Thanks to the phone alert by Heiko, DG1BHA, I managed to get out of QRL not too late yesterday evening. There was a very strong Aurora going on and Heiko being at our station had already worked over 20 stations on 2 m SSB which is really demanding and needs very strong Aurora condx – CW sure is the easier mode for Aurora as it is much easier to decode with the raspy audio distortion. 😉 A few examples of how SSB Aurora sounds can be found on my Youtube channel. These were recorded during the great opening in July 2012.
I was right on time for when the Aurora got so strong it even enabled contacts into Southern Europe! This only happens about 3-4 times per solar cycle … if it is an intensive one! The current cycle is a rather weak one so this was just the second AU opening that I’m aware of that brought condx for Southern Europe, too. So it was very nice to see all the great VHF’ers in HA, 9A, etc. on Aurora for a change and even IK3VZO was worked! 😎
What was also interesting is I had to regularly change antenna direction. Reflection zones were scattered between 290 and 70 degrees! There were times when even the G & GM stations were only audible when beaming 70°, wow! Unfortunately there was no possibility to work any UA stations until very late in the evening. It seemed the reflection zone was so far south it also blocked DX into east. When it was finally possible to work into Russia I stumbled across RV3YM in KO63. This would have been a new square but unfortunately it was not his frequency so I lost him. Never heard him back so was quite sad for the moment. But luckily condx got better again about an hour later when I finally found him CQing and bingo, #508 on 2 m worked. 🙂
I was a bit shocked when RK9AT called me while CQing! Thoughts already started spinning … oh wow, UA9 on 2 m, fantastic, this must be a new record, a.s.o. 😮 But when he repeated his callsign a 2nd time I recognized he was /3 so “only” in UA3 but still some very nice DX! 😉
Around 20z it seemed to be over so Heiko called it a day with 32 SSB-QSOs in the log. I think we were below the reflection zone ourselves in JO73 then. About an hour later the Aurora was even visible down in Austria! Now that is neat! Sure the webcam’s height of 2.970 m ASL helped to extend the visible horizon a few hundred kilometers. Weather was also superb with clear blue sky during the day so that helped, too. Heiko reported to have seen some weak visual Aurora as well. Just click on the right hand picture to get to the originating website. Isn’t that fantastic? 🙂
I did not think of switching on the audio recorder early enough so only two recordings this time, but both being real good DX!
RV3YM in KO63PR, 1.261 km via Aurora:
RN3F in KO86RE, 1.523 km via Aurora:
I made some 85 QSOs in total, you can view the full log here. The most distant contacts, i.e. over 800 km, were made with these great guys:
------------------------------------------------------------------ TIME CALLSIGN LOCATOR TX RX BAND MODE PROP. QRB ------------------------------------------------------------------ 22:03 RN3F KO86RE 55A 57A 2 m. CW AUR 1523 22:18 RK9AT/3 KO86QF 53A 57A 2 m. CW AUR 1518 18:50 EI3KD IO51VW 59A 58A 2 m. CW AUR 1515 17:54 EI4DQ IO51WU 59A 59A 2 m. CW AUR 1512 18:47 GI1CET IO74DS 59A 59A 2 m. SSB AUR 1309 20:13 GM4VVX IO78TA 53A 55A 2 m. CW AUR 1279 23:12 RV3YM KO63PR 55A 55A 2 m. CW AUR 1261 22:37 GM3WOJ IO77WS 55A 57A 2 m. CW AUR 1257 23:39 RA3LBK KO64PW 56A 56A 2 m. CW AUR 1256 22:41 GM4PPT IO75SK 55A 55A 2 m. CW AUR 1232 17:32 GM3SEK IO74SR 59A 59A 2 m. CW AUR 1229 00:36 OH5LK KP3ØON 55A 56A 2 m. CW AUR 1134 20:03 G7RAU IO9ØIR 51A 55A 2 m. CW AUR 1094 18:05 G4MKF IO91HJ 57A 57A 2 m. CW AUR 1076 18:03 G4AEP IO91NJ 55A 55A 2 m. CW AUR 1043 23:28 ES6FX KO37OW 59A 57A 2 m. CW AUR 970 19:23 G4DHF IO92UU 55A 57A 2 m. CW AUR 969 00:00 ES5PC KO38HJ 57A 55A 2 m. CW AUR 966 18:00 G4FUF JOØ1GN 57A 57A 2 m. CW AUR 943 17:43 IK3VZO JN55XA 55A 55A 2 m. CW AUR 922 17:29 G4SWX JOØ2RF 57A 57A 2 m. CW AUR 864 18:28 HA8CE KNØ6EN 52A 53A 2 m. CW AUR 858 18:12 F6GYH JN27TS 55A 54A 2 m. CW AUR 854 23:24 G4CDN JOØ2SS 57A 55A 2 m. CW AUR 848 22:05 SK4AO JP7ØTO 59A 59A 2 m. CW AUR 829 17:48 UR5WD KO2ØNC 55A 55A 2 m. CW AUR 826 23:26 SKØEN JO99JX 59A 57A 2 m. CW AUR 805 ------------------------------------------------------------------
I decided to call it a day at 1:30 A.M. while the Aurora was still in full swing, although moved up North. This sure was a real fun evening! I was indeed a bit exhausted after 10 hours in QRL and another 7 hours straight on the radio but it was definitely worth it. 😉