Has anyone else suffered the strange propagation on 40 metres that I have had for over a week now? Today EU sigs are all well below normal on both of my antennas, with a lot I can’t even hear, but I hear Roy SSH and Phil OBK giving good reports out. The skip must be good down the east coast of the UK, fill your boots lads. Roger G0TRB nearly blew my IC-7400 out of the shack while in QSO with INKy, so short skip is the order of the day I guess.
I guess you can’t win them all, so it’s a quiet Sunday for me. That’s the fascination of SOTA chasing, it would be pretty boring if the QSO’s were guaranteed.
In reply to GW0DSP:
Signal levels seem pretty normal to me, Mike, tho’ there seems to be stronger than usual signals from the continent on 80m today. Have you left the attenuator in? I do that sometimes!
Thanks Roy. It’s really poor here, s5 noise on 40m and weak sigs from EU. I have only worked six stations today, Lutz AX being the strongest and he was GMA. I’ll always call any DL station GMA or SOTA.
I’ll do some antenna/feeder checks tomorrow but theres a good chance I’ll be out activating if the wx is ok.
I didn’t realise Lutz was SOTA also Roy, thanks. I would have in checked the d/base anyway. I just wrkd Walter, he was 599, it’s really weird today, hi.
I would just love to have a noise level of S5 here, its usually 7 - 8 and often S9! I think I’ll go and live on a desert island and be DX…but then there would be no real ale:-(
The bottom line is it is not valid for SOTA. I will claim the GMA points instead and it’s always a great pleasure to work Lutz and not forgetting the DM/TH Bergdiplom Award.
In reply to GW0DSP:
my 2 cents concerning conds on 40m. Sorry but i cannot agree about the remark using 30m would solve the problem… today while on HB/FR-028 my friend CGL was on 40 ( he has a 40 m monobander) I tried desesparetely for 15 minutes on 30 managing 2 QSOs only. when CGL handed the 40 m position to me I made 33 qsos in 25 minutes… (until cold fingers forced me to QRT) Beside that I like to work some HBs, which is nearly impossible on 30m !
I called both you and HB9CGL, but I wasn’t making the trip. You were only 339 today but usually you are one of the strongest on the summits. Poor condx or I need to check out my antennas.
I hope you both had a good day out, it sounds like you did.
I was not suggesting that activators should use 30m only, which would be inaudible to chasers close by. Rather that 30m be used in addition, after 40m as a much quieter and less crowded band, which is often better in the UK when conditions on 40 are poor and activators are limited to QRP.
I agree that, unusually, conditions on 30m were not good today
Many thanks for FR-031 today, it is always a pleasure to work you.
In reply to GW0DSP:
Hi Mike.
I have suffered from the poor condx on 40 (and 30) myself during the last days. I worked most of the spotted stations yesterday, but had to struggle with both hearing them and getting through (used 600 watts at times - that was never necessary before). Same thing today with F5UKL, not even a ping on 40 and 30, and all chasers weak (strongest an ON with 559). Andre came out of the QSB on 20 and faded away after the qso.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with your antenne - received you with strong sigs several times recently.
73
Mike
I thought conditions on 40m ysterday were very good. As well as the Continental stations I also logged quite a few UK stations all at good strengths. Not sure what the critical frequency reached, but it was down to 4.9 MHz when I got home. From my 100 contacts, 54 were on 40m.
