JT65 Bringing New Activity To 50MHz

JT65 Waterfall

As mentioned in previous blogs, this summer's Es season on 50MHz has seen a huge increase in the number of stations using the weak-signal JT65 mode.






Although this mode has been around for a few years, for some reason, it really took off this season. I witnessed many long-time, 'CW-forever' operators (myself included), gingerly move up the band to see what this mode could offer.

At first I thought the activity I was seeing was probably mostly from magic-band regulars, who like me, were also curious ... but I now think this is not the case.

Normally, my 6m summertime Es activities result in just one or two stations requesting a QSL to confirm the contact. These are usually guys that either need a VE7 card or are looking to confirm my grid-square ... just a few cards arrive, in spite of many dozens of contacts over the summer months. This summer I noticed a much different pattern.

This summer saw a tenfold increase in the number of QSL requests and every single one was for a JT65 or JT9 digital mode contact! It soon became apparent that these were not 6m diehards that had just moved up the band, but rather, very enthusiastic newcomers to the band ... what an exciting thing to see! Many of the cards did not have any grid-square information ... the telltale sign of all VHF operators. They had discovered the magicband, using JT65.

Perhaps these were mostly 'no-code' amateurs or those living in antenna-challenged situations such as condos or apartments. Whatever the reason, it really is interesting to see such a profound change in 6m operating tactics, by both the veteran ops and by the newcomers ... all happening so quickly. Hopefully some of the new arrivals will venture down the band to try CW or SSB where contacts can be made much more quickly than on the digital modes but all of this new activity is wonderful to see.

6m Es - Is It Changing?

With the summer Sporadic-E season now approaching its midpoint, it looks as though this year may be another poor one. Having been operating on 6m every summer since the early 70's, I'm beginning to believe that we may be seeing some changes in what was once the normal summer pattern.

This summer, I can count on one hand, the number of good solid openings ... openings lasting for several hours. Over the past forty plus years, summers on 'six' for me, here in southwestern BC, were usually very predictable. The last week of May would usually see the start of regular band openings that would quickly escalate to almost daily openings through June and July. It was not uncommon to see the band open all day, into the very late hours and then still be open the next morning. Intense Es from California predominated the 70's and 80's ... much different than the past several summers here. The stronger openings now, when they occur, seem to be more to the southeast, favoring Colorado and other nearby central states. At times, this will turn into double-hop to the southeastern states, usually favoring the 'EM' grids.

Really long-haul openings have also taken on a different flavor. For more than two decades, openings to Japan on Sporadic-E almost always occurred late at night, near midnight ... late afternoon for the JAs'. The openings rarely favored anything other than the west coast. Openings to Europe from the west coast were, for the most part unheard of, and any claims of summer-time EU contacts were often dismissed as 'wishful thinking' and not taken too seriously.

A huge shift in long haul Es over the past decade has pretty much re-written the rules of what we have always taken to be 'normal'. Summertime openings to Europe, from the west coast, have now become a regular expectance and, although still rare and usually short-lived, somewhat dependable. Our midnight openings to Japan have largely disappeared ... replaced by hour-long, mid-afternoon or dinner-hour JA runs, and more often than not, right over our west coast heads to any U.S. call district fortunate enough to be in the propagation's hot-spot. All of this is so very different than the 70's and 80's!

So why are things different now? Is it subtle influences from our ever-changing sun?




We are now heading into our sixth straight day of a spotless sun, but in reality, solar activity has been slowly winding down for the last several years. Long term studies tend to show that the solar cycle has little effect on summertime Es, but maybe not.




Is it climatic change ... global-warming? The e-layer is supposedly high above any weather influence yet there is evidence pointing to Es being associated with lightning storms and high altitude plasma-driven sprite activity. Maybe global-warming includes ionospheric changes as well and perhaps weather plays more of a role than previously thought.

Courtesy: http://www.astrosurf.com/luxorion/qsl-perturbation.htm

Is it changes in equipment, with an ever-increasing number of 6m stations sporting huge antenna systems and higher ERPs' than ever before?

