Last week saw sunspot numbers decline, but geomagnetic conditions become
more settled. This, plus the fact we are heading into autumn, resulted in better
HF conditions, with 21MHz opening to DX for short periods. The CS3B Madeira and
4X6TU Israel beacons on 21.150MHz were both audible at times and Jim, G3YLA
reports working S01WS in Western Sahara on the band.
Not to be outdone,
the lower bands have also been active, with UK operators on the DXpedition to St
Pierre and Miquelon being worked from the UK on 160, 80, 40 and 30 metres. The
better critical frequencies and therefore higher MUFs mean 40 metres has also
been open to shorter skip at times, perhaps with a minimum of about 500km.
Next week NOAA predicts the solar flux index may increase slowly up to
and beyond 100 once again. However, there is a strong possibility that
geomagnetic conditions may be unsettled all week due to coronal hole activity
and the potential for coronal mass ejections from the active sunspots that are
predicted.
Currently, VOACAP Online suggests that reasonably-equipped UK
stations have around a 50 percent chance of working New York on 20 metres CW
from around 1800 to 2030hrs. This should improve to about 70 percent as we head
into mid-October, with 17 and 15 metres both offering better reliability too.
With the better autumnal HF conditions coming, it is worth playing with
the online tools at VOACAP.com and www.predtest.uk to get a better understanding
of the best times to work various parts of the world on HF.
And now the
VHF and up propagation news:
It’s been a good week for rain scatter on
the GHz bands, with daily propagation over to the Netherlands and Belgium and
intra-UK. Sadly this has not been matched by activity, but a few good QSOs were
reported by those who were aware.
This week sees a welcome return of
high pressure nearby, to the east of the UK. This will allow stations in the
south and east of the country to enjoy slightly enhanced conditions. The
position of the high would favour tropo paths up the east coast and across the
southern North Sea. This will probably be a brief period of tropo before low
pressure from the Atlantic drifts in towards the UK in the second half of the
week. The high remains nearby over Scandinavia, with a ridge extending southwest
across France into Spain. This may possibly offer some tropo options to the
south for stations on the south coast.
There is a low rate meteor
shower, the daytime Sextantids, on Wednesday, so continue to look before dawn
for the best random meteor scatter contacts.
The Moon is at maximum
negative declination and apogee on Wednesday so losses are at their greatest and
Moon windows short. So this is a good week to catch up on antenna maintenance
for the autumn.