November 29th, 2020

As predicted in the Hepburn forecast, there happened an opening to the west tonight. No really breathtaking distances, but at least three new squares on 2 m (two of them I already worked on 23 cm 😉 ) IN86, IN87 and IN89.

On 23 cm I tried with Grant, G1SDX in IO80FL, first in FT8, but I could only copy him via aircraft scatter due to significant doppler, inhibiting decoding of his signals. He copied me via tropo up to -11 dB, but we had a difference in power of 13 dB (36 element yagi and 10 W vs. 3 m dish and 200 W). So we tried MSK144, where I could decode him via AS, but he had no decodes of me.

It´s a very interesting path, as half of it is over water. It should be an opportunity for combined sea ducting and aircraft scatter. I hope for a chance to try.