XPost: rec.radio.amateur.moderated

EI7GL....A diary of amateur radio activity

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South African 8-metre beacon on 40.675 MHz heard in Greece - 19th April 2021

Posted: 19 Apr 2021 10:00 PM PDT https://ei7gl.blogspot.com/2021/04/south-african-8-metre-beacon-on-40675.html



Following on from the report last month of the ZS6WAB 8-metre beacon being heard in Portugal, we now have news that the beacon on 40.675 MHz has been heard in the north of Greece by SV2DCD!
In a report by email, Leonidas SV2DCD informs me that he first heard the
beacon on the 19th of April 2021 at 14:00 UTC and it peaked around 15:40
UTC. Leonidas was using an 8-element Yagi for 50 MHz to listen to the
beacon on 8m.
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.
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
2) My 40 MHz page

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Very weak Sp-E opening on 28 MHz - 19th April 2021

Posted: 19 Apr 2021 01:28 PM PDT https://ei7gl.blogspot.com/2021/04/very-weak-sp-e-opening-on-28-mhz-19th.html




The Sporadic-E opening on the 19th of April 2021 was a pretty weak affair
with just 22 stations in 8 countries heard on 28 MHz. It's hard to claim
that the band was open for 5 days in a row as this one was so weak.
One interesting signal was R7AZ at 3660 kms. Double hop Sporadic-E or one
hop F2? On 10-metres, it's sometimes impossible to tell.

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