On the 19th of May 2024, FMDXer Paul Logan in the north-west of Ireland reported reception of a radio station in Greenland on 91.0 MHz. Logbook 2024-05-19 UTC QRG ITU Station, location Details Distance km kW ERP Pol2044 91.00 GRL Kalaallit Nunaata Radioa, Niaqernaartik/KTYC (Kap Tycho Brahe) 2095 0.1 v The radio is located on the east coast of Greenland, has an effective radiated power of just 100-watts and runs vertical polarisation. Paul logged it at 20:44 UTC. The distance to Paul's location in Lisnaskea, Co Fermanagh is 2095kms and the propagation mode was Sporadic-E (Sp-E). While t ..read more

Congratulations to Max, EI6KC on achieving his third CQ Satellite Worked All Zones (WAZ) award. He already holds two SAT WAZ awards as SA5IKN (#40) and M0SKN (#92). His latest SAT WAZ award (#121) is also the first one in Ireland ..read more

At the Dayton Hamvention this weekend, ICOM put on display are number of printed circuit boards from what is supposed to be the 60th Anniversary Concept Model “X60”. ICOM-UK write... "Referred to internally as the "X60" all lips are very tightly and firmly sealed about this project and the exciting concept model behind the secrecy. Only a carefully selected handful of our very top development gurus and members of our absolute senior management in Osaka know the complete and full details about this very special project. The full reveal will be at the Tokyo Ham Fair which will be held over the ..read more

On the 14th of May 2024, Roger Harrison, VK2ZRH have a very detailed presentation titled 'Long-haul Ionospheric Propagation on 50 MHz' to the Madison DX Club. In the video, Roger goes into quite a bit of depth about Sporadic-E propagation, Trans-Equatorial Propagation (TEP) and the complexities of both. I think anyone who has an interest in propagation at 50 MHz or even in the low VHF region will find this presentation of interest. The presentation is about 70 minutes in length and is shown below... Link... See my 50 MHz page for other presentations and posts about some long distance paths ..read more

Now that we're well into the Summer Sporadic-E season, there have been plenty of reports of openings on the FM band going from 88 to 108 MHz. Most reports seem to be single hop Sporadic-E for now but this one caught my attention. On the 14th of May 2024, Larry Horlicks (VO1FOG) recorded an opening from the Azore Islands to Newfoundland. As can be seen from the image above, the distances were in the region of 1894 to 2259 kms. While the propagation mode was still one-hop Sporadic-E, any openings on the FM band across the North Atlantic are always of special interest. As we move into June and ..read more

At the moment, I pretty much have my HF radio on 28.1246 MHz USB all of the time listening for QSPR and QRSS signals on the 10m band. Over the last few weeks and months, I've noticed plenty of solar noise from flares erupting on the sun. The vast majority of these hardly move the S meter on the radio, it's just that I can hear the increase in noise level. At 16:47 UTC on the 14th of May 2024, there was a huge burst of noise and when I looked, the S meter was up at S6. The is shown in the audio spectrum display above with time moving from right to left. The sudden onset of the solar noise can ..read more

10th May 2024: I had the radio turned on in the background this morning and I noticed a large burst of noise from the sun. I had the SpectrumLab software running since yesterday and I took this screen grab. Just to explain the image above... 1) I was listening on 28.1246 MHz USB which is the 10m WSPR & QRSS frequency. 2) Around 06:42 UTC, a meteor burnt up about 100kms above the west of England or Wales leaving an ionised trail behind. This lasted long enough that I was able to hear some of the QRSS signals from stations to the east of London, about 600kms to the east of me. The signals ..read more

As part of a challenge for 2024, I've decided to see how many QRSS signals I could capture on the 28 MHz band during the year. On the 8th of May, I got a screengrab of the QRSS signal 'HK' which was sent by the IW0HK/B beacon near Rome in Italy. Usually, nearly all of the QRSS signals on the 10m band are on 28.1246 MHz and the audio of the signals is about 400-500Hz below the WSPR signals. In this case, the IW0HK beacon was on 28.322 MHz. In the image above, the fuzzy part of the signal is when it was sending the callsign and locator of the beacon in normal morse code. The QRSS 'HK' part is ..read more

There is a major expedition planned to Jarvis Island in the middle of the Pacific in early August 2024 and their planned operations include some 50 MHz activity. Press release *** Dear Fellow DXers, In March the Dateline DX Association was pleased to announce that it has received permission from the USFWS for a DXpedition to Jarvis Island National Wildlife Reserve this August. Jarvis is ranked nr. 18 on Clublog's global most wanted list. It is number 9 in Europe.  In some EU countries Jarvis is ranked as high as second most wanted on phone and digial.  Jarvis is ranked higher than ..read more

On the 8th of May 2024, I noticed a distorted QRSS signal on the 28 MHz band. The signal was from FR1GZ on the island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean, a distance of about 10,200 kms from my location. The image above shows the distorted signal with the carrier spread out over about 6 Hz. Underneath it, I have an image captured a few weeks ago which shows what the normal signal should look like it via F2 layer propagation. I usually hear Reunion Island on 10m in the morning or afternoon. It was unusual to hear it at 17:50 UTC in the evening time. Evening TEP signals usually peak around 8pm loca ..read more