Es underway and Transatlantic propagation sweeps South.

For this posting I am going back to consider my QSOs over the past week. The week before I was sailing down the Rhine, and the photo shows myself and Mrs FVM enjoying Strasbourg in a typical pose of our various outings.

FVM and Mrs FVM enjoying the Strasbourg streetscene.

We are back now and that week away has allowed the Es season to really get underway.

After a slow start, 70MHz has at last picked up.

70MHz contacts at GM4FVM from 21 to 28 May 2024.

Why do I spend my time on 4m when 6m was absolutely buzzing? Well, 4m is harder to do. The contacts require more work, you need to try to follow the propagation. A lot of the time you call and hear nobody. Who said amateur radio should be easy? Anyway, by the leisurely standards of 4m, 13 QSOs in 12 squares and seven countries is pretty racy. Best DX was SQ8AQX in KO00 at 1644km which is pretty good I think.

On 6m during the same period I worked 49 stations in 43 squares representing 21 countries. So more than three times the number of QSOs and three times the number of countries on 6m compared with 4m. Every QSO is interesting, otherwise neither the other station nor me would bother. However, for hair-shirt types like me there has to be more than churning them out.

If we look instead at 6m QSOs over 2250km we begin to see some more details. First of all, there are some. It is still only May and early in the season. In this category (6m over 2250km) I had five contacts.

50MHz contacts over 2250km at GM4FVM from 21 to 28 May 2024.

The reason why I chose the lower limit of 2250km is that the generally accepted limit for single hop Es is 2000km. I have had a few at 2100, so 2250 seemed like a safe bet. Beyond 2250km any Es is likely to be double hop propagation. So I was a bit surprised to see two contacts into Ukraine turning up on this map at 2264 and 2377km.

Anyway, the other three were KP4EIT (FK68 6752km), LU2GPB (GG03 10542km) and CE3CX (FF46, 11866km). The first of these was also likely to be double hop Es. The last two were ... who knows? TEP, F-layer, whatever. Certain stations near me were having open house working into LU and CE and good luck to them. The trick is to work them first and worry about the propagation later.

So here we are again still in May commenting on long distance 50MHz propagation. There is some juicy DX to worked in amongst the high volumes of Es around. What will the next month bring?

73 Jim

GM4FVM