EI7GL....A diary of amateur radio activity
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Big opening on 40 MHz between Europe and South Africa - Thurs 7th Apr 2022
Posted: 08 Apr 2022 11:10 AM PDT
https://ei7gl.blogspot.com/2022/04/big-opening-on-40-mhz-between-europe.html
Thursday 7th April 2022: There was an extensive opening on the 40 MHz band
and it was great to see so many stations active. The map above shows the
FT8 activity on the band.
Up to now, the only station active from South Africa seemed to be ZS6WAB so
it was a pleasant surprise to see two more ZS stations operating on the 8m band.
Borut, S50B in Slovenia reports working both ZS6OB and ZS4TX bringing his
total now to three South African stations worked.
G9PUV on the south-east coast of England managed to exchange signal reports with two stations in South Africa. Even though the signals at 40 MHz were
quite strong, no successful contacts were made at 50 MHz when Paul was
using his amateur radio callsign G7PUV.
ZS6WAB was heard in Slovenia, Chad and Croatia.Rcvr Band Mode Distance Time
(UTC)
S58P 8m FT8 7928 km 14:59:11
TT8SN 8m FT8 4300 km 14:58:11
9A5CW 8m FT8 7848 km 14:37:28
ZS6OB was heard over a much wider area including Portugal (HC02), Slovenia, Croatia, England, Belgium, France and Hungary.Rcvr Band Mode Distance Time
(UTC)
HC02 8m FT8 7949 km 14:42:59
9A3TN 8m FT8 7983 km 14:42:59
S50B 8m FT8 8098 km 14:42:58
9A5CW 8m FT8 8033 km 14:42:58
S59F 8m FT8 8104 km 14:26:29
G0CHE 8m FT8 8979 km 14:17:14
G4EFE 8m FT8 9060 km 14:17:12
G7PUV/A 8m FT8 8956 km 14:16:45
G9PUV 8m FT8 8964 km 14:16:43
ON5CD 8m FT8 8849 km 14:07:14
G4FTC 8m FT8 9037 km 14:06:44
F5BZB 8m FT8 8196 km 14:05:44
HA2NP 8m FT8 8173 km 13:55:44
ZS4TX was heard in Greece, Slovenia, Portugal, Croatia, England, France and Hungary.Rcvr Band Mode Distance Time (UTC)
SV1DH 8m FT8 7458 km 14:48:44
S50B 8m FT8 8415 km 14:48:43
HC02 8m FT8 8158 km 14:45:45
S59F 8m FT8 8419 km 14:45:14
9A3TN 8m FT8 8311 km 14:08:56
G9PUV 8m FT8 9243 km 14:00:13
F5BZB 8m FT8 8466 km 13:58:14
HA2NP 8m FT8 8509 km 13:57:44
9A5CW 8m FT8 8349 km 13:53:43
As can be seen from the reports about, the best conditions seemed to have
been around 14:00 UTC. I suspect the opening was due to afternoon TEP with
some F2 layer propagation.
Radio amateurs in South Africa first got an allocation at 40 MHz back in
2015. After some initial interest, interest seemed to fizzle out due to the small numbers and a lack of activity.
Now with the increased level of activity and interest in the 40 MHz band in Europe, some long range paths are beginning to open up.
As more stations get active on the 40 MHz band, it's likely that more
people will put up dedicated antennas tuned for the 8m band resulting in
better signal reports. Up to now, most were pressing their 28 MHz or 50 MHz antennas in service with limited results.
Spots from the DX-Cluster...
