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EI7GL....A diary of amateur radio activity

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144 MHz beacon on St Helena heard 7000kms away in France by TEP

Posted: 05 Mar 2021 02:42 PM PST https://ei7gl.blogspot.com/2021/03/144-mhz-beacon-on-st-helena-heard.html


Back in February of 2021, I had a post up about the new 144 MHz on St
Helena Island in the South Atlantic. On the 3rd of March, I reported that
the beacon had been heard over 3000kms away in South Africa.
Now just two days later, F0FYF in France claims to have heard it!

The path is almost 7000 kms! If confirmed then it looks likely that the propagation mode was via Trans-Equatorial Propagation (TEP) from St Helena Island to the north coast of Africa and then via tropo across the Mediterranean.
An audio recording from F0FYF can be heard below...
Check out the audio of the beacon here...
F0FYF · Beacon2

The D7GWM/B in CW can be clearly heard. The beacons locator is IH74DB.
In a post on his website, F0FYF wrote..."The other day, I was touring the audible beacons from my house on a VHF. The spread appeared to be good especially to the south / southwest. The Pic Neulos arrived in excellent conditions on 144.4765 Mhz, even CN8LI was audible at times, with great difficulty but the LNA was there to help. I used for these receptions, a
stack of 2 x 9 elements at 7m from the ground on a temporary pylon (the neighbors cannot stand the sight of metal and their nausea and headaches happen, as if by chance, as soon as I mount my pylon, even not connected
^^, in short ..)
During my little tour, I stopped on 144.47535 Mhz after hearing some very delicate pieces of walrus to decode. The antennas pointed at 200 ° and as
soon as I turned more than 5 ° in one direction or the other, the signal disappeared. Surely a reflection on a massif. 200 ° de chez moi passes just between the Semnoz massif and Le Mont du Chat. I am still at 700m with a
fairly clear view from my home. I started the recording and I was able to recover some bridles but I couldn't get it correctly. Another OM that I had warned could hear absolutely nothing from his position. I went around
MMMonVHF , my reference for beacons, to try to know its origin but I
haven't found anything yet. The beacon disappeared around 11 p.m."
Some points here...
1) The ZD7GWM beacon is on 144.475 MHz so the frequency is correct.
2) The beam heading for F0FYF to St Helena is 193 degrees which is close to
the 200 degree beam heading that F0FYF used.
3) The beacon was heard between 19:45 and 22:50. The recording was taken at 20:47. The time is in the late evening which matches some TEP propagation.
4) There are recent reports of 144 TEP on the DX cluster from the Caribbean
to Brazil & Argentina. This suggests that it might be possible for the ZD7 beacon to be heard in Europe.
* * *
This is the second recording...
F0FYF · Beacon

This one has 'E W M T' & '7 E' in cw so I am not sure what that is???
Someone suggested that it might 'G W M /' with the start and finish cut
off. If it is, the level of fading seems very sharp and severe.
It would be great if more people in southern Europe could listen for this beacon on 145.475 MHz. If it is TEP as expected then it should be heard
again in the late evening.
Like any good science experiment, we need more data points!
Link...
1) F0FYF website

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