Croatia managed to complete a successful FT8 contact with Willem, ZS6WAB in South Africa.

The distance was in the region of 7,585kms and it took place at around 12:36 UTC. This would have been an hour or so after local noon and the F2 layer was likely at it's highest ionization.

Considering it was a North-South path, I suspect that F2 and TEP propagation was involved without any need for a Sporadic-E extension at either end.

The solar flux on the 13th of March was at 123 which is a lot higher than last October when it was just 78 when the first ZS-S5 contact took place.

The screenshot above from 9A2Y shows the FT8 contact. As can be seen, the signal from ZS6WAB was  -5dB in Croatia which suggests that a contact on CW would have been possible but unlikely on SSB.

Equipment: I'm not sure what 9A2Y was using but ZS6WAB uses an old ICOM IC-706 for the 8m CW beacon with a 5-element YU7EF designed Yagi so I presume that is what was used.

Antenna stack at ZS6WAB with the 40 MHz Yagi at the top

Quite a number of European stations have reported hearing the ZS6WAB beacon on 40.475 MHz over the last week or two. Considering it's located halfway between the 28 MHz and 50 MHz bands, it is now hopefully giving early warning of potential 6m openings between South Africa and Europe.

As always, if you want more information on the new 8m band then check out the links on my 40 MHz page.