Spotter Freq. DX Time Info CountryTT8SN 40675 ZS6WAB 14:59 07 Apr 22
JK72MC<>KG46 CQ ... +32 dB South AfricaON5QRP-@ 40680 ZS6WAB 14:47 07 Apr
22 +06 QSB South AfricaON5QRP-@ 40680 ZS6OB 14:42 07 Apr 22 +6db South AfricaS50B 40680 ZS6OB 14:32 07 Apr 22 ssb 8m South AfricaF4CXO 40680 ZS6OB 14:32 07 Apr 22 JN26PP<>KG44DE 53 in JN26 South AfricaF4CXO 40675 ZS6WAB/B 14:14 07 Apr 22 JN26PP<>KG46RB 559 South AfricaF4DNP 40675 ZS6WAB/B 14:11
07 Apr 22 Good conditions in JN38. South AfricaEA3ERE 40675 ZS6WAB/B 14:11
07 Apr 22 JN11CX<>KG46 CW 559+ South AfricaEA3ERE 40680 ZS6OB 14:05 07 Apr
22 <ES> FT8 +24 dB cq South AfricaON5QRP-@ 40680 ZS6OB 14:03 07 Apr 22
+30db South AfricaHA2NP 40680 ZS4TX 14:03 07 Apr 22 JN97SG<TEP>KG30BX 0dB
HRD South AfricaHA2NP 40680 ZS6OB 14:02 07 Apr 22 JN97SG<TEP>KG44DE -10 HRD South AfricaON5QRP-@ 40680 ZS4TX 14:01 07 Apr 22 QSO G9PUV South
AfricaG7PUV 40675 ZS6WAB/B 13:54 07 Apr 22 JO00AU<TEP>KG46RB 599! South AfricaTT8SN 40680 S59F 13:48 07 Apr 22 JK72MC<>JN65UU +30 dB SloveniaTT8SN 40680 ON5QRP 13:47 07 Apr 22 JK72MC<>JN29UQ +12 dB BelgiumON5QRP-@ 40680
ZS6OB 13:47 07 Apr 22 QSO G9PUV South AfricaEA3ERE 40680 ZS6OB 13:44 07 Apr
22 <ES> FT8 cq South AfricaEA3ERE 40675 ZS6WAB/B 13:33 07 Apr 22
JN11CX<>KG46 CW 549 South AfricaON5QRP-@ 40680 ZS6OB 13:11 07 Apr 22 -6 ft8 South AfricaF4CXO 40675 ZS6WAB/B 13:09 07 Apr 22 JN26PP<>KG46RB 519 South Africa
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Opening on 40 MHz between the UK and Chad - 6th Apr 2022
Posted: 07 Apr 2022 12:07 PM PDT
https://ei7gl.blogspot.com/2022/04/opening-on-40-mhz-between-uk-and-chad.html
It looks as if there was an opening on the 40 MHz band on Tuesday the 6th
of April 2022 when the FT8 signal from Paul, G9PUV (G7PUV) was heard by
TT8SN in Chad.Rcvr Band Mode Distance Time (UTC)
TT8SN 8m FT8 4518 km 14:25:11
According to the PSK Reporter website, TT8SN was hearing the signal from
G9PUV at +16dB which is very strong.
G9PUV was using 25 watts into a log periodic antenna for the tests.
The strong signal strength, the distance of 4,500kms and the time suggests
that this was a F2 layer opening with just one hop involved. It looks as if
the North-South path from the south of England to Africa is now reaching as high as the 40 MHz band.
The solar flux on the 6th of April was 117 which is down from the recent
peak of 156 a week ago.
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Reception reports for the ZS6WAB beacon on 40 MHz - Q1 2022
Posted: 06 Apr 2022 09:57 AM PDT
https://ei7gl.blogspot.com/2022/04/reception-reports-for-zs6wab-beacon-on.html
With the recent increase in sunspot numbers and the improvement on the HF bands, there has been a lot of interest in the ZS6WAB beacon on 40.675 MHz. This beacon which usually sends a message in CW is now seen as a valuable
early warning system for potential openings on the 50 MHz band between
Europe and South Africa.
In the first quarter of 2022, a total of 52 stations uploaded reception
reports to the DX Summit DX cluster and a map of these are shown above.
Outside of Europe, there are two to note.
a) TT8SN in Chad at about 4,300kms was most likely one F2 layer hop.
b) There was a spot on the cluster from W3PQS in the USA but unless I hear otherwise, I think it's a mistake (not counted as part of the 52). I sent
W3PQS an email but got no reply.
Europe... This is the map for Europe in more detail...
As might be expected, the majority of the stations that heard the 40 MHz
signal of ZS6WAB are located in the southern half of Europe.
As for propagation modes, it's likely TEP was involved with some F2 layer reaching as high as 40 MHz as well on this North-South path.
It was interesting to see that the signal from South Africa managed to
reach OH5ZA in Finland as well, a distance of almost 9,500kms.Top
Spotters... This is a list of the top spotters on the DX cluster broken
down into the number of days they heard and reported the ZS6WAB beacon on
40 MHz.
It's interesting to note that both DK2EA and F4CXO reported hearing the 40
MHz ZS6WAB beacon on 22 days in Q1 of 2022.
Caveat... I used the DX spots from the DX Summit cluster to compile the
data for this post. It's possible there were other spots which were not on
this platform but other sources of information are incomplete. I do think however it gives a reasonably accurate picture of who heard the South
African beacon on the 40 MHz band.
In Conclusion... First off, it's great to see so many stations in Europe
active and listening on the 40 MHz band!
I think the reception reports of this 40 MHz beacon shows just how valuable
an allocation between 28 MHz and 50 MHz can be, especially for beacons.
It would be nice if more countries allowed one off experimental 40 MHz
beacons as advocated by the IARU even if an amateur radio allocation is unlikely.
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