Monday 25th October 2021: This was a pretty similar to other recent days on 28 MHz with 591 stations on FT8 in 61 countries heard on the band.
What was different was that it seemed pretty good to the USA with a good few stations coming in from the eastern half of the country.
Interesting to see a pocket of stations in Arizona and New Mexico making it through.
The solar flux is at 101 which is well up on the 76 of a week ago.
Sunday 24th October 2021: This was a pretty good day on the 28 MHz band with 681 stations in 51 DXCC countries heard on FT8. In terms of numbers, that's about the same as a very good day at the peak of the Sporadic-E season during the Summer.
In this case however, it's a mix a some Sporadic-E to Europe and some F2 propagation to the rest of the world.
As always, it's the East-West propagation that is interesting. What I noted were...
a) Five stations from Australia.
The map above shows the reports from the DX-Cluster with several stations across the south of Europe hearing Willem, ZS6WAB on 40.675 MHz.
Saturday 23rd October 2021: This was a pretty big day on the 28 MHz band with 439 stations in 46 DXCC countries heard with the FT8 mode. The bulk of these were due to a Sporadic-E opening to Europe and a very good F2 opening to Ukraine & Russia.
The signals that caught my interest though were the three stations from Australia.
However, it's always nice to hear Australia on the 10-metre band. VK6JJJ in Perth is just over 15,000kms from my location.
The solar flux was at 82.
Wednesday 20th October 2021: It's interesting to see that the TEP (Trans-Equatorial Propagation) openings are continuing on 144 MHz in South America.
This is a sample of the TEP spots from the DX-Cluster with distances in the region of 5300 to 6000kms...
— Diego Alejandro Feil (@LW2DAF) October 20, 2021
Sunday 17th October 2021: A little bit of radio history was made today when there was a successful two way contact between S50B in Slovenia and ZS6WAB in South Africa on the new 40 MHz band.
Not only was this the first contact between Slovenia and South Africa but it was also the first contact between Europe and Africa on the new 8-metre band.
Borut, S50B reports that he worked Willem, ZS6WAB on 40.680 MHz using the FT8 digital mode...
As can be seen, the signal was quite weak at -8dB and -10dB which suggests that a contact on CW might have been possible but unlikely on SSB.
S50B writes... "I'd like to announce the first 8m, 40mhz, FT8 qso between AF-EU and South Africa and Slovenia. Mny tnx to ZS6WAB.....Juupii 🙂 73 de Borut s50b"
The key point about this contact is that it shows the 40 MHz path between Europe and South Africa is possible and in future, CW and SSB contacts may follow.
Distance: The contact was in the region of 7925kms which means by default, it also sets a new distance record for the new 40 MHz band.
Propagation Mode: If this contact was on 50 MHz, I'd probably be saying it was TEP - Trans-Equatorial Propagation. At the moment, we're getting modest East-West openings at 28 MHz further north in Europe. It stands to reason that openings from the south of Europe on paths to the South must extend well up into the low VHF region above 30 MHz.
Does the F2 MUF to the south extend up as far as 40 MHz? I really don't believe anyone can say with 100% certainty that this opening was only F2 layer or it was only TEP. The solar flux today was just 78 which isn't all that high.
Equipment: Subject to confirmation, I think S50B was using 100 watts from an ICOM IC-7100 into a 4-element Yagi as shown above.
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 |
Hopefully, this contact will encourage more experiments on the 40 MHz band. There is a number of new 40 MHz experimental stations in the USA and an 8m contact contact between South Africa and North America would be really interesting.
As always, if you want more information on the new 8m band then check out the links in my 40 MHz page.
"Hi there John. TEP is back again on 8m band. Today me and SV8CS had copy from ZS6WAB/B 40.675mhz with peak around 16:50z best copy 539 qsb
Here is a video of my copy ZS6WAB/B @ SV2DCD via TEP 6/10/2021 16:40z 40.675mhz "
You can see a video of the reception below...
As outlined in the video title, Leonidas feels that the propagation mode was TEP (Trans-Equatorial Propagation). I have shown the Geomagnetic Equator in the map above and it seems to be roughly equidistant from both stations.
