A New Year Brings Hopefull Radio Propagation

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Happy New Year to all!

The final few weeks of 2007 did not seem to bring any good propagation making DX openings few and far between. I was fortunate to work just one distant station during the festive season on the 27th of December, and using eQSL.cc I sent and gratefully received an eQSL card confirming QSO with ZP5MAL (Juan from Paraguay). This QSO was on the Yaesu FT-767GX with the hustler 6BTV operating on 20M exchanging 5/3 reports.

The Ft-767GX has also been working well for me on 7.038 mhz with the aid of my P.C and nomic rig blaster as I have had many successful QSOs using winPSK31se digital mode. The 40m band has been fairly flat for phone contacts just like 80m and 20m for most of the time.

Most of my radio talk time has been taking place on 2m running the FT-847 & FT-857. A distinctive increase of activity has been happening on 2m lately which has been welcomed locally. This is probably down to the many new recently licenced operators that have come into the hobby over the last month. Another influencing factor is the poor HF band conditions after the sun has gone down which is about 15.45 utc over here. This and of course the festive season has had a lively effect on 2m which has been very enjoyable. Welcome to all new Hams hope to work you all!

The picture above shows information on the high and lows of the solar cycle.
which for us radio hams that like to work DX, is a very important issue, thankfully 2007 was at the bottom of the solar cycle and was also the start of the upward sweep. Hopefully solar activity will increase and the band conditions will improve during this new year.

I have been fortunate to have been around long enough to have experienced good propagation. This year should bring some new Countries, prefixes and QSL cards to many stations and lets face it conditions can only improve as we have past the worst of the bands poor conditions in the last cycle! I sure am looking forward to hearing some big signals.

73 and good DX. de 2E0HTS Simon, Yorkshire, North England.

Comments

Phaze58 said…
OH Yea
With A new antenna to erect next month I am hoping to start using my rigblaster nomic as well as the phone parts of the bands, so far with the weather being, well not conducive to antenna erecting I have tended to stay inside and watch some dvd's I got for Christmas.looking forwards to catching you on 2mtrs Si.coz as you know I am now a mobile good luck for the new year to you an Lou & dud 73 fer now .
De M1PAC
7:20 am
MØYKS Simon said…
Looking forward to hearing you on! I could'nt agree more about the weather, "BRASS MONKEY WEATHER".

Not good for hanging out in the garden with antennas h.i.

Look forward to making some more youtube vids with your good self as the last one we did on mmstv went down well with the youtube community.

We will have to try some psk31 when you get some spare time. I am looking forward to it!

Drive safely, enjoy your new rig, and have you heard owt about hams and taxi drivers no longer being exempt operating 2 way radio whilst driving?
Jeff G0GNU mentioned it to me but I have not heard anything official yet. So I guess we shall be in QSO /Mobile real soon lol.

Happy New Year to your good self, franka and of course my old friend Barron. 73
de 2E0HTS SK
9:16 am
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