Spain opens up the 40 MHz (8m) amateur radio band with conditions - April 2024

Good news! The licencing authorities in Spain have decided to open up the 40 MHz (8m) amateur radio band with conditions.

The national association for radio amateurs in Spain is the URE and they released this notice... "After hard work by the URE before the administration, today the Resolution of the Secretary of State for Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructure was published on the Amateur Radio website, which authorizes holders of Spanish amateur radio authorizations to make broadcasts. in the 40,650 – 40,750 MHz band, with a maximum peak envelope power (PEP) of 25 W, for a period of eighteen months.

Broadcasts will only be made from fixed stations that have the corresponding license. In addition, the radio amateur must inform the Provincial Telecommunications Inspection Headquarters of the province in which he or she resides about his intention to operate in this band before broadcasting for the first time on these frequencies."

This is huge news for those interested in the 40 MHz band and Spain is the first 'big country' to allow radio amateurs access to the 8m band.

Analysis... In terms of propagation, Spain is in an ideal spot. 

F2... For F2 layer propagation, there will be plenty of openings from Spain to the Caribbean (PJ4MM) and the signals should be clearly heard in the USA and Canada as well. The north-south paths will be especially good and the 40 MHz signals will be heard all over South America and TEP openings to the radio amateurs in South Africa should be a regular occurrence.

Conditions from EA8 (Canary Islands) should be amazing while the southern EA5, EA6, EA7 stations will be a bit better than those further north.

Sporadic-E... The workhorse over the Summer months of May to July will be Sporadic-E with typical distances in the region of 1000 to 2200 kms.

For EI stations in Ireland... Expect EA5, EA6 and EA7 to be the most common. EA1 and EA2 will be harder.

ON stations in Belgium... Expect EA7 to be the most common with EA3 the hardest.

S5 stations in Slovenia... Expect EA1 and EA7 to be the easiest with EA3 and EA6 the hardest.

SV stations in Greece... EA1 might be difficult as it's close to the maximum one hop Sporadic-E distance. The rest of Spain should be easy.

In conclusion... One of the big problems with the 40 MHz band is the lack of activity. For those that are using the band, it soon gets to a stage where there is no-one new to work. With Spain joining the party, that should hopefully change.

As we're at the peak of the solar cycle, now is the time to explore the 8m band before the conditions drop away.

Links...

1) For more information on the 8m band, see my 40 MHz page. 

2) URE News item... https://www.ure.es/autorizada-la-banda-de-40650-40750-mhz/

3) The official notice in Spanish posted 2nd April 2024... https://avancedigital.mineco.gob.es/espectro/radioaficionados/autorizaciones/Documents/RESOLUCION_40_MHz.pdf

Addendum... This is the official document via Google Translate...

Spanish Award...14th Antarctic Activity Week...February 2017

Back in late February, a bunch of Spanish special event stations popped up on the HF bands to mark the 14th Annual Antarctic Activity Week. It ran from the 18th to the 26th of the month. It seemed a bit strange that special event stations in Spain should be marking an Antarctic week. Perhaps it's because of the Spanish research stations located on the continent?

It really was very well organised with 9 stations on air and an excellent support website where logs were being constantly uploaded.... https://antarctica.ure.es/

Of all the websites dedicated to radio awards, this one is certainly one of the best.

These were the 9 stations...

I like the one with the Polar Bear......especially as there are none in the Antarctic! :o))

The top award was the Platinum which required working all 9 stations which wasn't too difficult.

I worked all the stations on CW and made an effort to work them on as many bands as I could.

AO5ANT was one of the hardest to work as the DX cluster shows that there was little or no 80m CW activity and he only appeared on 30m for a few hours on the 17th. EH5ANT was only on 20m CW for 2 days.

One of the interesting results of chasing these stations was that I learnt something about propagation. Notice how there is almost a complete lack of stations on 17m (18 MHz). I could hear them sometimes but they were very weak.

The centre of Spain is about 1,500kms from the south coast of Ireland. 1,500kms seems to be fine for signals on 14MHz and below but too close for 18MHz and 21MHz.

This was the propagation prediction map at the time...

It clearly shows that while 20m (14 MHz) was open to Spain from Ireland, the distance was too short for 17 and 15m. I believe that EG5ANT may have been in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in North Africa so it's probably no suprise that he was the only one I worked on 17m. The distance in that case was close to 2,000kms.

On the top 100 lists on the website, I was the only EI listed. It's interesting that the many of those in the top 10 were far enough away (2000kms+) to make use of the openings on 17 and 15m. i.e. Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, etc.

Rules..
Diplomas will be awarded in four different categories depending on the number of special stations contacted by the applicant (or received in case of SWLs)
BRONZE DIPLOMA... For contacts with 3 different Special Event stations, whatever the mode or band used.
SILVER DIPLOMA... For contacts with 5 different Special Event stations, whatever the mode/band.
GOLD DIPLOMA... For contacts with 7 different Special Event stations, whatever the mode/band.
PLATINUM DIPLOMA... For contacts with ALL 9 different Special Event stations, whatever the mode/band.