AmateurRadio.com

I haven’t really got myself out of 50 and 70MHz Es mode yet, so still really only looking for those openings – which are getting a bit less frequent now. However, realising yesterday that it was the peak of the Perseids meteor shower, I thought it would be a good time to see what I could hear using the digital modes – as now have the interface mentioned earlier in the year.

Last night I setup the FT847 on 144.370 which is the FSK441 frequency and set the WSJT software running in monitor mode to see what would happen. When I looked at the ‘log’ this morning there was plenty of interest and quite a number of stations heard:

DK1CO
S55AW
PA0BWL (tropo or backscatter?)
DK1KH
F1JQM
EA3AXV (one of the outstanding signals for me – copied many times)
DG1WEH
PA3BIY
DL3MBJ
S51WO
YU7TRI
IN3FFN
S50C (another outstanding and consistent signal)
YO2LAM (probably the best DX)
DL0HOF
PA5KM (tropo or backscatter)
I1RJP
F1HQM
SP2HMR
F6APE
SP2OBQ

Well, I probably should have spent some time trying to make some QSOs, but actually I was quite happy to see what I heard and I am delighted with this haul. The antenna here is just the little 5 element, so this was probably more about strong short reflections rather than longer but quite weak ones that you get when you aim closer to the horizon with a long yagi.

It’s not all over yet though and it will probably be worth setting the receiver going again this evening.