Trans-Atlantic VHF

[Dispatrick]

Other than beacons anybody pick up any Trans-Atlantic VHF particularly low VHF? Going to make a test bank on my scanner that runs 24hrs with ProScan

I saw on an older VHF low log from 2011 a member said they were picking up some road services from France. just curious if anyone else ever heard them and/or if they are still active since it's been 10 years since the post was made.

 

[WB9YBM]

Yes, I've also heard reports of some long-range "stuff" on VHF low but that's also been a while back so I have no recent info. 6M & 10M ham bands, being kinda sorta maybe somewhat close (especially 6M), those ham bands might provide at least a rough guess of what's going on, on those frequencies.

 

[merlin]

That is one thing I am gearing up for is the low VHF skip.
Solar cycle 25 is just starting its upswing. The best I caught was '71 +/- and periods of overseas VHF.
Combat in Vietnam, a few soldiers making contact with US with those PRC10 backpacks.

 

[merlin]

Yes, I've also heard reports of some long-range "stuff" on VHF low but that's also been a while back so I have no recent info. 6M & 10M ham bands, being kinda sorta maybe somewhat close (especially 6M), those ham bands might provide at least a rough guess of what's going on, on those frequencies.

6 and 10 is still much dead, but the increasing sunspot activity should change that.

 

[p1879]

In the 1960's and 1970's DX writer Tom Kneital reported on overseas low band skip reception in "Electronics Illustrated"and "S9 Magazine", among others. He had listed some South African police loggings, and sure enough I did hear them with my tunable radio shack VHF Low radio. Most likely I was using 30 feet of wire, or some-such.

 

[merlin]

In the 1960's and 1970's DX writer Tom Kneital reported on overseas low band skip reception in "Electronics Illustrated"and "S9 Magazine", among others. He had listed some South African police loggings, and sure enough I did hear them with my tunable radio shack VHF Low radio. Most likely I was using 30 feet of wire, or some-such.

Back then, I was using an Antenna Specialist base loaded mobile antenna that worked great.
I am tossed between a 5/8 vertical or a HALO now, I have both, the HALO a home brew, but neither are up yet. I still have that mobile antenna somewhere, Maybe buried in storage.
About 10.5 foot works 5/8 wave.

 

[jwt873]

I made contacts with England, Northern Ireland and two Spanish stations on Six meters (50.313 Mhz) back on May 18th using the FT8 digital mode.. Six meters was wide open to Europe that day.

When you run the digital program WSJT-X on your computer.. Everything you hear and decode is sent over the net to this web site -> Display Reception Reports The web site then puts your location on the map and draws lines between you and the station(s) that you heard. The shot below shows all the stations who were hearing Europe (and vice versa) on that day. There were a lot of lines drawn.

This was a result of a propagation phenomina known as sporadic-E. It appears without regard to sunspots, and solar flux etc.

While the PSKreporter site deals with amateur communications.. It could be checked periodically to see what the 'across-the-pond' propagation conditions on low VHF are like. At least you'd know when would be the most favorable time to listen for commercial stations.

 

[p1879]

Yes, digital modes have far more penetration than voice communications. I saw on the net somewhere a comparison of coverage of a CW signal at 100W and a SSB signal at 100W. On the band they used,and the conditions present it showed coverage of most of the US on phone, while CW swamped most of the world at the same power. Indeed, hams communicate across the Atlantic very frequently using digital modes with QRP low power levels on many bands--even VHF as a poster noted. For those of us looking for VHF low voice communications the digital propagation characteristics may not always be a reliable guide to listenable DX.

One very useful tool is using the QSO/SWL reporting site-which may be the same one referenced earlier-- set for 10 M and in the phone mode only, to indicate when voice traffic is making the crossing. Under good conditions, this might give you some indication if >30MHZ may be alive. I just checked the site, and it shows 10m contacts via trans-equatorial and Sporadic E DX right now, for various places.

QSO/SWL real time maps and lists

p1879

 

[WB9YBM]

I've noticed some interesting effects following the sunset--about 1 hour + of sunset signals would suddenly jump from California to Japan on the top end of 10M and right before signals dropped out for the night Australia & New Zealand would come in and a few folks around here (Chicago area) were scrambling to get both before the signals dropped out for the night.

Same thing would probably happen going the other direction (into Europe) but who's up that early?

 

[jwt873]

I did some Googling last night looking for trans Atlantic stations to listen for on the low VHF bands. There wasn't much there, but I did find this link --> VHF-low bandplans from Europe

One thing I noticed while I was searching... it appears that the low VHF band in EU isn't that well used. They gave a big swath of 70 Mhz to the amateur community (4 Meter Band). and some countries even have an 8 meter ham radio band (~40.6 to 40.7 Mhz).

 

[p1879]

ILLESHEIM notam: US Army Airfield (Germany)

ADVISORY SERVICE AVAILABLE 0600-0700 MON-FRI, CLOSED SAT, SUN, US AND GERMAN HOLIDAYS. CTAF UHF FREQ 376.150. MONITORING OF NATO COMMON FREQ VHF 122.1 AND 33.20

Grafenwohr Army Air Field

AAS	GRAF RDO	30.4
APP	APP	138.25
GND	GND	141.3
OPS	GRAF OPS	44.55
PMSV	PMSV METRO	140.3
TWR	GRAF TWR	31.8

 

[bucks83]

Back in the late 70's early 80's (can't remember exactly) I was able to contact, although briefly, Brazil using a 5/8 ground plane on C-B.
There also was a strange day that lasted just a couple hours where even LOCAL C-B contacts were garbled.

 

[Thunderknight]

From this week's ARRL Letter:
"Elsewhere, a new 8-meter propagation beacon, call sign EI1CAH, is now on the air from the west of Ireland on 40.016 MHz. The new beacon will transmit in both CW and PI4 modes with an output power of 25 W into a horizontal dipole. According to the announcement, the new 40 MHz beacon is designed to explore the possibility of VHF paths across the Atlantic, and it may prove a useful propagation for 50 MHz operators in North America looking for openings to Europe. The beacon has the potential to be heard in the Americas and the Caribbean. Visit EI7GL's blog for more information."

 

[p1879]

As I write muti-hop sporadic E comms are making the trans -Atlantic trip on 10 M. One correspondent on this site notes the MUF at his location is 44 MHZ.

QSO/SWL real time maps and lists