25 May 2021 - more Es, only better still

When I was attending the City of Belfast YMCA Radio Club, back in the early 1970s, learning my trade, there were some things I picked up from the old codgers with 2-letter calls who taught me what I needed to know. Everything was available on SSB with the KW-2000 and the magical new band of 15 metres. Actually, SSB and 15 metres had been around for a while, but it was amazing to them at the time.

But principally, in relation to my plan to earn a VHF licence I learned:-

1) VHF is a waste of time

2) The 2 meter band is not worth spending money on because there is no DX

3) The 4 metre band is even worse than 2m, but there is no money to spend there as everybody knows it is useless

4) This "Short Skip" thing gets in the way of DX working every year and only extends to France anyway.

This information rather flew in the face of scientific evidence, gathered during the World Geophysical Year in 1957/8 which showed the relationship between the E layer of the ionosphere, solar activity, and Sporadic E. This was what they called nuisance "Short Skip" down at the YMCA radio club.

I knew that I should listen to my "elders and betters", but I pretty soon came to realise that they were wrong in this case.

25 May followed the usual warning on Solarham. On 23 May a "minor to moderate" storm watch was put in place for 25 May. This followed a coronal mass ejection which only hit the Earth a glancing blow. As it turned out only the minor G1 level storm resulted, but that was enough for me.

23 May 2021 warning on Solarham

The result of this was a K number of 5 on 25 May and a very nice Sporadic E opening on 2 and 4 metres. Well, 6 metres too but I was not much involved in that one. 

Amongst other things, on 6m I worked UN3M in Kazakhstan at 22:41 local which rather gives a lie to the theory of Es as a daytime event but 6m is not what I am writing about today. I am not sure what the time difference to Kazakhstan is, but that was not a day time path. 

Enough about 6m.

Starting on 4 metres, at 06:43 I had a QSO with 9K2YM. I have been hoping to work Kuwait on 4m for some years and when it came I only received a -21dB report, but that will do nicely. I heard him working several G-stations but he was only workable here for a few minutes. Needless to say LL48 is a new square for me. It is definitely a best DX for me on 4m at 4974km.

Stations worked on 4m at GM4FVM on 25 May 2021

As usual, click to enlarge the images if necessary.

This was followed by a prolonged opening into the Balkan region. Over the next four hours I worked another 12 stations in seven more countries. Of the 10 additional squares, four were new.

On 2 metres the action did not start until 10:57. I had spent the previous 20 minutes calling several stations until eventually I managed to work YU7ON. Serbia is new country for me on 2m. In a little under an hour I had worked into 4 different countries.

Stations worked on 2m at GM4FVM on 25 May 2021

This proved that I was wrong two postings ago to say that my best Es DX on 2m was into Southern Spain. On 25 May I worked IT9GSF, who I had worked before. The distance then was 2333km. That must surely be my best DX on 2m Sporadic E. I was also heard on one of the small islands between Sicily and Tunisia but sadly no contact resulted. 

I had also worked YO7FWS before, but both his and IT9GSF's QSOs had been during late June. I was surprised to be doing this in May.

I will skip the map showing 2m stations worked in May to date. That included  42 QSOs to 10 countries. Interesting though that is, the 4m map is more surprising to me.

4m stations worked at GM4FVM, 1 to 26 May 2021

26 countries, 68 squares, 3 continents (Europe, Africa and Asia) in 104 QSOs. On the 4 metre band. In May. Back learning at the YMCA club I would have thought it unimaginable that this would be possible. I would have thought that because I was told that it was impossible. Back then it was the accepted truth that 4m was hardly worth the £10 it cost to buy my AM Pye Cambridge.

I have not done anything special here. I do not use any remarkable gear or even any of my many Super Powers. The special trick was done by the ionosphere. It has proved the doubters wrong. My only contribution was to ignore bogus "Sporadic E predictor" apps and stick by the basics of solar observation. I knew when to look. Joe Taylor and his WSJT-X suite has brought everybody into the same frame of mind and onto the same frequencies. It all helps, but the Sun rules the roost..

Wait, this only covers up to 26 May. Five more days to go! The possibilities are endless and we have not got to the happy times of late June or early July yet. 

I think it is all over for this month but Solarham is suggesting more possibilities for later on 27 May. My own feeling is that the glancing nature of the last CME suggests that we have had all we will get for now, but that is not clear. Predicting both the direction and magnetic polarity of such events remains uncertain.

We shall see.

Actually that is the best bit of it. 

