First 9A to 9A contact on 40 MHz - 25th May 2021

25th May 2021: A little bit of history was made on the 40 MHz band on the 25th of May when the first contact between two stations in Croatia took place.

At 06:00 UTC, Patrik, 9A5CW and Zeljko, 9A2EY completed a successful FT8 contact on 40.680 MHz.

The distance was 24.5kms between the two stations over an obstructed path and both stations were using vertical non-resonant HF antennas.

One of the antennas was a vertical for the 60m HF band without a tuner and the radio was an ICOM IC706 Mk2.

Hopefully this will encourage more 9A stations to experiment with the band.

Contact between Ireland & Croatia on 40 MHz - 7th May 2021

Tim, EI4GNB reports making a FT8 contact on 40.680 MHz with 9A5CW in Croatia during the big Sporadic-E opening on the 7th of May 2021.

The screen composite below shows the FT8 contact from Tim's station.

While this wasn't the first 40 MHz contact between Ireland and Croatia, I think it may have been the first time 9A5CW has worked Ireland on this new amateur radio band.

This is the screen from 9A5CW...

It's good to see activity on the increase on 40 MHz from Croatia.

For more information on the 40 MHz amateur radio band, go to https://ei7gl.blogspot.com/p/40-mhz.html

First contact between Croatia (9A) and Slovenia (S5) on 40 MHz - 26th Jan 2021

The very first contact between Croatia and neighbouring Slovenia on the new 40 MHz (8m) amateur band took place on the 26th of January 2021. This comes just two weeks after the very first 40 MHz contact between Croatia (9A) and Ireland (EI).

Using the FT8 digital mode, Patrik 9A5CW completed a successful QSO with Ivo, S59F over an hilly 70km path.

The screenshot above from S59F shows the FT8 contact with the signal from 9A5CW being in the region of -7dB to -8dB. This suggests that while the signal levels were too weak for say a SSB voice contact, a marginal CW or a solid FT8 contact was possible.

The contact took place on 40.680 MHz which is in the centre of the 40 MHz ISM band (Industrial, Scientific, Medical).

Patrik 9A5CW said that he was using an ICOM IC-706 Mk2 running 10 watts into an inverted L vertical antenna for the 60 metre band (5 MHz). S59F was using an ICOM IC-7300 and a HF vertical with very good vswr on 40MHz.

9A5CW also conducted tests over a 70km path with S50B using the JT9 digital mode. While S50B heard a -22dB signal, there was no contact in this case.

Links...

1) 40 MHz page on this blog