Longer days and Winter doldrums

I write this on 24 December, and I am really looking forward to longer days.

Today at GM4FVM sunset is scheduled for 15:37. That makes for a day length of 6 hours and 59 minutes. I should grateful for the two seconds we have gained since 22 December, but I prefer to think about the hours we will gain in future months.

Why does this matter to amateur radio? Well, the energy which causes ionisation comes from the Sun. The longer the Sun shines each day the more ionisation. Some features we rely on need a lot of energy, so F- and E- layer propagation usually occurs at times of longer day length. Cross Equatorial propagation modes benefit from balanced day length on each side of the equator and thus they tend to happen mostly at the equinoxes, whereas DX within the northern or southern hemisphere usually occur at times of longer day length nearer the summer solstice.

And not much happens in the winter.

Of course these are generalisations. Today on 50MHz there has been a short burst of "Winter Es", sporadic E propagation which often occurs around the Winter Solstice, i.e. roughly around Christmas.

50MHz contacts at GM4FVM on 24 December 2023

Not bad for just over an hour and a half of work. 10 QSOs to 9 squares, best DX 9A2DI in JN95 at 1870km. The trick is to watch out for this type of propagation sometime during December and January, so an hour and a half is not quite correct. I have been waiting for a few weeks now.

Then, later on 24 December, there was a Trans-Atlantic opening on 6m which missed GM4FVM almost entirely. I heard K9RX and that was it, apart from seeing weighty amateurs further west working a stream of stations along the Eastern coast of USA and into the Caribbean. You win some and you lose some.

Of course there are VHF propagation modes which are not affected by the season. Usually on 144MHz and above we have a series of passing high pressure systems which produce tropospheric propagation, plus the odd aurora for the lower bands.

Here is my 144MHz map since 12 October 2023. As usual click to enlarge images if necessary.

144MHz contacts at GM4FVM, 13 October to 24 December 2023

This does not look too bad for 2m, until you consider that it took 69 days to achieve it. In fact, it looked a lot worse until in one day I worked two French stations and EA1U in IN83 at 1389km who was the best DX. The other 68 days were very uneventful save for 5 November. On that day an aurora brought M5AGY, G4ILI, G0JDL, G4MCU and (best DX) G4XDZ in JO01 at 544km. All five contacts were over 400km. 

That aurora brought me on to SSB, a mode I seem to have lost the knack to operate. Although those 5 were on 2m, I also worked Gerry GI4OWA on 6m. I failed entirely to recognise him. It is now so unusual for me to hear callsigns spoken that the old familiar ones no longer trigger my memories. Ah, the joys of data modes.

Perhaps I should add that my hearing is not great. I gave up on the aurora after a station called me repeatedly and I simply could not decipher their callsign. I could blame this on my advanced old age, but to be honest I have never been good at decoding distorted SSB or even CW during an aurora.

Anyway, if you subtract those two days, the one tropo opening and the one aurora, 2m activity has been pretty woeful. The usual passage of weather systems has just brought a variety of low pressures, followed by lower pressure systems. The one extended period of high pressure (when I worked EA1U) was accompanied by strong winds which pretty well cancelled out the whole enhanced propagation. High pressure and strong winds - frustrating.

70cm was worse.

432MHz contacts at GM4FVM, 13 October to 24 December 2023

7 QSOs in 69 days. Best DX was to F4FET in JO00 at 627km. Although I have worked Gil on 2m, that was a new callsign for me on 70cm, also worked during the one high pressure period, despite the wind.

Now I have to make this point clear. All the contacts, even the local ones, are welcome. However, rarely have I experienced such dire conditions on the higher VHF bands. Usually I can rely on a nice stable (and not windy) high pressure to settle over the North Sea during this period of the year. My usually reliable contacts into Denmark have not happened so far this Winter. 

23cms was even worse again. I was away during the November activity contest but I came on for the December one. And during that 23cm contest I heard nothing. Even the NGI beacon could not be decoded. I did hear the Central Scotland beacon in Kilsyth, but could not decode it. Conditions were absolutely dire.

There seems to be another issue. I suspect that the novelty of FT8 on 2m has passed, and now only DX-ers turn it on. That means that there is only activity when conditions are good, and that was at no time during those 69 days. Quite a few of the contacts I did have were on SSB during activity contests. Sad to relate, many GM stations seem to have given up on UK Activity contests as they tell me that they have no hope of winning or even doing well.

So there you have it. I hope that we have reached the bottom of a long decline on the higher VHF/UHF bands, and hopefully longer days will bring better conditions on the lower VHF bands. I cannot be sure of a high pressure system coming along soon, but I can be reasonably sure that the day length will steadily increase, for a six months or so anyway.

Have a Merry Christmas and see you all soon.

73 Jim

GM4FVM

6m DX in the Depths of Winter.

Depths of Winter?

Not quite.

"Christmas comes but once a year". Hmmm.

