VK on 50MHz and the vagaries of VHF DX

Recently a nearby (30km distant) station worked 3B8 on 50MHz when I could not even hear the 3B8 station. Something about this reminded me of a simple fact about the 6m band. You can be right beside somebody working a DX station and be totally unable to work the DX yourself. You certainly cannot work it if you cannot hear it, and even if you can hear it maybe you will not get a response.

Of course this happens on other bands, but rarely does 30km separate you from a contact. 

And then there are the times when you know from PSK Reporter that you are reaching the DX but they are not replying. When it comes to data modes like FT8 it is likely that the software is deciding who to reply to based on which station it decodes first. You could be the loudest station on the band and be so far down WSJT's list of the next station to work that you will never get a QSO.

These facts do not help me when I think about 3B8. I still have not worked it, and that is also a fact.

And then there is no DX while I am away. Recently I have been in Orleans in France.

GM4FVM with Meteor IPA, pontificating in Orleans

And then even more recently I have been in GI where I met that doyen of dx-peditions and moonbounce, Richard, GI4DOH

GI4DOH's reaction on hearing about GM4FVM's technical progress over the past 45 years

On my QRZ.com page there is the photo of FVM and DOH when they both had hair (45 years ago).

Anyway, the point is that when I am away I am not working DX. So add together the unheard DX, the non-replies and the time when I am away I should not be surprised that places like 3B8 are hard to work on 6m.

Here my beloved statistics come to save me. Various factors cause the chances of me working specific DX to be low. But however low a probability you have, provided it is not zero, there is always a chance that you will work that DX. And the more often you try, the better your chances are.

And thus today I finally worked VK on 50MHz.

50MHz contacts at GM4FVM on 26 October 2024

This does not really fit the category of an opening as the mapping software shows operating time of 0 minutes. That was it - QSO started 09:30.00, QSO finished 09:31.30. 90 seconds, no later QSO to create an operating period. There was another VK6 on who I briefly tried to work in the hope of reaching another new square. Then it dawned on me that I was competing with other amateurs who may never have worked VK, so I let that go.

So for this single contact opening the best DX was VK6NH in OG65, 13871km (a record of course!), new DXCC on 6m (115) and new square (584).

It was very nice to get a very quick LoTW confirmation of the contact though at the same time I got an eQSL confirmation of my 23cm contact with LY2WR. The 6m contact is 8 times further, an excess of more than 12000km. I find it hard to say which I am more moved by, though I suspect that the 23cm contact is the more surprising. Certainly when I started out on both of these bands I never would have expected either contact.

There really is nothing I did which influenced whether I did or did not work VK this morning. Main factor is that I was listening on the band, not gallivanting in GI or F. Then I was in early and was the second GM VK6ND worked. 

The propagation gods were kind to me. Was that Es linking into TEP or F2? My guess is that it was Es linking into TEP because I was hearing LAs and OZs via Es at the same time. I sent my cluster report without a propagation tag (i.e. "unknown") and DXMaps tagged it as "F2". I asked somebody who knows a lot more about propagation than I do and he said that he didn't know and he reckoned nobody else knew either.

Lots of other European stations were calling and did not work VK. Usually it is me in that position. They are probably thinking about how to improve their station to raise their chance of reaching VK, but I think that "chance" is the operative word there. Luck comes in here or, as I tend to put it, chance.

Anyway, if chance prevents me from working 3B8, it has allowed me to work VK6.

That'll do I guess.

After all, if it was simple we would not do it. [You mean if it was simple YOU would not do it, Jim]

73 Jim

GM4FVM

India on 6m and the "September Gap"

I know fine well that at the end of the summer there is a drop off in 6m propagation. At one time I thought that was it until next spring. Now I know differently.

Coinciding roughly with the arrival of FT8, it dawned on me that good 6m propagation goes on for most of the year, with lulls at certain times. Not just lulls, but weeks or virtual silence. However, what used to be called "Christmas Es" now appears to me to be long lasting enough for me to call it "Winter Es". 