Six 7-el Stacked Yagis At W7EW

Maybe it's the influence of the Internet on operating practices? There is no doubt that having the ability to watch and follow realtime propagation paths, by the very minute, has made a huge difference in operating strategies ... along with big payoffs when it comes to catching those fleeting openings that would likely otherwise have gone unnoticed. On more than one occasion, I have worked Europeans on a seemingly 'dead band', with no propagation indicators at all ... just an announcement on the Internet that said station was calling 'CQ' at the time. Perhaps nowadays, there are just more savvy operators with good stations and a much better understanding of the DX possibilities ... slowly wringing out the best of what 6m has to offer. Maybe it's a combination of several factors.

Let me qualify my observations by saying that these have been my experiences and perhaps unique to the PNW and southwest VE7 only. Longtime Es data-collector, WA5IYX (Pat) in Texas, graphically shows the yearly Es variance in his region. The pattern appears somewhat sinusoidal in nature over the past few decades, but except for the occasional 'stinker', the variances from one summer to the next are not huge.

Annual Es At WA5IYX courtesy: http://www.qsl.net/wa5iyx/

Unlike my local area, the southern states near the Gulf of Mexico have always been an Es hotspot compared with the rest of North America, no doubt due to their closer proximity to the equatorial zone and its radio-magic.

Are my observations similar to what you may have observed over the past many years? Are the changes real or only imagined? As with most global events being driven by mother nature and continually dynamic, I see no reason why 6m propagation should remain constant from decade to decade ... but I'd sure like to see a little more of it.

Now, usually when I voice complaints about our bad 6m propagation, it seems that things often flip from terrible to amazing soon after. The best Es of the summer often peaks in or close to the first week of July, now fast approaching. Let's hope that this is one 'constant' that hasn't changed as well!

                   **********************************
Wouldn't you know it. I put above blog together on Tuesday evening, intending to publish it on Wednesday. Early Wednesday morning, before 0900 local time, several Europeans were worked on CW ... perhaps the propagation gods were looking over my shoulder?

As is so often the case with these relatively new types of openings between EU and the west coast, there were no particular propagation clues from this end, other than a brief reception of the KØGUV/b in Minnesota. I was only alerted by the EU propagation reaching as far west as Colorado (KØGU) and a posting on the ON4KST 6m propagation logger that K7RWT in Oregon was hearing the VA5MG/b, sometimes a precursor to PNW propagation over the pole. The propagation map at the time shows no real indicators out this way ... once again, the value of realtime prop-watching via the Internet seems to have played a big role in finding these types of openings.

courtesy: http://www.on4kst.org/

CW stations worked were F2DX, F6ECI, EA8DBM (Canary Islands) and EA6SX (Balearic Islands). All-in-all, a good early morning for a band that initially appeared pretty dead out west.

6m Awakens

Well Friday morning's planned 2m EME window got pushed to the side when 6m started to show some interesting propagation possibilities. Several Europeans had been working slowly westward, past their usual east coast stopping point. When EA8DBM (Alex) in the Canary Islands reported via the ON4KST 6m chat page that he was hearing a station in Montana, my ears really perked up. At around 10:30 local time, KE7V (Johnny), about 40 miles due south of me in Washington state, was heard working Alex but I could hear nothing from him at all.

As is often the case between here and KE7V, signals from Europe often move quickly northward and sure enough, about two minutes later, EA8DBM's CW signal appeared at good strength, calling CQ.

I quickly worked Alex, whose signal stayed around for almost an hour, and then began looking for any others that might be riding along on the same path. Sure enough, his neighbour, EA8TL was heard CQ'ing, but much weaker. After a few calls he came back with my report to which I responded several times, but it was evident that he was having difficulty as he kept repeating my report. Unfortunately, and unlike Alex, he soon faded away without me ever hearing the needed 'RR' for my signal report confirmation.

About an hour later, a rapidly fading and quickly building signal was heard on CW calling CQ at about 25wpm ... it was CN8KD in Rabat, Morocco!

courtesy: https://www.google.ca/maps/

It's times like this that 6m demonstrates why it's called the 'magic band', as exciting moments like this are so rare on the west coast ... the very thing that keeps us 6m nuts glued to the radio during the summer months.

I called Mohamed several times as his signal built, but his rapid-fire CQ's continued much to my frustration. As his signal peaked to a solid 569, he sent a '?' and then replied with 'VE6?', probably as shocked as I was. After repeating my call several times, he returned once again but this time with 'VE7NL?'. The next several transmissions from him were the same and as the delicate links between our two stations shifted once again, he was gone as quickly as he'd arrived ... close, but no cigar. This was the first 6m signal that I've ever heard from continental Africa since coming on the band in 1970. I wonder if I will ever hear him again.