We shall see.

What chance tropo on 2m to fill up the log? It is looking a bit empty.

73

Jim

GM4FVM

19 May 2021 - 2 metre Es DX like I never saw it before

I have said it before and I'll say it again ...

Arrrggghhhh!

Piles ups. Log book out of control. Domestic duties going begging.

It was not as if I had not had warning.

I do not do as others do. I do not look at Jet Stream maps, which as you know I regard as similar to looking at tea leaf patterns, feeling bumps on the head, and testing the dampness of sea weed. I prefer to look at the Solar predictions. I do this because it works for me.

To me this means that I know on 16 May there might be an aurora on 18th and I need to look for Es that day and the next. This is especially so at this time of the year. Experience tells me that early and late in the Es season any major solar disturbance has the habit of generating enough ionisation in the upper atmosphere to tip things over into Es. At the peak of Summer of course Es just happens regularly, and during the Winter it takes a big event to trigger it.

There was not much sign of aurora here but on 18 May the K number rose to 4 and I had a few nice 4m and 6m Es contacts later on. It just proves the link to solar activity as on 17 May, just the day before this event arrived on Earth, I worked nobody at all.

Come 19 May I was on watch from 06:00 looking for Es and hoping for some activity on 4m and 2m. You never know. There is always hope.

Right from the start there was 6m Es, which is what you might expect as I worked a couple of stations in Italy with very large stacked yagi arrays.

I took the precaution of working some EA stations on 6m to be ready in case I could do the treble again. At 09:08 4m opened to Spain and  Sure enough at 09:46 I worked EA6XQ on 2m, for a new DXCC on that band, followed by EA6VQ for a new square on 2m. Later I worked them both on 4m for a station double into the Balearic Islands. Whether a station treble to one of these was possible I cannot say because it all got so busy that I rather lost track of 6m. In fact I lost track of everything, including allegedly "important" things like cutting the grass and fixing the back gate hinge. Huh!

Stations worked at GM4FVM on 19 May 2021. Red=2m, Gold=6m, no pin=4m

As usual, click to enlarge the image if necessary.

The following two metre band opening lasted until 12:12, over three hours. From here it spread over time from the Balearics to Spain and France. The figures on 2m speak for themselves, 20 QSOs, 3 DXCC, 13 squares, and best DX to EA6QX in JM19 at 1878km. During those 3 hours and 6 minutes the area I could work moved around between the Balearics, Spain (Catalonia, Navarra and Bizkaia) and then a swathe up through France from the Mediterranean Coast near Beziers (1448km) north to near Angers (945km) and back again. It was amazing to witness.

New squares on 2m totalled 9 plus another one on 4m, with a 6m/4m/2m country treble to Spain and three station doubles, two to the Balearic Islands and one to Spain (EA2EVY).

144Mhz on PSK Reporter at 10:07 on 19 May 2021 - more like HF than 2 metres??

I do not know what others were doing because I could hear only one G station. I could see DX replying to some people I can usually hear. I suppose that happens when everybody near me beams South.

This was the best 2m Es day since I moved to this location 12 years ago, and indeed the best I can remember. Perhaps not the best in terms of distance, but certainly in terms of coverage and duration.

Have conditions changed over the past 12 years? I doubt it. I think that the emergence of data modes has concentrated DX stations onto a single frequency on each band and this has made all the difference. There is no longer a need to search for the DX. And then the speed of completing a QSO had increased - first PSK took an age, then JT65 and JT9 took 6 minutes, and now FT8 just 90 seconds. With 2m Es being a fleeting thing, often offering only a minute or two to complete a QSO, these things matter.

For me, using digital modes during Sporadic E openings has made little difference to the way I operate. I was using them with FSK441 on meteor scatter for a decade or more before FT8 arrived. What it has changed for me is that others are using it for DX purposes too, and the scope for finding someone ready to work me has increased hugely.

As we study the science of Sporadic E in greater detail we can now have a better impression of what it is and how it develops. As more DX is worked a better picture emerges of how propagation is affected by the Sun's influence over the ionosphere.

It is true that data modes are soul-less. I certainly miss the familiar voices and the chat with people I have grown to know on SSB. However, there is nothing to stop anyone from using SSB, or CW or indeed FM (I did hear Spanish stations on 2m FM during this Es opening). The use of data modes in this rather extreme form of DX-ing shows, in my view, how amateur radio constantly develops and adapts to find the maximum distance to be covered. It is the same process we have followed for generations, whether that was the trans-Atlantic tests of the 1920s or the introduction of SSB, or the adoption of higher gain antennas. 

