10m F2 DX

Well, last night 10m opened up a bit with PY2WAS in Sao Paulo, Brazil coming through weakly around teatime. At this time of year there are sometimes North-South openings in which part of the path is assisted by sporadic-E for the first "hop" linking then with F2 propagation further south. Last night's opening may have had a bit of this, but there was little spor-E about and that was all weakish. Earlier there was an OH8 station audible from Oulu in northern Finland and I swear he sounded auroral.

Stations worked on 10m QRP

Pavel, UR5WCQ was a good signal, but alone, on 10m SSB at 1323z and was worked giving me a report of RS53-55.

Earlier, EA5ON/M was on 10m calling a W4 station across the pond, but I could not hear the W4.

Tuesday May 5th and nice QSO with Andy SQ9MEE in the log on 10m SSB

More sporadic-E now

This evening at 1800z I turned on the 10m rig and heard EA3BOX booming in on 28.487MHz SSB. A quick call and back came a 58 to 59+ report. Yesterday I heard SM3NQM on 6m SSB, so the season has clearly started now.

10m open (spor-E)

II0DIVA (special call) coming through on 10m SSB this evening. This is the first sporadic-E heard this season. Later, at 1910z, I worked IY7GM, another special call, with a 59 report received using the IC703 and the wire Homebase-10 halo. He was 58 with me.

Sporadic-E

For most of April I've been putting out CQs on 10m CW/SSB/FM and checking the DX cluster for signs of sporadic-E propagation into Europe. So far, all is very quiet. It is still early in the season, but usually there've been some openings by now. May, June and July are the best months in the northern hemisphere.

At times, sporadic-E signals can be very strong indeed. I recall some Icelandic stations on 6m SSB 2 years ago who were truly S9+50dB suggesting that, on a clear frequency, they would have been workable with microwatts!

There is a nice tutorial on sporadic-E at this link.

As of April 29th, still no spor-E yet detected this season here.

10m QSO (winter sporadic-E)

This morning I worked my first 10m station this year - 9A2009ST on 28.480MHz SSB using 10W to my wire halo antenna. He was also calling CQ on 28.22MHz CW. The signals were not strong but this is clearly a case of mid-winter sporadic-E.

This year my aim is 100 DXCC countries on 10m QRP, so this was number one. An hour later and I heard G0FWX about 20 miles away so gave him a call and got a 52 report.

So now 2 x DXCC countries in the log on 10m ....only 98 to go this year!