There certainly is a gap in February and March, which is the gap between Winter Es and Summer Es. And as the year moves from equinoxes to solstices and back, it should comes as no surprise that the spring gap is mirrored by an autumn gap, between Summer Es and Winter Es again. Not that Es are the only propagation options available here, but for me Es often links into the more obscure ways of working long distance.

I tend to call the autumn gap the "September Gap". This is not a good name. Autumn Gap does not seem quite right either as it does not last for a season but rather it lasts for several weeks or so. Long enough this year for me to be busy on 12m and handle a nice tropo opening on the higher VHF/UHF bands.

This year between 14 September and 4 October I worked one station on 50MHz. That was not for the want of trying. For most of that time I was looking at a blank waterfall. Even the one station worked, UT7UA on 17 September, came out of the blue and that did not lead to any reasonable opening. Just one station and then silence. Not that early September was much better, with two days of activity and only one small opening with seven stations worked in two weeks, none of these being great "DX" (nice as they were).

I am not sure how to represent weeks of nothing during the September Gap. I did think of a map with no contacts on it, and then thought better of it.

Anyway, what would show that the September Gap was over better than some nice DX in October?

50MHz contacts at GM4FVM 1 to 20 October 2024

Best DX was FR4OO on 15 October which certainly suggested that the 2024 Gap seemed to have passed. 10,098km is a good haul, though not a new country for me. On 20 October I worked VU3WEW for a new country, India, on 6m. 8,147km is pretty good, and a new square plus a new sub-continent as well. That is country 114 on 6m, and it was good to get a quick confirmation on LoTW to be sure.

I think this means that I can indeed conclude that we have crossed the September Gap. We are also into that time of year when the ionospheric conditions on both sides of the magnetic equator become (more or less) equal and TEP starts to appear. There has been lots of TEP to see on the cluster. At my latitude I need some Es to assist me there, and the passing of the September Gap has provided this too.

With us at the peak of this solar cycle (or so it is said) we might expect lots of TEP on VHF generally. Whether we get 6m F-layer propagation too remains to be seen. I hope so.

It is very hard to predict propagation into the future. I cannot say for sure if we are entering a good patch.

I just would like a break from what has been a pretty poor late summer in terms of DX. So far so good.

73 Jim

GM4FVM

How often should I call CQ on VHF?

Most amateurs seem to have a simple rule for the right times to be calling CQ - they are correct and everybody else is wrong. Who am I to disagree?

Here comes another rabbit hole for me to race down. I am like a border terrier on a long walk.

I apply a statistical approach to this [and everything else Jim ... try getting a life instead]. 

If everybody just called CQ nobody would ever work anybody. And if everybody just listened and did not call CQ then nobody would work anybody. So there has to be some balance between one and the other.

When I am listening myself I see stations calling CQ constantly and never looking for any one else's CQ calls. They only respond to stations calling them in response to their CQ call. From this evidence I conclude that they are content to do this and it meets their needs. My own experience suggests that this style of operating simply shuts out the possibility of amassing new countries or squares. I find that if I need to reach a new country I need to go after it.

For sure, from time to time, some new DX will answer a CQ, but that relies on luck. Luck works, but not very well if you are square and DXCC hunting. I want to challenge myself, not just accept what comes to me.

Then there are those on data modes who set their Tx watchdog to 99 minutes and call CQ for all that time. I can think of one station south of me on 2m who clearly does exactly that. This tactic might work on the ever changing propagation on HF (how would I know?) but on VHF where the antennas at each station might add 10 to 20dB gain, it is a bit annoying to have one period blocked at 40dB over S9 for 99 minutes thanks to a nearby CQ nutcase.

This is amateur radio. It is self regulating. There is nothing in the rule book so say you cannot do this type of thing. There is no rule book for this type of thing. They may not make themselves very popular, but popularity might not mean much to them. The station I have in mind gets a lot of abuse. Luckily he is hundreds of kilometres away from me so he does not trouble me.

