Wonderful year of 6m DX - well not quite what it seemed

I read "2024 - worldwide F2 DX on 6m". Not here anyway. Good, yes. Very good, at times. But worldwide? Certainly not from here.

First, welcome to the New Year. This cheery thought is illustrated by the murky view out of the shack at GM4FVM.

Sleet on the window at GM4FVM on 1 January 2025

Anyway, back to amateur radio.

In 2023 I worked 84 DXCC entities on 50MHz. In 2024 the total was 89. This does not look like a transformational year for me. It is "good" though?

Straight away we run up against what constitutes "good" DX with radio. Do we mean more contacts, better distance, new DXCC ... ? This is an issue I have raised before. I have no answer.

[Time for some clarity here Jim]

I have tried to look for signs that there was any worldwide F2 DX at GM4FVM.

For this purpose I have come up with some sort of algorithm which would distinguish between what happens during a "normal" year and one like 2024 which is near the solar maximum. Actually, I made several scans of the data to screen out different types of propagation and measures of "good DX".

It seems to depend on which part of the world I was looking at too.

As part of trying to work out what makes a "good" contact I looked at North America

Contacts in North America on 50MHz by GM4FVM

I worked more stations in North America in 2024 (141) than in the previous 5 years combined (107). Is that "good"? Yes. Does it show worldwide F2 propagation? Not in my view. That is because though there were more contacts they did not seem to be at greater distances.

To examine this I established what areas I could work into during the years before 2023 when I could safely say that those were not F2. Then I superimposed results from 2023 and 2024 that showed that only one contact out of 199 was further than earlier years.

The QSOs themselves happened in the periods late May to early September, with a later burst in November and December, pretty much the normal pattern for multi-hop Es.

Does the analysis of the figures for this one contact look like the arrival of worldwide F2 to me? No.

Of the 141 contacts in 2024, all of which were welcome, I reached dozens of new squares. However these squares were filling in gaps between squares I had already worked (presumably on multi-hop Es) in previous years.

The map of my squares worked on 6m in North America shows that I have filled in many gaps, but the range has not increased.

Squares worked in North America by GM4FVM

A different way to look at this map is from the viewpoint of squares not worked. The range of squares worked has not been extended into the Rockies or the West.  I did not reach more than 15 US states west of Vernon in Texas. I never got to the Rockies. I did not work the West Coast. In Canada, I have not even worked Ontario, never mind anywhere further West. Surely if there had been an F2 opening to North America it would have been to those places.

The lack of an opening to the West extends well beyond the North American mainland. I have never worked Hawaii, nor any Pacific Island short of Japan.

Others may have worked across the Atlantic during F2 openings. I cannot say that I did.

Moving on to the rest of the world, lower activity levels make it harder to be certain of the various patterns. However, I found the following situation:-

South America

Most contacts in May and again in late September. Distances worked were much the same but number of QSOs was down. Overall performance was worse in 2024 than in 2023 by a factor of about 3,

South Africa/Indian Ocean

Contacts were in October/November. Once again distances worked were much the same but number of QSOs was well down. Overall performance was worse in 2024 than in 2023 by a factor of about 6,

Japan/China/Korea

Contacts were in June and July. These were much the same in 2024 than in 2023. No change there.

South East Asia and Australia

This area was new to me October to December in 2024. I had not had any 50MHz contacts there previously. As a result this was spectacularly better in 2024 than at any time previously.

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Having thought long and hard about all this, the only direction in which I seem to have seen F2 propagation is to SE Asia and Australia. Even then progress in this direction seemed to depend upon there being openings to Scandinavia at the same time as Scandinavian stations were working the DX. In other directions there was no sign of such long distance paths.

2024 has been very good. But the only reason why my 50MHz DXCC counts were higher than last year was because of the openings to SE Asia and Australia. Without those openings things would actually have been worse overall.

Not quite the rosy picture others seem to be painting. Perhaps it is just me...

Happy New Year everyone, and I hope that 2024 brings you health and happiness.

73 Jim

GM4FVM