GW4VXE's Station Diary

Spotted S21WD on 10m FT8 as I got into the shack with 4 streams. Getting nowhere as I write this and will probably head outside and work on the strawberry bed in a moment. As it turned out, they stopped transmitting - so I dropped down on to 20m CW and had a quick chat with Willy LY2PX. Lots of fading - whereas Willy is normally a great signal on 20m in the morning.

So far, I haven't written very much about VHF/UHF activity here. I suppose that's because it's been very quiet on those bands here lately. I got into the shack after we replanted the strawberry bed this morning to find a screen full of CQs on 2m FT8 from GM0HBK up in IO77. This is not entirely unusual and happens a few times a year. It's a good path up the Irish Sea and towards the Western Isles. When conditions are good, I can work 'HBK using 50W to the vertical and we've made it on 70cm as well.

I tried a CQ when I got back to the shack and although it was well heard, it wasn't heard up in IO77! Nice to see some better propagation on 2m though.

A nice QSO on 10m around lunchtime was RI0SP who seems to be up in the Arctic somewhere! There's a picture of a polar bear on his QRZ page! I gather both CY0S and XX9W are QRT now. Pleased to catch Red DL1BUG operating as TY5FR on 12m CW this afternoon.

Ten metres brightened up what seemed to be a fairly poor day for DX in spite of a half decent solar flux; XQ6CF, PY1AX, CX5FK and HH2K in the late afternoon.

Popped out for the evening and when I got back, I was pretty amazed to see this on my 6m screen! Only one decode and I'm sure it wouldn't have been possible to make a QSO. Even so, it looks like I was the only person in the UK to receive VP8LP this evening. He had plenty of spots in Southern Europe as well as North America.