With a dead 6m band on Saturday morning, I was able to get back on EME (JT65B mode) for my final day of favorable moonrise windows and had a nice surprise when VE1KG in Nova Scotia answered my first CQ, for initial #81 with my small station ...

                          ... all-in-all, a pretty fun week on the VHF's!

6m SSSP JA's

JA7DYN's Station

Six meters delivered a mid-afternoon surprise yesterday, with a brief opening between the west coast and Japan. It was one of those openings that would have been missed entirely, a few years ago.



At around 2300Z, JE1BMJ (Han), announced via the ON4KST 50MHz chat page that he would be CQ'ing towards North America on 50.090MHz. I was working at the bench with the receiver running in the background and took a moment to turn my 4el yagi towards Japan and put the receiver on frequency. Nothing was heard for several minutes when, as if a switch had been thrown, the frequency became alive with CW sending "... DX K". About 20 seconds later it started again, a CQ DX from JE1BMJ. It is amazing how often the band or a path will appear to suddenly open, in this case, at just the tail end of Han's CQ ... not a whisper of anything before the very tail end. As I listened, his signal built from the initial 559 to 579 at which point I called and we exchanged signal reports.

I moved down the band and called CQ DX and was immediately called by several loud JA stations. Over the course of the short opening (just 15 minutes from start to finish), I worked the following stations in Japan:

                                       JE1BMJ
                                      JA1VOK
                                      JR2HCB
                                     JF1UMK
                                     JAØRUG
                                     JM1IGJ
                                     JG1TSG
                                     JHØKHR
                                    JF1IRW
                                    JA7DYN
                                   JK1EXO


As mentioned earlier, this was an opening that would probably have been missed a few years ago, for several reasons. One factor is the growing use of the Internet to spot activity or stations that are actually on-the-air in real time. Another reason is the very short window of opportunity. Without stations looking, thanks to Han's QRV announcement, it is probable that nobody would have been pointing towards Japan at that time of the day ... but, more likely, the biggest reason is the exploitation of the SSSP path between NA and Asia that has become somewhat of a regular occurrence over the past several summers.

SSSP or Short-path Summer Solstice Propagation is the mechanism uncovered by JE1BMJ in 1999. In that year he discovered that his signals could be heard almost daily in many parts of Europe by transmitting on a regular evening schedule. He then turned his attention to North America, in the morning, and found much the same thing. Han continues to this day on a regular schedule each day and more often than not, works several stations in North America ... from both coasts and everything in between. He has even worked into Central America on SSSP.

SSSP is a summertime-only event in the northern hemisphere and relies on the scattered ice crystals found in the Polar Mesospheric Summer Echo region (PMSE), located about 88km above the ground, very near the same height as the E-layer.

courtesy: JE1BMJ

Signals travel through the polar region and never touch the ground until the far end of the path is reached. In all probability, this is the same mechanism that west coast stations are able to work transpolar-Es into Europe during the summer. The season is short-lived (June/July) and openings can have weak rapidly fading signals or, as in yesterday's case, strong steady signals during the course of the opening. Openings can last from just a few minutes to several hours. Thanks to the Internet and real-time chat, most of these openings are no longer being missed.
Stations being worked via SSSP seem to be, for the most part, running high-power and / or large antenna systems. It is rare to work many of the 100 watt stations, although under good conditions, it does happen.

JR2HCB's 6m Yagi Stack

For the major portion of my 45 years of activity on 6m, working Europe in the summer was never even dreamt of. Late-night openings to Japan, were however, fairly regular and could be counted upon at least once or twice per summer. Both of these paths are now a regular occurrence, with the path to JA being more common than the path to Europe. As Han speculates in his paper, it may have something to do with the growing warmer temperatures in the polar regions due to greenhouse warming effects. If this is the case, perhaps we will see even more of these types of openings in the future.

Vatican Magic

courtesy: K7CW

Late last month I made mention of a truly amazing 50MHz contact. It was the QSO made by K7CW (Paul, in Tahuya, Washington) with HVØA (operator Francesco, IKØFVC) at the Vatican. Working the Vatican station is tough enough on HF, but snagging it on 6m, from the west coast, is truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience ... some even described the QSO as 'miraculous'!

