630m VK's Light-Up North America

It seems that all of my blogspots of late have focused on 630m propagation ... but what has been happening down there recently has been both amazing and somewhat unexpected. With the growing number of active stations listening and transmitting, the band's propagation capabilities and mysteries are quickly revealing themselves.

Last night was a great example but perhaps the WSPRnet prop map illustrates this best.

courtesy: http://wsprnet.org/drupal/wsprnet/map

The amount of North American activity grows each day, especially now that the DX season has arrived. At one point last night, KB5NJD reports over 100 stations either transmitting or reporting via the WSPRnet activity page! With thunderstorm activity gradually shrinking, reception should only get better over the next few months.

Particularly striking was the long haul propagation from VK to North America, with northernmost VK4YB leading the pack. His 90 watt signal made it all the way to VE3IQB, near Ottawa as well as to NO3M, in Pennsylvania! To provide further hope to those that have little room for big receiving antennas, VE3IQB uses a typical small active e-probe antenna, 20' above ground!

courtesy: http://wsprnet.org/drupal/wsprnet/map

This spotlight propagation to the select regions of the east coast is further mystified by the level of geomagnetic activity overnight, with the K index reaching level 5 and higher!

courtesy: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/

Interestingly, all of this was right over my head, with not a single peep heard here from Roger. Stations across Georgia Strait, VE7BDQ, VE7CNF and VA7MM all reported hearing Roger as well as being heard by him. For the latter two, yesterday and today represent their initial decodes to down under.

I'm theorizing that Roger's signal was arriving today at much lower angles than normal, evidenced by its far-reaching east coast reception and the fact that it couldn't get over my 600' local obstruction to the west. I've always believed that it takes higher angled signal arrival for me to hear Roger and today's events seem to support this.

Exactly what would cause this to be the case, I'll leave to the experts but I imagine that the sudden surge in geomagnetic activity played a significant role in today's very different propagation paths.

Roger was not the only VK lighting-up the map today. A much more detailed account of all the action can be found on the KB5NJD's daily 630m report here ... all very inspirational and hopefully enough to spur even more new activity on the MF band.

Why not give a listen and see what you can hear?