If anyone still wants to yak reliably every day on with AM on Top Band I say, fine, off you go. But I won't be joining you. For sure I will spend a lot more days like 17 May (worked nobody on any band) than 19 May (pile-ups on 144MHz). VHF DX-ers live for days like 19 May 2021. They tend to forget the 17 Mays, though there are lot more quiet days. 

I do not consider myself to be a true DX-er. I have no free standing 20m lattice mast, I have no huge stacked antenna array and I do not run "full legal" power. But does that matter? Even those with simple antennas like my 7 element can take part, and they make the many days of silence worthwhile.

If you sense enthusiasm here and in my last post I make no apologies for it. More on my quieter time on 23cms later. Much quieter but still fun.

DX can be fun, and as part of a balanced diet can result in boredom loss (as they say on the slimming product advertisements).

Now, back to the silence.

73

Jim

GM4FVM

Aurora! DX Sporadic E! Doing the treble, again!

What is the excitement all about, a seasoned HF operator might say. Sure, don't these things happen every year?

Well, no. We have not seen an aurora here for several years. And an aurora often predicts an upturn on Sporadic E. As it is early in May it would be a bit unusual to have a lot of Es right now. But that is what happened.

Doing the treble again : first the Aurora.

As usual, Solarham correctly predicted the arrival of the aurora, so I had 24 hours notice. I was hoping for some auroral contacts and some Es afterwards. What was not predicted was just how strong the effects actually were. This type of prediction is still developing. The speed of the particles and the magnetic orientation they have when they arrive are still largely a matter of guesswork. This uncertainty is why we need to be on our guard for a big one which could damage communications and power supplies on Earth. In the event the K number went to 6 and possibly more.

It started here around 14:00 on 12 May and on SSB I worked GM4JYB. I was pleased to get a call from GI0OWA to make it two DXCC. A lot of the action was on CW and I heard quite a bit on 2m including an OZ. As my sending is hopeless now I refrained from answering.

I also heard a GM station calling CQ so quickly that I could not make out the rest of their callsign. Some G stations do the same, whereas Scandinavian operators generally seem to go more slowly in the difficult conditions. I always think that working aurora requires pretty slow morse as the signal is always distorted.

The aurora cycle on Earth is tied to the solar one and that explains why we have missed them during the solar minimum. Hopefully now we will see more of them. The wisdom in the books suggests that the aurora cycle runs two years behind the solar one, with a later peak too. Fingers crossed.

The point about the aurora was not what I heard or worked, but that it often precedes better conditions on the Sporadic E front. No point watching weather charts when an aurora had shown me that I should watch out for a Sporadic E opening, even in mid-May. And what an opening!

Secondly the 4m and 6m Es opening.

13 May was packed on 6m from start to finish. There were 894 pages of decodes on my WSJT-X log, each page totalling 52 entries, plus 32 on the final page, a total of 46,520 spots decoded here on my (temporary?) 6m two element. Taking 6 spots per QSO - though sometimes as few as 4 suffice - and maybe 4 more CQs unanswered per contact - there were not many unanswered CQs - that makes more than 4,500 QSOs. Those were just the ones I heard. I am not about to count them individually. So I have little to say other than there was too much going on with 6m for me to describe it here. Not bad for early May.

50MHz contacts at GM4FVM on 13 May 2021

As usual click to enlarge if necessary.

I mostly stayed clear on 4m. For all the activity there were no new countries and only one new square (KO28). I still enjoyed it.

70MHz contacts at GM4FVM on 13 May 2021

As befits a sizeable opening caused by solar action it was still going on 14 May.

50MHz contacts at GM4FVM on 14 May 2021

As is apparent from the map, I tend to use my time on 6m now by ferreting about finding unusual places to work - like the Azores or Gibraltar. A nice one was a new DXCC in Morocco. I heard CN8LI so many times over the years when I used 6m WSPR that is seemed odd that CN was a missing one for me. Well, I got that sorted on 14 May. So for me 6m is a sort of pointer for what I look for on 4m and 2m.

As usual I spent my time on 70MHz, always keeping an eye out on 2m just in case some brief opening would occur on 2m. I tend to find those 2m Es openings in June and July, but you never know...

