Finally the first 2 m Sporadic E this year that made it into JO73! 😎 Although we were almost too close to the clouds I managed to work a few QSOs. The opening started earlier to stations more west so kept monitoring 144.300 CW/SSB as well as 144.174 FT8. When suddenly strong ES signals from Russia popped up on .174 I quickly QSY’d to 144.300 SSB but … nobody there?! Calling CQ brought up RN3QR, tnx! Also Alex, UT8AL/EO10A, responded to my own CQs. Besides this all in & out for a few seconds each only … been too close to the clouds centered above KO21/22 and MUF not high enough to support a shorter distance path. Artur, UR3EE, was quite weak when I heard and worked him and sounded almost like Ionoscatter but it probably still was ES (scatter) as he was working OZ & SM7 at the same time handing out s9+ reports.
Switched back to FT8 only after the opening was over. RX3QFM popped up there for few minutes only. Signals were weak so that’s when FT8 makes sense! Else only stupid to stay on FT8 with big sigs … hope people stop being lazy and get back to more efficient modes! Yes, CW/SSB is way more effcient when the band is open with big fat signals and you want to provide as many QSOs as possible. We might still be lucky in JO73 as station density is much less than around the well populated activity centers of JO30/31 or JN49/JO40. There were a number of like-minded angry comments on MMMonVHF concerning the chaos on FT8 and I agree with most of the them … the problem is probably not the mode itself but the people using it wrongly. So as usual the problem is sitting in front of the computer (which much reminds me of some QRL episodes, hi).
Here’s my DX yield:
------------------------------------------------------------------ TIME CALLSIGN LOCATOR TX RX BAND MODE PROP. QRB ------------------------------------------------------------------ 08:11 RN3QR LOØØBK 59 59 2 m. SSB ES 1797 08:17 EO1ØA KO61WP 59 59 2 m. SSB ES 1340 08:17 UT8AL KO61WP 59 59 2 m. SSB ES 1340 08:40 UR3EE KN88DC 52 57 2 m. SSB ES 1648 08:45 RX3QFM KO91OO -11 -10 2 m. FT8 ES 1696 ------------------------------------------------------------------
What drove me into the shack this weekend, too (besides the AGCW VHF contest yesterday), was the IARU 50/70 MHz Contest. German RegTP (our radio license regulation authority) just recently officially allowed contest operation for German radio amateurs on 6 m, at least during the summer month’. So made a few contest QSOs in CW & SSB. Great to see so much “analogue” activity, real fun! 🙂 Condx were rather bad yesterday and still quite spotty today but we also had a few double and triple hop openings although once again JO73 was not very favoured propagationally compared to other regions in Germany and Europe. Most of the spotted DX was simply not audible. But it still was good enough (with a little patience) to work two new countries with VU and RA9 😎 although in FT8 only. Besides RD9D there was also RL9F (LO87) active and besides RK4PR a few other UA3/4, too. Not sure if there were some changes concerning license rules in Russia (most knowledgable people say no, 6 m still not allowed) or if the Russian guys just got impatient and simply started operating despite no official licenses. Cannot imagine that with current politics in Russia but we will probably learn more about it soon. Anyway, a clear case of WFWL – work first, worry later. 😉
Here are the more interesting QSOs made on Six today:
------------------------------------------------------------------ TIME CALLSIGN LOCATOR TX RX BAND MODE PROP. QRB ------------------------------------------------------------------ 06:45 TA9J LN1ØMN -03 +10 6 m. FT8 ES 2575 07:22 EK7DX LN2ØGE 599 599 6 m. CW ES 2697 07:26 EX8M MN62WT 559 539 6 m. CW ES 4446 07:52 EK1KE LN2ØGE -13 -11 6 m. FT8 ES 2697 07:55 VU2DED ML88ON -06 -11 6 m. FT8 ES 5731 08:02 A41ZZ LL93IF -22 -03 6 m. FT8 ES 4990 11:43 EA8/DM8MM/P IL18AT 59 59 6 m. SSB ES 3765 11:44 EA8BPX IL18SK 59 59 6 m. SSB ES 3717 16:19 EA8JK IL18CP +10 +04 6 m. FT8 ES 3771 17:00 RD9D LO99XS -04 -18 6 m. FT8 ES 2840 17:08 RK4PR LO64FO +07 -05 6 m. FT8 ES 2479 ------------------------------------------------------------------
There were 3 or 4 other EA8’s audible nicely over more than 2 hours but I concentrated on working a few tropo QSOs on 4 m for the contest inbetween. Furthest has been Dick, PA4VHF, over 530 km in CW (!) which was a real challenge and needed many repeats due to my QRP only signal but we finally made it. 😎 It was only after the contest’s end that 4 m also opened via Sporadic E to the Balkans. Nice to catch George, LZ1ZP, on CW. I could literally feel how excited he was to work somebody on CW although we had numerous QSOs before during past years, be it on 4 m or 2 m with our first contact dating back more than 20 years when besides HSCW (high speed CW, i.e. 1000+ lpm) even SSB Meteor Scatter was very popular … good old times. 😉
------------------------------------------------------------------ TIME CALLSIGN LOCATOR TX RX BAND MODE PROP. QRB ------------------------------------------------------------------ 14:39 LZ2NW KN23TB +14 +00 4 m. FT8 ES 1405 14:42 SV2JAO KN1ØDN -17 -01 4 m. FT8 ES 1530 15:04 LZ1ZP KN22ID 599 599 4 m. CW ES 1454 ------------------------------------------------------------------
There was some great double-hop to EA8 on 4 m, too, but only Alex, EA8DBM, was audible with up to s9+ signals and only on FT8. Wished I could have worked him in the contest but he was not participating and not willing to hand out just points, quite a pitty …
Now keeping fingers crossed for another chance to work some Sporadic E on 144 MHz. The season has been really bad so far (even on 6 & 4 m). Nevertheless happy as I try to catch one opening per season at least. Mission accomplished for this year. 😎 But of course more is better. 😀 😉