The distance was approximately 7,220 kms. Leonidas was using an 8-element Yagi for 50 MHz to listen to the beacon on 8m.
I also understand that the South African 40 MHz beacon has been heard in the south of Portugal in the last few days as well.
SV2DCD also reported hearing the same 40 MHz beacon in April of 2021. See previous post HERE
Now that we have concrete evidence of the 8m South African beacon being heard in Europe, hopefully others will try to have a listen and report it.
Analysis... This new 40 MHz beacon could prove very useful for serious 6-metre operators in Europe checking to see if there is a propagation path to South Africa. There is quite a jump from say 28 MHz to 50 MHz where as if the band is open at 40 MHz then 50 MHz may not be far behind.
Links...
1) My previous post about the ZS6WAB beacon
Friday 15th October 2021: It wasn't a great day for propagation on 28 MHz but it was interesting all the same to see Australia coming through on FT8.
VK8NSB 10m FT8 14315 km 10:03:44
Everything is relative I suppose, it's down on other recent days but way ahead of the poor conditions at the bottom of the sunspot cycle two years ago.
There was some Sporadic-E from Spain and a reasonable F2 opening to Greece, Turkey, Ukraine and southern Russia.
A total of 151 stations were heard in 37 countries. The solar flux was 83.
I got a recent email from Keith, G0RQQ to say that he was hearing bursts of the Irish EI1KNH beacon on 40.013 MHz recently. The distance is approximately 370 kms.
Keith, who is in the city of Lincoln, England heard the 15-second burst with a signal of S5 at around 08:15 UTC on the 13th of October 2021. He was unable to listen to the PI4 signals as he didn't have the software installed.
Keith is using a Yaesu FT-817ND wide-banded, and the antenna is an end-fed wire 20m long and about 1.5m above ground.
It's just a reminder that it is very easy for anyone in the UK to listen to the Irish 40 MHz beacons during the early morning (~6-7am) when meteor scatter conditions tend to be best.
For EI1KNH/B, just leave your receiver on SSB about 800 Hz lower on 40.0122 MHz and you should hear the CW and PI4 tones eventually.
For more information on the 40 MHz band, check out my 40 MHz page.
Sunday 10th October 2021: I got a bit tired of listening for FT8 signals on the 28 MHz band so I decided to go back to WSPR instead. As I had expected, the amount of activity on this digital beacon mode was drastically lower.
I had the radio on from about noon on and as you can see from the map above, it's a bit sparse. I know that if this had been FT8, there would have been lots of stations heard.
The BIG surprise however was the German research station DP0GVN in Antarctica! Wow!
It's always interesting to see Antarctica coming through but it's really nice on 28 MHz. According to their WSPR page, they run 5-watts on WSPR.
The signal however was very weak here. According to the log, I had one single decode at -26dB which is well below what is audible by the human ear.
Looking at the map, there is other evidence of F2 propagation as well. During the Summer months, I used to hear VE1VDM in Nova Scotia via multi-hop Sporadic-E. On the 10th of October, it was very likely due to a single F2 hop as the solar conditions improve.
The solar flux on the day was at 85.
Addendum...
Friday 8th Oct 2021: This was a really good day on the 28 MHz band with a total of 553 stations in 52 DXCC countries heard on the band.
The high number of stations was due mainly to two factors...
1) An extensive Sporadic-E opening to Europe which shows that even though we are in early October, there can still be Sp-E openings. It's not confined totally to the Summer months.
2) Good F2 layer opening especially to the eastern part of the USA.
As always, it's the East-West propagation that it the most interesting rather than what rare stations popped up. If the maximum usable frequency (MUF) was struggling to reach 28 MHz then all of the propagation would be North-South. The fact that I'm hearing stations in the USA and Russia on 28 MHz probably means that the MUF to the south for me was up above 30 MHz and into the low VHF spectrum.
It's interesting to note the sharp cut-off of the stations in the USA at about 6500 kms. This was likely due to the limit of two F2 hops and there wasn't a third hop to go further.
For me, the most interesting station was AB6A in Oregon. Not so much because of the distance but because of the northerly path.
The solar flux on the day was at 93 which is on the way back up again.
