HF News
As we continue to head into Autumn, the HF bands are really coming alive. Ten metres has proved to be full of surprises, especially with FT8. Although we are not getting the high solar flux indices of previous years, that hasn’t stopped 28MHz from opening up to DX from around the world.
Late afternoon has brought in lots of FT8 signals from the Southern Hemisphere on 28.074MHz, including Brazil, the Azores, Argentina, Chile, and Ecuador. Look around sunset or just before and see what you can work.
A solar flux of around 110, helped by good, quiet geomagnetic conditions, has been enough to open up the 10-metre band, although weak signal modes seem to be favourite.
There were other surprises to be had lower down in frequency, including Franco, 3A2MW in Monaco, on 30m FT8. That’s not a million miles away, but still rare DX from this tiny principality (only one square mile) with 100W maximum, stealth antennas and poor HF take-off due to the terrain.
Next week’s DX to work includes E51MWA (North Cook Islands), on until November 16; C8K (Mozambique); D44PX (Cape Verde); 9X5KM (Rwanda); and 3X4U (Guinea).
NOAA forecasts that the SFI may climb to 120 before backing off to 105 as the week progresses. A very large coronal hole on the solar equator threatens to push the Kp index up to four this weekend. In fact, poor geomagnetic conditions are predicted for the first half of the week overall.
North-South paths will probably be less affected than polar ones, so don’t let the higher Kp index put you off trying.
VHF and up
The recent period of Tropo is going through its decaying phase as of Thursday the 5th and the pressure is falling slowly as the week closes.
Perhaps the high may linger a while over northern UK as we start the coming week, but eventually low pressure will take back control over the whole country. The unsettled theme does bring a chance of rain scatter on the GHz bands. On that note, there are hints of a cold northerly at the end of next week, which could see wintry weather in the north, but also large cumulonimbus shower clouds rolling down the North Sea.
Meteor scatter is still in the frame from last week’s Taurids meteor shower and by the end of next week, we’ll be close to the Orionids peak.
The Kp index has been fairly restrained recently, but as we said earlier, a coronal hole may increase the chances of aurora over this weekend, look for the Kp index going above Kp=5 and listen for flutter on the HF bands.
EME now, and the Moon’s declination is negative again and path losses are rising. The Moon will be visible for a shortening time and its peak elevation falls as we approach minimum declination on Thursday the 12th and apogee on Friday. 144 MHz sky noise is low to moderate, but Monday sees the Sun and Moon close in the sky for the whole Moon pass, followed by high noise for the rest of the week.