There was a time, years ago, when I had local stations around me. One local, who perhaps might have known better after 50 years of operating, turned his Tx watchdog to 99 minutes and called CQ via his linear and beam on 2m. He used to set this off and go to the pub, running it for another 99 minutes after he came back and went to bed. Sometimes someone would call him once via random aircraft scatter and then vanish back into the noise, which left him sending a report to nobody for another 99 minutes. The inevitable happened of course when the relay in his rig got stuck. After that we never heard him on again. No doubt when he woke up the next day there was that nasty acrid smell of burned components (as well as a stale beer smell).

During the time we are calling CQ we are not listening for Dx. If I call for 99 minutes on one period I will never hear any stations on that period. Old Dx hands know that juicy Dx can turn up on either period.

Calling CQ is all fine and dandy but from what I can see many amateurs don't do it much. These ones just set up their data modes and listen, only replying to DX when they hear it. They take the opposite approach to the CQ-ers and it seems to work for them. But does it? Their success depends on the Dx station happening to call CQ at the right moment. 

I learned what little I know about VHF operating on 70MHz. I spent years listening on 4m, calling CQ when I thought something might be happening. Mostly I heard white noise and got frustrated. However, there were times when I was hearing nothing but when I called CQ someone replied. I could never rely on the other station to be calling CQ just when the path was open.

It is perfectly possible for any VHF or UHF band to be open and everybody is just listening. This does not just happen in the empty wastes of 70MHz. Those pesky Dx stations have a habit of just listening too. It isn't that I miss their activity, they are not going to transmit just because I want them to be (in  order to allow me to simply listen for them).

Today I see that various people are hearing FK8HA on 6m. At present this seems to be limited to stations in Southern Europe. According to PSK Reporter lots of the usual 6m Dx hounds around me are listening. So I am listening too. But what if the band is open to the Pacific and stations in the Pacific are listening too? Then nobody works anybody, despite the path being open.

50MHz at GM4FVM, 14 October 2024

No doubt I would hear a lot more French and other stations calling FK4HA is I was beaming their way, but I am beaming at New Caledonia.

Lets us face it, the chances of me working FK8HA are vanishingly small. The propagation, such as it is, is towards Southern Europe. But how do I know the path is not open? Or more likely a similar path from GM to some nearby exotic Pacific Island location? Propagation changes and moves. I could test this out by calling CQ. How often? But will I annoy others by dong so? Does any of that matter?

I know fine well from my 4m days that often a path can be open with no activity and sometimes the only way to establish that is to call CQ. I also know that frequently calling CQ is both self defeating and sometimes annoying to others. I reckon that there has to be a balance here.

During VHF openings I work to a strategy of calling for one or two periods, in other words for a minute or less. Then I listen for a longer period before calling briefly again, possibly on the other period. The reason for this is to be quite sure that there is not a brief opening to a station on that period. It seems to work. When conditions are changing by the minute a long CQ call could be a disadvantage.

When there is no specific opening I use my standard Tx watchdog setting of 3 minutes. This means that I can call CQ but not block my chances of hearing some Dx on that period for very long. I have longer settings for meteor scatter. 

Just like everybody else, I can rely on the certainty that what I do is correct, and everybody else has got it wrong. But seriously, I can see people calling CQ for long periods and working nothing, and others who do not call CQ for long periods and miss the chance of some Dx. It is up to them.

Yesterday I was sitting here fiddling with something. I looked up and noticed that I was decoding FR8UA on 50MHz. Not a new country but a nice one all the same. By the time I had cranked the mast up, turned the beam, fired up the linear and replied he was gone. I decoded him eight times but missed a contact. It is quite possible that he was on before that but he was also listening. If I had called CQ earlier ... ???

These examples are just what is happening at the moment. However there are plenty of examples where I think that if I had called CQ more often or less often I would have done better. 

There is no simple answer to this problem. 

But I know that I am right. Just like everybody else knows the same thing.

73 Jim

GM4FVM