Strange propagation

Thursday July 11th was one of those days when I was glad I work shifts, six metres was bouncing and despite only having a vertical antenna which I converted from an old eleven metre CB aerial I got two pages of contacts in the log. Many different countries worked, mainly around the Mediterranean and in the region of 1,000 -1,250 miles. Things started very well around 0800 UTC with almost all Europe coming through at 59+. It seemed a bit ironic that the only stations calling CQ seemed to be Spanish as everyone working them was as readable as they were. For a couple of hour it seemed you could have worked any EU country from here. About 1000 UTC the band nose dived for about an hour and when it came back it seemed I could only here the stations around the Med and it seemed to be that way all day. Loads of great contacts including some rare squares but the biggest surprise was my last contact on the band Gulli TF8GX Iceland seemed to buck the trend of SSE from here but was spot on the trend with the typical distance at 1015.5 miles.

Friday July 12th was not as good but there was still a good sporadic e opening on both six and ten metres. This time most of my contacts were on ten and nothing amazing, but I did manage to get a couple of SP stations in the log. Poland should not be a problem but they have been a bit elusive for me during the most recent lift conditions on six, ten and two metres I have heard but not managed to work any SPs. Hopefully I will get someone next time on six and two. I still managed one page in the log and I am quite please how the ten metre 5/8ths vertical has performed despite being mounted very low at the moment.

This morning (Saturday 13th July) has seen the most odd propagation. I expected six and/or ten to still be open but all seemed very quiet. I was hearing A4 Oman and A71 Qatar on SSB but they were too weak to work, just the odd word in and out of QSB. Then I decided to peruse the cluster and I saw Rafi 4X4FR in Israel on 29.520 FM and gave him a call. A fairly easy contact despite QSB, the only problem being that he kept getting the last letter of my call as Zulu. I don't know why so many people get the last letter of my call wrong maybe Victor is not a strong sound, but I can never understand why so many think I say Whiskey, it sounds nothing like.

Otherwise not much happening radio wise today. Just an ON Summits on the Air station and a chat with Tony M0ATV on 23cms FM.