XPost: rec.radio.amateur.moderated

EI7GL....A diary of amateur radio activity

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

Posted: 13 May 2021 06:00 AM PDT https://ei7gl.blogspot.com/2021/05/contact-between-ireland-croatia-on-40.html




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

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Opening on 28 MHz after Aurora - Wed 12th May 2021

Posted: 13 May 2021 12:38 AM PDT https://ei7gl.blogspot.com/2021/05/opening-on-28-mhz-after-aurora-wed-12th.html


Wednesday the 12th of May 2021 was an unusual day. The first half of the
day seemed to be dead on 28 MHz with very little happening which was
probably due to an aurora in progress. From about 18:00 UTC onwards, it
sprung into life. This is what I heard on FT8 up until 18:30 UTC...

Once it was obvious that the signals were getting stronger, I moved over to monitoring for WSPR signals...
A total of 20 stations were spotted from the northern part of Europe. What
was unusual was that the band just seemed to stay open up till midnight and then stayed open overnight.

What was also unusual for me was that I was hearing the SE of the UK which
is about 650kms away for several hours. These are some weak QRSS signals I
got a grab of...

What was unusual was just steady the signals were. Normally with short skip
on 28 MHz, the signals are fading. QRSS signals come in and fade away. On
the 12th, the QRSS signals from the UK just seemed to be there at a pretty consistent level for hours. They never got that strong as can be seen from
the WSPR reports below but the QRSS signals never really faded out
either.UTC (y-m-d) TX txGrid RX rxGrid MHz W SNR drift km
2021-05-12 20:48 G0MBA JO01 EI7GL IO51tu 28.126053 0.2 -25 0 645
2021-05-12 18:48 G0PKT JO01mt EI7GL IO51tu 28.126062 0.2 -23 0 647
2021-05-12 19:48 G0PKT JO01mt EI7GL IO51tu 28.126062 0.2 -28 0 647
2021-05-12 20:48 G0PKT JO01mt EI7GL IO51tu 28.126064 0.2 -21 0 647
2021-05-12 20:58 G0PKT JO01mt EI7GL IO51tu 28.126063 0.2 -23 0 647
This was the day of the season where the band seems to stayed open to
Europe overnight.
A connection with the aurora event or just coincidence?

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