Opening October 19th – 23rd

October 24th, 2012

The beacon check in the morning of October 19th gave me the impression of a strong inversion over southeast Germany. When looking for Stations on 23 cm on the SDR I noticed a big signal in CW: OE5VRL/5 calling to Hungary. I gave him a meep in the chat to tell him how strong his signal was here in Mainz, despite the fact that I was in the back of his 3 m dish. After turning the antenna to me he was stronger than many locals.

In the following days a lot of DX stations from OK, SP, HA, S5, OE, HB9, F, LX, G, PA, I and OZ filled the log while the inversion moved from east to west. All of the four OK beacons could be heard on 23 cm. Sometimes it was a little bit confusing when I was looking for new DX beacons and DB0AAT, DB0AJA, DB0GP, DB0LB, DB0FGB, DF0ANN, HB9EME and others could be heard in nearly any direction the dish was pointing to.

QSOs on 23 cm > 400 km

QSOs on 13 cm > 400 km

QSOs on 13 cm > 400 kmI am happy with a couple of new squares on 23 and 13 cm. Two new countries on 13 cm made it perfect: S51ZO in Slovenia and I1KFH in Italy. But I fear that it was more aircraft scatter than tropo.

Beacons heard on 23 cm

DB0AAT JN67HU
DB0AJA JN59AS
DB0FGB JO50WB
DB0GP JN48WQ
DB0LB JN48OV
DB0LTG JO31TB
DB0VC JO54IF
DB0WTT JO40LG
DB0YI JO42XC
DF0ANN JN59PL
DF5AY JN49DX
F1XBC JN06JG
F1ZBK JN38BP
F5XBK JN18JS
HB9BBD JN47GA
HB9EME JN37KB
OK0EA JO70UP
OK0EJ JN99FN
OK0EL JO70SQ
OK0EQ JN89BE
PI6ASD JO22KJ
PI7ALK JO22IP
SR6LHZ JO70SS