June 21st was one of the better days of this year's poor Sporadic-E season. Stations in the western part of North America had an early-morning opening to the Caribbean as well as to South America, when YV1KK was worked by stations in the PNW region.

Here's how it happened here. I hadn't been paying attention to it, but N5DG had worked HVØA. Somebody mentioned that HVØA was going to QSY to 50.078 and was going to be looking for NA. I thought this choice of frequency was odd because some Europeans are not authorized to use frequencies below 50.080. But, I decided to go down there and check it out, because doing that has often paid off (re the CYØX QSO which brought me to start doing this). The propagation to the Caribbean and northern South America was demonstrably quite good (I worked my first YV), so checking out this European spot made even more sense.

I swung my beam up to a heading that I thought was good enough for Italy and tuned down on .078. Fortunately, there were no beacons coming through on that frequency, so I could concentrate on digging out any weak signal that was there. I slowly tuned around .078 and, for a while, heard nothing. After a few minutes, I began to sense that there was some tonal quality to the noise (musical noise). It was just there as no more than a hint, but I slowly tuned it so that it matched the frequency of my CW sidetone. I hoped that the other station (if there was one) would also have his filters set the same way. When I thought I had it about right, I switched in all my CW filters to the tightest setting (50 Hz) on both my transceiver and also my JPS NIR-12 outboard DSP filter. When I did this, the signal to noise ratio improved so well that I immediately started copying, "CQ NA CQ NA de HVØA HVØA" He was solid copy, but I needed those tight filters. I got his attention on the first call! He called me back using K8CW and gave me 599. I'm sure he was receiving me well, but probably didn't believe I was a 7. He kept calling me K8CW and I kept correcting him. I gave him a 599, too, but it was just a jerk-knee response that someone might do upon being the object of a miracle. But he was solid copy. After our QSO, I stopped hearing him. I logged him at 1631Z. The spotting record shows that N5DG and K7CW were the only North American stations to work HVØA on June 21 on 50 MHz. So, that's my side of the story.

courtesy: K7CW

I happened to be listening to the exchange myself but heard nothing from HVØA although two Italian stations were heard over the next few minutes.

No magic for me that day but kudos to Paul and his fine station, as well as to Francesco,  for the heads-up operating and being on top of the short propagation window that morning!

courtesy: K7CW and https://www.qrz.com/

These are the moments that 6m diehards live for, especially those on the west coast ... reminding us once again why the 'magicband' deserves its well earned moniker.

A New Country and Some 2m Es

The summer propagation doldrums, as well as my roof reshingling projects, received a short respite this week with the arrival of a new DXCC QSL for 160m. The K1N card (Navassa Island Expedition) was received for my CW QSO this past winter. The card brought my 160m DXCC total to 155 worked and confirmed while adding one more to my overall all-band total of 336 / 336.

Sunday afternoon brought a rare and welcome 2m sporadic-E opening. Signals on 6m towards Colorado quickly rose from a normal 'S9' to ear-shattering S9 + 30-40db with one signal putting the S-meter of my IC-756PROIII hard against the right pin and completely blanking the bandscope's lower regions ... I have only seen this happen once before, when beaming semi-local VE7XF while he is running high-power.

I immediately activated my Es MUF receiver (Icom R-7000), tuned to an empty FM frequency and squelched. Not long after, the squelch broke with a strong signal also from Colorado and several more throughout the band. It is difficult to ID FM signals as they rarely identify except at the top of the hour.

After several CQ's on 144.200 (9el yagi and 150 watts) aimed to the SE, W9RM in Colorado popped-up briefly with an S9 signal and was quickly worked before he faded. Unfortunately, either due to lack of activity or fast-deteriorating conditions, his was the only signal heard. In terms of 'quality' of the opening, it was poor, but any 2m Es is always exciting.

I once had a two-hour 2m Es opening to southern California and worked 32 Californians on 2m SSB before conditions faded ... it would be nice to see that once again. One of the fellows I worked that night had just set up his new 2m transceiver and, not being familiar with 2m propagation, told me 'I'll look for you again tomorrow night'. I told him that he could look for me for the next 20 years and he'd likely not hear me ... that opening was 32 years ago!

Let's hope we get some more 2m Es before the season ends as it is one of the most exciting propagation experiences there is.

Summer Solstice Magic

As I write this on Sunday evening, June 21st, the magic band has been open here for over 16 hours straight and shows no signs of slowing down! What has been one of the poorest Sporadic-e seasons in memory, did not disappoint today, on what should theoretically be the peak day of the season.