70MHz contacts at GM4FVM on 14 May 2021

It is becoming clear from those maps that my new policy of concentrating on frequencies higher than 50MHz is having its effect on my activity pattern. There has always been a habit of mine not to do so much on 6m. For the first 10 years of my amateur radio hobby 6m was not available to me, and even when it was permitted the number of European stations to work was initially quite small. I did not really get active until about 2010, and it has, somehow, never found a place in my heart. Sure I still use it, but it just seems too crowded for me (!!!). Well, it was for the past two days.

The presence of a "French" station on 4m was a bit of a surprise. I have worked France several times 4m/6m cross band. This was somebody with /EXP after his callsign. He thanked some of the stations for helping him with his "trial". Was this legal? I do not know. I cannot vouch for the legality of all the stations I work. They should be legal, but we shall see about this one. Any station we work could turn out to be a pirate, we never know, do we?

And finally the cream on the cake ...

Suddenly, at about 14:00 on 14 May, 144MHz took off.

144MHz contacts at GM4FVM on 14 May 2021

I had decoded one G station in the hour to 13:00, and only decoded three in the following hour, and so far I had worked nobody at all. Then suddenly EA1NL popped up at +17dB. IN52 at 1569km was a new square. Then EB1DJ in the same square.  This was followed ten minutes later by EA4BDL in IM69, 1850km and another new square.

After the first three contacts there was a 20 minute gap and total silence - I even heard nothing from G-land which is only 10km away. I then put out one CQ and back came EA1AF at +13dB. 1658km in IN71, and a third new square. Brilliant.

And finally I worked EA7HLB who is 2145km from here. I had worked him before, in August 2019. Still, I am not complaining.

Five QSOs (one of the stations was worked twice) in a nine hour 2m a day, and all in Spain. Three new squares and my 2m Es record equalled. Now, that makes all the time spent on 6m and 4m worth while for me. Just waiting to "do the treble" by working Spain moving up the spectrum on three bands is my goal. Following the propagation up and down is what I do this for.

I will work anybody in EA who wants to work me. Since I came here 12 years ago I have now only worked mainland EA on 2m on 6 occasions, a total of 13 stations (four of those for the first time yesterday). I had to wait almost ten years for the first one, by which time I had already managed to work EA8. There is something about EA which is tricky for me. I really savour each contact. CT is even harder. 

So that was me doing the treble. EA on Es on three VHF bands in one day.

This is really the sort of thing I strive for. Using the bands as steps and stairs to climb the frequencies is my thing. I still recall my first 2m Es from here, working EU7AA back in June 2011. That was 2070km and stood as a personal record for years. 

That day in 2011 too I had stepped up from working east on 6m to contacts into the Baltic on 4m and eventually to Belarus on 2m. Not quite the same country, but the same idea. Almost doing the treble but not quite, as Belarus did not have either of the lower bands. I decided to make it harder in future - three stations on three VHF bands in one country in one day. Of course doing the treble with locals does not count, it has to be at least a 500km+ series of QSOs.

Since then I have done the treble on 4m/2m/70cms tropo too but that is hardly the same challenge. With tropo you usually have time measured in hours, with 2m Es you usually have five minutes to complete it. Yesterday was unusual in that I was hearing various EA stations over a 50 minute period, albeit with a 20 minute gap in the middle. The trick with 4m/2m/70cms tropo is to get 4m tropo to work, because tropo is not good at lower frequencies.

So working 2m DX is not enough for me. With Es I try to build my way from 6m, working up as I go to see if I can find the propagation to go further. I have done the 6m/4m/2m treble in one day several times now. First with Italy, then with Croatia, and now with Spain. While doing it on tropo is not quite such a challenge, I did it on 6 May 2020 on 2m/70cms/23cms with one single station, OZ2ND. While it was not a one-station version this time, I did work EA1AF on both 4m and 2m yesterday - a station double within a country treble.

What is the point? Well it shows me how propagation moves up and own the bands - broadly speaking Es goes upwards reaching the highest frequency at its height of activity, whereas tropo moves downwards, generally peaking on the higher bands I use. I am curious about how this all works.

The mystery, the unknown timing, and the probability of nothing at all happening is what keeps me going. But most of all, the sudden nature of it all gives me enjoyment. For all the expensive gear anyone could have, nature has the final say. We are powerless to control nature, but we can try to learn about it. Learn to follow the solar activity, learn about the passage of tropo systems, learn some science and learn some patience.

For now, it is over. The Es has gone. Will I ever do it again? Who knows?

An auroral treble? Hmmm. Not with my CW.

Just follow the available information and you shall find Sporadic E.

73

Jim

GM4FVM