The last few days have been rather frustrating. I have been
spending a lot of time watching for TEP openings on 6m, but to no avail. The
main indicator is most likely the Iran TV station video carrier and other 6m beacons
situated in Malta, Greece and Italy. The TV signals were heard on a few
occasions very weak, only marginally above the noise and then once again disappeared
from the waterfall of Spectran.
I have also tried on various occasions to work the 3C6A DX
expedition to Equatorial Guinea, but also without any success. They should be
booming in here, but that is not the case. They are weak at best. This is very
strange, they are one hop via F2 away, working them should be a walk in the
park, but this is not the case. Not sure why. Are they using directional beams?
If this is the case I will be on the back of their beam at all times. They also
seem to have a constant pileup. I noticed the other day the split was as high
as 15 kHz up on CW! I guess they are a much needed and rare DXCC entity?
I sure hope that the Sun will still deliver a few surprises before
the downward trend starts…….
73, Pierre ZS6A
I too have noticed some strange propagation on this side of the pond as well. I was checking the spotting networks here and found stations that would normally boom in here were just above the noise level. As for the DXCC (rare ones) the pile ups were huge and again at the noise floor.
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