FT8 / SSB... I know all of these reports are for FT8 signals but it just happens to be the easiest way to monitor band conditions. If you operate on SSB only then get ready for the CQWW SSB contest at the end of the month. I expect the 28 MHz band then to be excellent.
Wednesday 6th October 2021: After a few modest days, there was a good opening on 28 MHz again with plenty of East-West propagation. Quite a number of FT8 from the USA were heard but the pick of the crop was W6IBU in California.
That makes California interesting is not so much the distance but the fact that the path was well to the north.
It was also interesting to see Mexico coming through as well as 3B9FR on Rodriguez Island in the Indian Ocean.
Between the extensive worldwide F2 opening and the Sporadic-E to Europe, a total of 488 stations in 54 DXCC countries were heard.
The solar flux on the day was 85.
Here are the maps for the previous few days but didn't really warrant an individual post.
Saturday 2nd October 2021: It looks like the 28 MHz band is on a bit of a roll at the moment with plenty of DX signals coming in from across the world every day. No two days are the same and the defining feature is how good the East-West propagation is.
On the 2nd, there was a very good F2 opening to the East but the multi-hop to SE Asia wasn't as good as the previous day. On the other hand, there was a good opening to the USA.
From my location in Ireland on the NW of Europe, the first and best F2 openings on 28 MHz are usually to the SE of the USA as this is the most southerly path. This turned out to be the case on the 2nd with a lot of stations from Florida making it through.
The most unusual signals were from Texas which required a more northerly path. This was another first for this season as these are the first signals that I have heard from the Lone Star state.
The Solar Flux on the 2nd was 87 and dropping. A total of 243 stations were heard on FT8 including 12 alone from South Africa.
The CQ WW SSB contest is coming up at the end of the month and I suspect all of the HF bands will be in great shape for it.
Friday 1st October 2021: The map above shows the 206 stations that I heard on 28 MHz during the day and it shows signals coming in from all over the world.
Considering I'm only listening with a simple half-wave vertical antenna, it shows that the band is really begin to open up as we climb out of the sunspot minimum.
There wasn't much in the way of Sporadic-E propagation to Europe and the main mode was F2 as the solar flux is at 91.
For some areas of the world, it seemed that the limitation what the number of stations that were active rather than how good the propagation was. Here are some of signals...
VK8NSB from the north of Australia, the first VK this season. There is always something special about an opening to VK from Europe on the 10m band.
49 stations from Indonesia, 13 from Israel and 10 from South Africa.
D60AC from the Comoros Islands, FR4OO from Reunion, VU3RGB from India and 4S7AVR from Sri Lanka.
5H1FF in Tanzania, 9G5FIin Ghana, V51MA in Namibia and 5T5PA in Mauritania.
It wasn't a great day towards the west with only one lone signal coming through from New Hampshire in the USA.
Thursday 30th September 2021: This was a mixed day in terms of propagation. On the one hand, a total of just 61 stations were heard on FT8 and there was a very little Sporadic-E propagation. The usual F2 opening to South America was subdued.
On the other hand, the was some interesting East-West propagation with stations further north in Russia and the USA coming through. It was also the first time I heard someone from Canada this season.
I have seen reports of plenty of DX on the lower bands where things are much easier in terms of propagation but I don't really have much interest in the lower HF bands.
The Solar Flux on the day was 95.
In some recent posts, I noted how there was openings on 144 MHz between the Caribbean and Brazil via TEP - Trans-Equatorial Propagation. The distances were in the region of 4600kms.
As can be seen from the graphic above, there was also an interesting TEP opening further west with Band 2 FM signals at 102.7 MHz in the north of Columbia being heard in Chile in early September, a distance of just over 4800kms.
The recording below is from Felip, CE3SAD in Chile who is an avid FM DX-er.
Wednesday 29th September 2021: This day was a little bit more subdued than the 28th of Sept but there was still a nice mixture of Sporadic-E and F2 signals on the 28 MHz band.
What was of interest to me was the small opening to the USA which is a sign of the more elusive East-West propagation. It certainly wasn't huge as I only heard four US stations signals on FT8.
Overall, a total of 99 stations were heard with the solar flux jumping up to 102 from 89.
