Tom EI4DQ completes an 11 band DXCC!

Congrats to Tom EI4DQ who recently achieved an 11 band DXCC!

While a number of EI stations have 10 band DXCC, Tom is the only one to get the magic 100 countries confirmed on eleven bands.

The key difference of course is that EI4DQ has managed to get DXCC on 144 MHz (2 metres) as well primarily by bouncing signals off the moon.

It's probably no exaggeration to say that it's easier to get an 8 band DXCC from 10m-80m than it is to get DXCC on 2m!

Here is an excerpt of Tom's 11 Band DXCC journey....

On the 21st of August 2019, I finally completed my 11 band DXCC.

I had started my plan of trying to gain the 11 band DXCC goal back in March of 2015, after completing DXCC for the 2 metre and 6 metre bands. I decided it was time to try and get DXCC on the HF bands as well. 

The last time I had operated the HF bands was back around 1998. I installed various antennas for all the hf bands i.e. dipoles, verticals, loops, etc. I decided to start at the bottom i.e. 160mtr band (1.8 MHz), and work my way up to 10mtr (28 MHz).

My first 160mtr antenna was a single wire inverted L. It worked ok but I had lots of issues feeding it at the base as it had a very low impedance. I always had to use some type of tuner at the base to feed it and make it work. 

I then made a folded Marconi L antenna out of 450 ohm open wire feeder, i.e. 4x impedance transformation. Wow what a difference! 

Direct 50 ohm feed, no tuner, 1:1 vswr, and hearing and working DX much better. I also had about 60 radials down of various lengths.

I started to listen to all the 160mtr contests picking off needed DXCC both on cw and ssb and then on FT8. I also started monitoring the Reverse Beacon Network, and the DXsummet DX cluster  for any new DXCC countries that were about. I was about to install a separate receive antenna for 160mts in late 2017, but when I purchased a ICOM IC7610, its noise reducing capabilities and receive were so good that I did not need any receive antenna. I completed DXCC on 160mtr in late February of 2019. 

80mtr / 40mtr / and 30mtr DXCC were all completed by March of 2019. 20mtr and 17mtr were completed by April of 2019. 15mts was completed in June of 2019 and 10mtr was completed in July of 2019. 

All contacts were confirmed via Logbook of the World (LOTW). I could have used some of my QSL cards from previous activity in the 1970's to 1990's period when I was very active on the HF bands but chose not to do so. I also tended to only pick out stations who were in the LOTW program.

The last band 12mtr (24 MHz) was completed in August of 2019. This band was the most frustrating band to work DX! It was a pain to hear DX on 15mtr and 10mtr and sweet nothing on 12mtr. It took me 2 months just to dig out the last needed DCXX to make 100 on this band. My final total on this band was 112 DXCC but only 100 of them uploaded to LOTW. 

So at last on the 21st of August 2019, the 11 band DXCC was completed. All together it took me just over 4 years to complete the needed HF DXCC.

All my antennas are homebrew vertical dipoles, loops or verticals, modes used cw / ssb / ft8.

Now its back to 6mtr, 4mtr and 2mtr! ... Tom, EI4DQ

Big opening across the Atlantic on 28 MHz & 50 MHz...Sun 8th July 2018

There was another big opening across the Atlantic on Sunday the 8th of July with signals on 28 MHz and 50 MHz.

This is what I heard on FT8 on 28 MHz with some signals being heard into the early hours of the 9th.

The most north-westerly signal was from a station in Colorado and according to the PSK reporter website, I was the only person in Europe to hear him.

Looking at the FT8 reception reports for Tom EI4DQ, I could see 50 MHz was also open. As Tom is only a few kms east of me, it's interesting to see what he is hearing on 50 MHz compared to what I am hearing on 28 MHz.

I noticed one strange difference though.

In the afternoon, I was hardly hearing anything on 28 MHz while Tom was hearing North America on 50 MHz. This is a 15 minute snapshot of what we were both hearing at a point in the afternoon.

The difference was so great that it prompted me to check the VSWR on my 10 metre antenna to make sure everything was ok... which it was. It seems that the 28 MHz band was open from the Netherlands to USA at the time and I was in the skip zone. The conditions were fine, it was just that I was in the wrong location for the North American signals to be heard on 28 MHz.

Later in the evening, we were both hearing much the same on each respective band. A 15 minute snapshot is shown below...

It's just another reminder that you need to be careful making assumptions about propagation. Just because you don't hear something on 28 MHz, it doesn't mean the band isn't open. It could well be that you are in the skip zone for a while.

This day was also remarkable for another reason. Someone in the north of Ireland managed to pick up a Canadian radio station on 88 MHz! That was without doubt the best DX of the day.

Long distance Sporadic-E on 144 MHz...

This is something I meant to post a while back but never got around to it unil now.

Back on the 3rd of July, there was some excellent Sporadic-E propogation over Europe with some very impressive distances. One of those contacts was between Tom, EI4DQ (IO51wu) and SV9CVY (KM25ka) on the island of Crete, a distance of about 3,213 kms. Anyone that knows about Sporadic-E will know that the usual maximum distance for 1 hop is around 2,300 kms so the above distance is unusual. (On the map above, 2300 kms would be roughly from EI4DQ to roughly the heel of Italy).

Now, there are probably 3 possible explanations for this type of contact...

1) Double hop Sporadic-E as shown above...using clouds #2 and #3

2) Chordal hop where the Sporadic-E clouds may be slightly tilted and the signal goes from cloud to cloud rather than bouncing off the ground in the middle.......i.e. the signal goes directly from cloud #2 to cloud #3.

3) There was an extension at either end or both ends due to tropospheric propogation.

Considering that the MUF does not reach as high as 144 MHz that often, it's remarkable that it should happen in 2 spots at once. Hence, that's why these type of contacts are pretty rare.

Now for a bit of fun ;o)......what happens if we take that 3,213 km contact and plot it from EI4DQ's location in the opposite direction...

In fact, if EI4DQ managed to get a signal to travel that far to the west, it would end up in Newfoundland! To date, no-one has managed to make a contact accross the Atlantic on 144 MHz and it remains the 'holy grail' of VHF propogation. In fact, the IRTS have a special trophy called the Brendan Trophies for the first 2 stations to achieve this special contact.

Now, there's a big difference between the path from EI to SV9 compared to the path from EI to VO (Newfoundland). For one thing, EI to VO is a lot further North and Newfoundland is a lot closer to the magnetic North pole, all factors which seem to reduce the chances of there being suitable Sporadic-E.

It does however raise the question of whether it is possible? Europe to North America direct on 144 MHz.......can it be done???