That is the title of a cartoon and is often said. Sadly, nowadays Christmas seems to start mid November and run for a least thirty days. Thirty Christmases with tedious Xmas advertisements on the television and carols and Christmas hymns on the supposedly "classical music" radio station often running in the background at GM4FVM.

I do actually like carols and hymns at Christmas, BUT NOT IN NOVEMBER.

A white Christmas? Scrooge-like GM4FVM is not keen on snow at any time of year. It freezes up the winches on the mast and locks the sections together so that the masts cannot be lowered without swinging the coax about wildly.

And then December started and on the first day of the new month the temperature fell to -7.3C and it started to snow ...

Wintry scene at GM4FVM on 1 December 2023

I do not associate VHF DX with snow. Years of being hooked on Summer Sporadic E (because of the lack of anything else) have taught me that VHF DX involves sunny days, high pressure and .. well ... Summer.

If anyone had been expecting F2 propagation on 6m they might have said to me that if I just have confidence then DX will surely arrive, snow or no snow.

Here is my 6m activity between 27 November and 1 December

Contacts on 50MHz at GM4FVM, 27 November to 1 December 2023

Click on the image as usual to enlarge if necessary. 

As it states on the screenshot, this is in fact up to 12:04 on 2 December. In the morning of 2 December I have already been calling PZ5RA who, despite being strong with me, cannot hear me. Another new DXCC on the waiting list. No activity on 2 December  ... yet.

Not bad for mid Winter - 16 QSOs to 9 countries. Best DX - 9447km. This is just the ones I worked, the list of failed contacts is very long and includes CO, HI, HP, XE and PZ amongst others. There have been openings on each of three days in a week, and in each case the pile-up from Europe was huge. I often listen and on the other period there was a wall of decodes with perhaps seven or eight European stations chasing each DX callsign.

At some stage I reckon that it is not worth joining the throng trying to reach these stations and I pick my moments rather than flogging on trying for the popular ones. Later I just called CQ and had a few interesting replies. With my 200W it is often the case that I can do better appealing to stations who can hear me than calling superstations who will never receive my call. Things began to look like 20m and I am not going to get involved in that rat-race.

Other stations just call CQ continuously, which I regard as a waste of time. To me that is counter-productive when it comes to having contacts. If they want to cut out half the DX, then they are welcome to spoil their chances.

50MHz on DXMaps on 1 December 2023

This looks like F2-layer propagation to me. It surely cannot be multi-hop Es as I have never seen that outside the peak summer season. It also did not sound like Es and there was no sign of the pronounced narrow propagation bands you get with Es. Signals were not as strong as Es and were quite stable. Also, three days openings during a five day period does not look like the Winter Es we sometimes get - not that I have ever seen transatlantic propagation with Winter Es.

I think this is the "classic" East-West F2 propagation I have been waiting for. The SFI on that DXMaps image is 167, and interestingly there was a geomagnetic storm underway with K=6 at the time. That storm was not creating an aurora here and the Bz component near here (from GM4PMK's magnetometer) was positive. Thus I think that the storm was not as significant in a radio sense as it might have been.

Solarham reported on 2 December that the storm had a positive Bz which would not help "the cause" i.e. bad for aurora and good for everything else. He then pointed out that a coronal hole should be Earth facing and the results might be here by 6 December. More mayhem on the way (possibly).

So I think that was F2 propagation. Still a bit too early to be absolutely definite but it looks that way. The sunspot number is still lower than the books say would promote F2 propagation (SSN 123 smoothed, 105 current, when I last looked)  but the evidence is beginning to mount.

Having ruled out Es from my reckoning, there has been a lot of Es too. Repeatedly, over many days, single hop Es when you would not expect it. Not the multi-country "Winter Es" we sometimes get for a day in December or early January, but regular weak Es to one of two stations at a time, over and over again. This could well simply be because there are more stations on FT8 looking for DX and I am hearing them. This out of season Es could have been there all along but was not noticed. I regularly say on this blog that Es can happen any time of year, but I did not have this regular stuff in mind. But here it is. I am not convinced that this is a new form of year-round Es, I think it is just us noticing it.

I feel this is a bit like something Sherlock Holmes might say, but when you have eliminated all the likely options, the unlikely option must be the answer. No, the figures are not high enough for 6m F2 to arrive, but it looks like it must be here. Who decided on those figures, and why are they in the books? The evidence is in my log, and Dear Doctor Watson can testify to that.

What would Sherlock Holmes do next? Probably retire to his fireside, get out his violin and reach for his magic little bottle of liquid refreshment. Such things are not for GM4FVM, probably a cup of tea and some fig rolls in the shack for me. I think my fig rolls do more for my thinking than Holmes's full syringe ever did. I need a clear head for this stuff. 

My first Winter proper 6m DX. At last. Not just a day working 1500km through Europe, but a week of activity far and wide.

I just wish it was not so cold.

View North at GM4FVM on 2 December 2023 (Photo Mrs FVM)

To all other VHF DX-ers my call is this - "Get on and work some while you can". 

The next sunspot maximum is a long way off, and this one is clearly here now.

73 Jim

GM4FVM