Update on 20m and 40m propagation to Europe & the Americas

I’ve been testing and using a variety of wire and vertical antenna’s for 20m and 40m at my home QTH in Townsville which I’m bringing to the island. Last night both the dipole and vertical worked well on 40m PSK at 1030-1300 UTC before I had to go QRT. 40 stations were worked from the east coast of USA and Canada through to the mid-west following the greyline sunrise nicely until it reached CA/WA/OR when I had to go to bed. Others worked were LU, YV, XE and CO (and also XR200R on SSB), so I’ll certainly be looking to get into this part of the world on PSK31 (& maybe SSB) from 0700 UTC through to west coast USA sunrise.

As for Europe, I was able to work 40m PSK31 this morning just before I went to work in the 2000-2030 UTC period. So it should be ok for me to get into Europe on PSK31 (and maybe SSB) from European sunset until my sunrise at 2030/2100 UTC. On 20m, during the WAE SSB contest last weekend, I had no luck at all with the Fitzroy Island antenna set up on 20m long path. But the great news was that later on, the short path opened up nicely and I was even able to run for an hour!! So that was a huge relief. On the second night I struggled, but I could still give QTC’s to the big guns. As for PSK31 and RTTY, 20m into Europe on the short path should be no problem. So the 20m band on the short path to Europe is getting better week by week and should be good in the 1200-1500 UTC period for SSB and even later for PSK31.  

As for JA and Asia, 20m and 40m should be no major problem. During the day I’ll also be on 15m SSB, RTTY and PSK31 with the vertical dipole so I hope to see you on that band.  

Sorry I don’t do CW, but I’ll be on PSK31 a lot, at least 50% of the time to maximise my low power and modest antenna operation. I’m hoping the close proximity to the water with the beachside cabin will help me to give you OC-172.