Father’s Day is a public holiday overhere so I had the chance to be at the station early morning already. Sporadic E season has started and the whole day saw massive ES propagation over all of Europe. MUF went up quickly and also 4 m opened early. Unfortunately I was too close to the reflection zone so the party was rather between OH/ES and G/PA/W-DL during the morning. So only made a few QSOs into Scandinavia on 6 m but nothing new worked. Also worked Udo, DK5YA, for a new square on 70 MHz tropo. Despite 500 km distance CW signals were loud enough for an easy QSO. But it took a bit longer nevertheless as the OIRT QRM from the back of the beam was enormous!
Around 11:20z 4 m opened into the West and propagation path’ were a better fit then. First QSO was with Richard, GU8FBO, thus a new DXCC right for the start. 😎 It took another 20 min until the band opened into more inhabited areas of the U.K. and I could enjoy a great 10 min pileup. 😉 Afterwards there were some other small and patchy openings allowing a few more contacts here and there. The following guys made it into the log:
------------------------------------------------------------------ TIME CALLSIGN LOCATOR TX RX BAND MODE PROP. QRB ------------------------------------------------------------------ 11:20 GU8FBO IN89QK 57 55 4 m. SSB ES 1238 11:42 G8HGN JOØ1FO 55 55 4 m. SSB ES 948 11:42 G4MKF IO91HJ 57 57 4 m. SSB ES 1076 11:43 G4FUF JOØ1GN 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 943 11:44 G3PFM IO8ØXS 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1142 11:45 GW3LEW IO71PS 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1287 11:46 G3NPI IO92MA 59 57 4 m. SSB ES 1030 11:47 G3VXM IO9ØLT 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1074 11:47 2EØNEY IO81VK 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1130 11:48 G7SVF IO9ØIS 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1092 11:49 G4AJC IO91VJ 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 998 11:50 G3ZEZ JOØ1NT 57 55 4 m. SSB ES 897 11:51 G8VYK JOØ1FO 55 55 4 m. SSB ES 948 12:01 EI8IQ IO62SF 57 58 4 m. SSB ES 1391 12:02 M5MUF IO92JP 59 57 4 m. SSB ES 1033 12:10 GWØIRW IO72XD 599 599 4 m. CW ES 1232 12:35 EI4DQ IO51WU 59 59 4 m. SSB ES 1512 12:42 EI3IO IO63WF 599 599 4 m. CW ES 1349 ------------------------------------------------------------------
Worked a bunch of new squares during the opening, too, but hey, that’s not too difficult having just started collecting on 4 m. 😉
Here’s a nice audio recording. Had to cut out a bit as my own voice monitor was off and I didn’t want to bore you with listening to silence inbetween. 😉
Running a nice 4 m pileup:
Also heard a number of beacons. Most of them audible for a few minutes, then vanishing while the next one popped out of the noise. A pity that the active GM stations could not be heard/worked while GM8RBR/B was in. Also a pity nobody was QRV on OY!
EI4RF/B:
GB3BUX/B:
GB3MCB/B:
GM8RBR/B:
OY6BEC/B:
MUF went down during the afternoon and also 6 m was calm. Sporadic E took another peak in the evening and linked into TEP first into South Africa and later into South America. Although there was nothing new to work such openings are always fun and make for the fascination of the “Magic Band”. 😉
------------------------------------------------------------------ TIME CALLSIGN LOCATOR TX RX BAND MODE PROP. QRB ------------------------------------------------------------------ 17:02 ZS4TX/6 KG47UR 579 HRD 6 m. CW TEP 8521 19:23 PP1CZ/B GG99UR 529 HRD 6 m. CW TEP 9692 19:26 PY1RO GG87LB 559 579 6 m. CW TEP 10090 ------------------------------------------------------------------
 Made a few more audio recordings, enjoy!
ZS4TX/6:
PP1CZ/B:
PY1RO: