The Magic band delivers

It is a known fact that during periods of sustained high solar flux levels and combined with the Equinox period that good Trans Equatorial Propagation (TEP) may occur.

Well I have been monitoring the conditions and activity very closely and I was starting to think that we just did not have sufficient solar activity on the sun to allow for TEP to occur. The SFI yesterday was 100, the A index was 4 and the K index was 1-2.

Well I was wrong, very wrong.

Yesterday the band opened up to Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East in a big way. The opening started at about 2 pm and the band closed at 9 pm local. There was a bit of a slump in activity after 4 pm for a short while.

I managed to make 123 QSOs, worked 71 Grids and 24 DXCC countries during this opening.

This event has been most memorable and I think it will be one of my personal highlights during my time as a Radio Amateur.

I sure hope that the conditions remain or even improve. I will be joining the Swaziland DX expedition 3DA0FC on the 6^th of April and I plan to concentrate on 6 metres. I am pretty sure that 3DA0 is a fairly rare DXCC entity and it would be great if conditions would allow TEP / F2 openings into Europe during this time.

73, Pierre ZS6A

Grids worked during the 6M opening 21 March 2012