A loud NØLL in Kansas was the first station heard this morning at around 0600 local time but I suspect the band had been open even earlier, judging by the strength of the signals. It didn't take long for the band to stretch out further and not too much later, signals from the Caribbean were making it into southern British Columbia, as well as many parts of North America.

At times the band seemed as crowded as 20m CW during the Sweepstakes as so many of the CW stations congregate in the 20KHz slot just below 50.100MHz. Before breakfast, the following stations were in the log:

        ZF1EJ Cayman Islands
          9Y4D Trinidad
          YV1KK Venezuela
          6Y5WJ Jamaica
          KP4EIT Puerto Rico
          XE2MVY Mexico
          XE2X Mexico
          WP3C Puerto Rico
          NP4BM Puerto Rico

courtesy: https://www.google.ca/maps

Around 10 am local time, the VA5MG beacon was suddenly heard pounding away ... often a good sign that propagation may be going 'polar'. Sure enough, stations to my south (Oregon and Washington) started to hear and work Europe. I was lucky enough to hear what can only be described as the contact of a lifetime, when K7CW (about 140 miles to the south) was heard working HVØA, the Vatican!! Paul was apparently in the sweet spot of the moment and his efficient homebrew array was up to the job. Over the next hour or so, the European propagation swung wildly between W7 and W6 as well as points to the east. The only Europeans that I heard were two Italian stations, briefly hitting 559 but unable to hear me. Johnny, KE7V (and also the brother of K7CW), about 40 miles to my south, managed to work both stations ... it seems that we were both just on the northern edge of the teasing footprint.

At times, several in band 'growly' carriers with polar flutter were heard as well as weak signals from some of the 49MHz videos still operating in central Europe.

It will be interesting to see if we have a repeat of this prop tomorrow (Monday) but I rather suspect much of this was the result of two well-placed solar flares earlier in the morning and will not be repeated ... I hope I'm wrong!

    Impact from the flares plus a slower moving one is expected later today.

Summertime CBer

As much as I hate to admit it, for a few short weeks every summer, I become ... get ready for it now ... a CBer! Now I'm not talking about what might typically come to mind when thinking about CBers ... for me it's more of a love-hate relationship. You see, the 27MHz CB band, and 27.385MHz in particular, happens to make one of the best indicators of Sporadic-e openings on the face of the planet. Unlike the vast empty wasteland that 10m becomes during the summer, the 11 meter band is jam-packed full, with thousands of operators ... and some days it seems as if they are all on the 27.385 MHz (LSB) calling frequency.

With my receiver quietly running in the shack, the frequency can suddenly jump to life, with hundreds of stations calling each other in a matter of seconds. Sometimes it's like a switch has suddenly been thrown to 'ON'. This is not too hard to understand as the present suspected cause of Es is sudden high speed wind-shear within the E-layer. Have a quick listen to what the calling frequency can suddenly sound like:


Now the beautiful thing is that strong Es on 11 meters usually heralds the possibility of 6m also opening via the same mode ... usually 30 minutes or so later if it's going to happen. Often a CQ on a seemingly 'dead' 6m band in the direction of the 11m Es, will produce a response from an equally surprised operator at the other end.

I don't think I've ever heard Es on the 6m calling frequency without hearing Es on 11 meters beforehand. It's been my experience that the band always opens from low to high, in terms of frequency, so it just makes sense to listen lower (11m) to get a heads-up for what is likely soon to follow on the magic band. As well, knowing that there is 'zero' Es on 11m, can let you rest assured that nothing will be happening on 6m via Es ... at least for the time being.

If you haven't already tried it and have a second receiver that can be put to use as an 'Es-monitor', you might be pleasantly rewarded. Even though knowing that the band will soon open might rub a bit of the magic away, I think it's still well worth it!

Where's The Magic?

courtesy: http://www.dxmaps.com/

This is not what the 6m propagation map should be looking like at the start of June! So far, the 6m Sporadic-e (Es) season is MIA and usually by this time there have been some significant openings. Even the usual east-coast European slaughter has not yet started.

Most 6m diehards understand that the cause of summer Es is high-speed wind shear events, way up in the E layer region but a new theory suggests otherwise:

courtesy: nz3m.com

So come on folks, let's spark-up those barbecues and get 6m cooking once again!

