AmateurRadio.com

As you will recall, my antenna on 40m is very low and not that efficient: it is just a 10/20/40m Par end-fed with an average height above ground of 4-5m at most. Last night I was on 2W. I hate to think how low the ERP would have been on 40m!

Overnight 17 unique stations spotted me with best DX AE2EA (5654km). Even with a low and inefficient 40m antenna, WSPR still works well!

40m unique spots of my 2W WSPR last night

It is now 2015z and on 10m the Es keeps on coming. This is a good, solid and widespread Es opening.

Recent 10m WSPR spots this evening

UPDATE 2110z:   10m Es still going strong a few minutes ago.

UPDATE 2145z:    Es seemed to have stopped (here) at about 2100z. Oh no it didn’t! IK1WVQ  was spotted at 2134z and 2142z..  HB9JOI spotted me at 2138z.  The Es is still going strong.

UPDATE 2220z:   Although Es has been good on 10m all day and F2 was good to FR1GZ earlier, there has been no F2 to South America on 10m WSPR at least not yet. This was surprising. EB3EPR  is still spotting me at 2218z.

UPDATE 2232z: Bed time, but 10m WSPR still running overnight, unless the PC does an update and closes the software again!

As teatime continues, yet more Es 10m propagation is evident.

DC3RJ (817km) is the latest who spotted me at 1754z. Earlier EB3EPR (1248km) spotted me twice. Now EA1KV (1304km) and DK6UG are spotting me at 1806z.

Some weeks ago I was questioning the propagation to a GM reporter on 6m, but realise now the distance is comparable with parts of Germany, so an easy Es single hop.

UPDATE 1840Z:    HB3YHB (793km) was spotted at 1838z on 10m WSPR.

During the afternoon G4FFC (45km) and M0BOB (74km) were both copied on 10m WSPR. These are both outside local range and I would class these as GDX (just). Both show some Doppler so may be helped by aircraft reflection.

On F2 FR1GZ (9724km, Reunion Is) was being copied until 1512z, so good F2 propagation. I wonder if we’ll see South Americans later?

Es disappeared (here) at 1404z but may return this teatime.

UPDATE 1740z:  EB3EPR (1248km) spotted me at 1736z and 1746z so Es is back (it is teatime!).

FR1GZ (9734km, on Reunion Is, south Indian Ocean) is still coming through here on 10m WSPR at -27dB S/N at 1444z  and again at 1504z at -25dB S/N.  F2 propagation N-S is still there when HF conditions are good.

Sunspot count today is “only” 80 – a year from now this will sound amazingly high – although 20-30MHz conditions are forecast to be “good”.

F2 on 6m is very rare except at high sunspot peaks and in latitudes nearer the equator. TEP involving F2 over the equator is more common, but it requires stations to be in the right places to work.  On 6m the paths from CN8 to FR1 were open by TEP this spring. Also 4X to FR1  and VK to JA.

On 10m TEP should be more frequent. Sometimes F2 links with Es further from the equator, allowing TEP to be extended to stations in higher latitudes.

LB9YE on www;qrz.com

For about an hour my WSPR software was not working on 10m. It happened sometime between 1130z and 1230z. All is now fixed: the internet clock was resync’ed and the WSPR software closed and restarted.  I have no idea what I missed in that hour.   Pretty sure this is a Windows 8.1 issue as it never happened with the old XP PC before it died. It is not a big deal – one has just to keep an eye on things, which one should always be doing. Biggest issue is if this happens overnight. It has not yet.

UPDATE 1254z:  On 10m  LB9YE (1533km) is still being spotted (many times), as he was before the software crashed. Now also SI9AM (1503km at 1252z) – looks like a good Es opening to Scandinavia. LB9YE seems to be a very consistent signal today and last evening on 10m.\

UPDATE 1340z:  SI9AM still being spotted. 10m open to Scandinavia still.

G4DAY (142km) was again spotted at 1104z. It seems this sort of range is possible on 10m GDX. Doppler was a very large (4Hz) suggesting aircraft reflection or even back scatter?

G4DAY is using 10W and that may help. He was -24dB S/N with me, suggesting my signal (2W) would be buried in the noise at his end. WSPR usually decodes down to about -30dB S/N.