Just a NOTE about Europe in October on 50 Mhz

 If you ask any of the old timer 6m (50 Mhz) folks about hearing or working EU in October, you likely won't hear any of them regaling you with grand DX QSO stories.  In fact, those I know who've been on 6m longer than 20-30-40 years have never heard of it happening.

So what we're witnessing is indeed unique / first.  

Based on hearing VO beacons and no 'band noise' I suspect this is Pure foEs.  But I'm not a prop-mode expert.  I am fairly knowledgeable at finding DX on 6m tho!

Anyway, in case you were wondering "what's all this October excitement" - we're witnessing 6m history.

I suspect FT8 is a big reason why this is being noticed NOW, and not in the past since the digital mode "FT8" has really shown us a LOT of previously unknown things about what's possible.

So that's it kids...history right before your very eyes :-)

EU in October (10/29)

 Furthest I got today was ON4GG seen on the right.  Opened at 14:19z and closed about 16:18z.  I had GB3MCB/b in IO70 in here for a lot of this time as well.   I'm told this beacon uses 25w to a folded dipole, although I'm not sure on it's AGL.  The following video has a good audible section 1/2 way through it to hear it's CW.  It's starts however with it's PI4 digi-mode.

EU in October (10/25)

For the second day in a row we had another very strong opening into Europe.  This one was even more intense and more steady at high signal levels.  HA2NP was the best one of the day for me today, worked him FT8, FT4, and CW.  He was in for well over 1 hour.  The opening began at 14:56 and ended at 16:26.

EU Beacons heard: F4ZKY/b, EI0SIX/b, PI7SIX/b

I worked quiet a few on FT4 @ 50.318 Mhz as well.

And on FT8

EI3GRB - IO52 - Ireland

 

VY0SNO/b

 SNO/b started here off the back of my yagi @ 2202z and continues at 2240z between S1-6

EU in October (10/24) - a first?

An unusual opening occurred this morning between North America and Europe.   I woke up late today.  I came into the shack, turned my computer monitor on, and noticed VO1FRR/b was in.  My antenna was still pointed to SA from yesterday.  I have two antennas one is about 21 ft up fixed on EU, and the other is about 43ft up, and I can switch them using BIP/BOP and top only.  In this case the top only was on.  I switched them into BIP and brought the bottom one which is fixed on EU online with the the top one, and the VO/b picked up, so I started to turn the top antenna to align with the EU directed one.  Suddenly I decoded 20201024_131530 -20  0.5 1258 ~ CQ EA3ERE JN11.  Shortly after that I was called by F4VPC and worked him as shown below.

It looks like this started around 13:10z and lasted for two hours at 15:10z.

Then came G0GGG, and a whole raft of others EU stations for about the next 1.5 to 2 hours.

My best spotting ME was OK1FRG in JN79 at a distance of 6064km!  For October this is probably extremely rare.  

K1TOL who has been on air here in Maine for a very long time (20 years +) has never seen EU in OCT before.