The Boys of Summer

This past week,  Les Rayburn (N1LF), compared his yearn for the start of spring baseball to the late spring return of summer VHF openings, with this delightfully nostalgic post to the VHF reflector.

It occurred to me this morning that being a VHF operator is a lot like being a baseball fan. It was warm and sunny here yesterday, and this morning the air has that first touch of Spring in it.

Sure, there arestill cold days ahead--but you just have that feeling that we've turned the corner on Winter. The days are getting a bit longer, and the sun doesn't set quite so early anymore.

And like baseball fans, we start to look forward to those first
rumblings out of the Spring league.

For me, that means the confident voice of August, K5HCT. Nothing heralds
the arrival of the season like those first faint signals and the
familiar refrain..."Here Comes Texas!". This is nearly always the first
call I hear in the season, and the last remaining on the band at it's end.

In my boyhood days, I loved listening to baseball on the radio at night.
Those far away places, and the crack of the bat---mixed with the static
and pops of Summer storms. It was like a magic carpet that could
transport me thousands of miles away...The rest of the year, I still
enjoyed tuning the dial during the overnight hours--maybe listening to
the Herb Jepko Nightcap show from Salt Lake, or Larry King---but radio
wasn't the same without baseball. And those months between the World
Series and Opening Day were the longest of the year.

All these years later, things haven't changed much. I still love
listening to baseball on the radio---but now while waiting for opening
day, I find myself turning another dial...listening hard in the static
to see if I can hear that faint signal on the calling frequency. A deep,
rich, confident voice calling "This K5HCT, Here Comes Texas!".

Somebody press play on that MP3 player or I-Phone---cue up Don Henley's
"Boys of Summer"...I'll hum along and wait for Spring.

--
--
73,

Les Rayburn, N1LF
121 Mayfair Park
Maylene, AL 35114
EM63nf

The Magic Grows Weaker

Recent comments on the ON4KST 6m chat page tend to indicate that the summer's Sporadic-E season is rapidly drawing to a close...."time to move to 160?" ..."how long 'til Es season? " ..... "is that it for the year?". Peaking around early July, I'm always surprised at how rapidly the three-month propagation-party zips by and, as always, leaves us wanting just a little bit more.

Unlike the past several summers, I had no European QSO's this year. The July 27th VE6 - Europe event was as close as it came but who knows what might have been missed during some of those predawn propagation periods when most west coasters are still sawing wood. Ever-vigilant KL7KY was alert enough to find Europeans at 0300 his time, on two separate July occasions, making me wonder if the same thing might happen down here as well? After Kevin's over-the-pole success, I started all day and overnight scans of the northern Canadian beacon segment (50.010 - 50. 050) with the 756PROIII's versatile (non-squelched) scan mode and the yagi pointed at 035 degrees. Even considering my somewhat late-season start, I was surprised at how often the beacons were making an appearance, often popping-up late in the evening or in the middle of the night....without the scan, these conditions would normally go unnoticed. I probably began my scans too late in the season and next summer will begin earlier, about mid-June through mid-July, hopefully giving me a better chance for Europe. John, VE7DAY, has also expressed interest in pursuing this more diligently next summer as well and has even spoken of daily 0300 over-the-pole CQ's during the mid-season's peak period.

The season highlights for this summer are very few....contacts with LU5FF, BV2DQ, EA8DBM, several dozen JA's and one new U.S. grid for the FFMA struggle.










I still need 49 grids to have all 488 continental U.S. grids confirmed but at this year's rate I'll need to live until I'm 115.









Six meters may yet still hold a late-season surprise for us but if the fat-lady hasn't already sung then she's just behind the curtain ....clearing her throat.

6m Polar Madness

In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, July 09, KL7KY (Kevin) had a massive over-the-pole European opening beginning about 1000Z. He worked at least six stations in Greece and a number of others in western Europe. One wonders how often this 'middle-of-the-night' path might actually be open as most west coast ops are sound asleep at this hour.

Looking at the path on DX Atlas shows an almost all-daylight path from VE7 to Europe, but for the first short hop out of the summer twilight.

VE7 - EU at 1100Z

Hoping to cash-in on any lingering Es, I ventured out to the shack last night at 1030Z (0330 local) to have a listen over-the-pole...knowing that the first hop into the daylight regions would be needed. Much to my surprise, this is what I first heard when turning the antenna north.


