Seems I was correct with my yesterday’s assumption concerning tropo moving. 😉 Sorrily I was rather under the duct tonight thus the really big distance contacts where done i.e. from LAØBY down into 9A & S5 over 1.600 km, and between G/PA and OH, even on 70 cm! EI3KD reported hearing the SK1UHF 70 cm beacon on Gotland, that’s a whopping 1.800 km! A pity nobody of the SM1 guys was on to provide him with a QSO. These are the moments where I wish to be QRV on 70 cm again but taking it seriously, is it worth it for that one big tropo once every 10 years? 😉 Also read that EI3KD finally worked SP4MPB on 2 m, that’s almost 2.000 km on tropo! Amazing …
Only did a few QSOs myself as I had some other things to do besides radio. But signals were great most of the time! Did a few more audio recordings, see below. Nice to catch SM4DXO in JP71! It’s been a very long time since I worked a new square on tropo. 😉
Also remembered reading about a new tropo forecasting website in the past. A quick Google search revealed F5LEN’s refractive index forecast for Europe. It seems to be much more accurate than Hepburn’s tropo index. The two pictures above show the forecasts for 18z and midnight and are sorta identical to my experience on the band.
------------------------------------------------------------------ TIME CALLSIGN LOCATOR TX RX BAND MODE QRB ------------------------------------------------------------------ 17:17 OZ5AGJ JO47IA 59 59 2 m. SSB 551 19:40 SM4GGC JO69RK 59 59 2 m. SSB 696 19:46 SM4BDQ JP8ØFG 59 59 2 m. SSB 799 20:20 SM4DXO JP71SB 57 59 2 m. SSB 879 20:44 LAØBY JO59IX 59 59 2 m. SSB 785 21:14 LA6LCA JO59FE 59 59 2 m. SSB 706 21:53 OH1UM KPØ1UL 59 59 2 m. SSB 1024 21:56 OH1ND KPØØXL 59 59 2 m. SSB 936 22:04 OH1XT KPØ1UK 559 599 2 m. CW 1020 22:11 SM7WW JO65OR 59 59 2 m. SSB 290 22:15 OH1OP KP1ØGL 52 59 2 m. SSB 954 ------------------------------------------------------------------
SM4BDQ:
OH1XT:
OH1ND:
SK1VHF/B, the Gotland beacon:
SK4MPI/B, the Aurora warning beacon, this time on tropo for a change: 😉