Winter - a good time for some VHF DX?

My last band report covered up to 11 December. The month after that is usually a quick decline into winter conditions. Not this year. 

The "month" from 12 December 2024 to 14 January 2025 (the FVM calendar is currently on a 33 day cycle) saw 116 QSOs to 86 squares in 28 countries with a best DX of 8620km. Nae bad? 

That was:-

70 QSOs to 25 DXCC on 6m (best DX 8620), 

10 QSOs to 4 DXCC on 4m (best 1583km),

32 QSOs to 13 DXCC on 2m (best 2811km), and,

4 QSOs to 3 DXCC on 70cm (best 408km).

Sadly, nothing on 23cm, or HF.

Let me detail how this unfolded. 

On the maps, golden pins are 6m, red pins are 2m and purple are 70cm. 4m ones do not have coloured pins, but you cannot identify them in the crush anyway.

12 December. The regular 50MHz Nordic Activity Contest coincided with the run up to the Geminids meteor shower. The result of this was very strange conditions. There was enough ionisation during meteor bursts to provide brief openings using FT8 mode. However, often these periods were not long enough to complete a QSO. Thus lots of stations were calling me and replying, but not many were actually having QSOs. I managed to work five SMs, three OHs and one YL. I had lots of attempted QSOs which failed. 

This was a very strange experience during which I called CQ or I answered CQs but many of these efforts were wasted. This made the ones that worked all the sweeter. It was hard work but great fun and I would like to try it during a shower again. I suspect that a different mode (MSK, Q65,... ???) would work better, but I had to go with the rest of the pack. I guess that FT8 was in use so that the EU contest mode could be used, ensuring six figure locators for the NAC.

13 and 14 December. This was the Geminids in full stream. Using MSK144, on 50MHz I worked SM, OH, and OZ, while on 70MHz I reached several OZs and DLs.

After a ten day gap when I only worked three stations on 2m, there was a pleasing tropospheric opening on 25 December. On 144MHZ I worked three Fs, and OZ1IIL, while on 432MHz I reached EI4ACB 

30 December. There was a good opening into North America on 50MHz, with me working 16 stations.

1 January. On this day there was a splendid auroral opening. I worked 18 stations, ten on 50MHz and eight on 144MHz. All of these were on the Q65 mode. There was some grumbling on the KST chatroom that Q65-30C is better for 2m contacts, and I am inclined to agree with that, but the 15B submode was the one mostly in use.

Auroral contacts at GM4FVM on 1 January 2025

As usual, click images to enlarge if you need to.

Best auroral DX was on 6m where OH2BYJ was at 1572km, while on 2m SO3Z was best DX at 1297km. Once again on Q65 mode I have had far better results than I used to have on SSB or CW. Not only is the DX further, there were more contacts in more countries. 18 QSOs in 11 DXCC must surely be my best performance during an aurora.

2 and 3 January. Perhaps unusually for me, I decided to try my hand at 2m operations during the Quadrantids meteor shower, in addition to the more usual 4m. 144MHz went quite well with three contacts in LA, OH and UA, with RA1WU in KO47 being the best contact at 1853km. 70MHz was pretty good with best DX being S20OR in JN76 at 1583km. Although only eight QSOs I reckon this dual band approach worked out pretty well. I think that I might spend more time on meteor scatter in the future.

6 January. Now this was a surprise. I was about to leave the house on some sort of domestic errand when I worked VO1AN on 50MHz. Then suddenly TI2AA appeared and I worked him for a new 6m DXCC (number 125). Sometimes things like this happen and I am never ready for them. It is only by chance that I had the rig turned on and the antenna pointing in the right direction. Unexpected things happen in this hobby. 

Contacts at GM4FVM on 6 January 2025

11 January. On this day there was a general Es opening on 50MHz. I am not sure if this was "Winter Es", in which case it was later than usual, or just a random opening. Anyway, I worked 14 DXCC to get my 2025 list going nicely.

Contacts at GM4FVM on 11 January 2025

13 January. Tropo conditions were raised to the South West on this day, even though a windy weather system to the North West was stopping a widespread opening for me. On 144MHz I managed to work CT9ACF in IM12 on Madeira. I e-mailed Steve and he confirmed that the contact was complete. That is DXCC number 42 on 2m. Quite a few stations worked Steve during this opening. The hilly path to CT9 is rather difficult from here (Cheviots, Pennines, Snowdonia etc...) so I was especially pleased with that.

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So that is a month at a time of year when most VHFers are winding down.

Contacts at GM4FVM, 12 December 2024 to 13 January 2025

I daresay some will be fretting now that this chart does not show much evidence of worldwide F2 propagation. I was not getting in to Asia, I was not making progress on 23cm. Hold on. Those are your concerns. I was very busy, it was all interesting and we have to work the propagation we are given. And that suits me just fine.

If the next month is half as good I will be happy.

Or even the next 33 days.

73 Jim

GM4FVM

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