I was soon joined by John, VE7DAY, and we both began to CQ towards the sunlight after alerting several of the European operators via the ON4KST chat page. No 49MHz eastern Europe video signals were heard at all but this is often not a deal breaker. One beacon that always seems to be present when hearing Europe, the VA5MG/b in central Saskatchewan, was not heard either. After 90 minutes of no other indicators I headed back to bed.

In view of the high levels of summer Es in the sunlight-bathed Arctic / northern Canada regions, this crazy night time path might be worth exploring more closely during the last week of June and the first week of July. In view of the ungodly hour however, I fear that it may be some time before 6m reveals more of her secrets.

Great 6m Es Conditions Continue!

6m July 08 Courtesy: ON4KST.org

50MHz continues to demonstrate its preference of early July to reveal its magical powers. Here in VE7 land, the band has been open continuously to some region for more than 48 hours. Yesterday's repeat west coast sporadic-E opening to EA7, EA8 and CT1 was capped with a multi-hour opening to Asia.

Six meter operators in the western part of the continent exchanged signals with Japan, Taiwan, China and South Korea beginning at around sunset on the west coast and continuing until 0230 the next morning! Many stations on both ends of the path filled their logs during the heyday event.

To add to the fun, BV2DQ (Ran) in Taiwan, was also active and gave several 6m ops a new country, working as far east as Colorado.



BA4SI (Li), in mainland China also handed out contacts to two old hands on six, K7CW (Paul) and KE7V (Johnny) who also happen to be brothers.

BA4SI 6m stacked Yagis
 

Paul also worked two stations in South Korea along with his 310 JA QSO's, beating out his brother's 300 contacts with Japan. KE7V reported working over 100 JA's on phone during the amazing conditions.  W7FI (Jim), in Seattle, also did well, with his comment from the ON4KST 50MHz chat page summing up the event

" W7FI Jim - That blows away my 113 JA last night, pile still calling when I qrt'd at 0800z. "

I was also present for the action, but worked only a few dozen of the strongest signals as I have been plagued with exceptionally high power line noise this summer, directly in line with Asia. Additionally, a new source of QRM has cropped-up in the form of an S9+ 49MHz wireless headset that has drifted up into the band. As the days get warmer, it has now drifted from below 50MHz up into the working part of the band and last night had settled itself smack on 50.090. Being a wide band FM signal, it effectively destroys any reception for about 50KHz of the band. As Murphy would have it, the crud is coming from the exact same direction as my beam heading to Asia. Yesterday I was able to roughly determine its location with a handheld Icom scanner and today I will use a quickly-built 6m dipole to zero-in on the offending source. Hopefully I can eliminate the problem soon.

6m Action

It seems that my whining about the poor Es this season has paid off. This afternoon we had the best east-west opening of the season with strong signals from all U.S. mainland call districts. The opening lasted for several hours and into the early evening with many 1's, 2's and 3's worked as well as several VE3's, which is always a rare treat. During openings like this, I always monitor the rising Es muf with a separate R-7000 receiver, squelched on one of the normally quiet FM channels. At times the Es muf was well into the FM broadcast band but despite watching 144.200 and calling CQ regularly, there was no sign of 2m Es today.

Courtesy: DXMAPS.COM

Hopefully the good propagation will continue during the next few weeks and our somewhat disasterous season can yet be saved.

Where Are The Es ?

Courtesy: DXMAPS.COM

Having been on 6m now for over 40 years (yikes!), like most 6m operators I've come to expect a fairly good number of Es openings by the end of June. This summer's Es season has been beyond poor, with far too many days looking much like Saturday morning's 6m propagation map (above) from DX Sherlock.

So far, the only bright spot for me has been a very short twenty-minute opening to Argentina and a CW QSO with LU5FF on May 24 at around 1500 hours local time.

Most 6m ops feel that sunspot cycle peak years also produce poorer than normal Es activity so maybe this is all just normal...or perhaps our global climate shifts are having an effect on the triggering mechanisms for Sporadic-E, just 60 miles above our heads.

Real-time 6m propagation can be followed here; Region 2 for North America and Region 3 for Europe.

After so many summers on six, I personally believe that the best propagation usually happens during the first week of July, so there is still hope for a really terrific month ahead and still time for whoever controls the magic to yet redeem themselves.