Category: News / Aktualności

I haven’t collected my thoughts yet, since the extreme tropo propagation from the United Kingdom in October and meanwhile a favourable weather brought the distant radio reception once again. I was travelling back home in a bus on October 23 and I was listening remotely to a radio at my QTH. Local conditions on the CCIR band were, saying the least, terrible. All nearby locations like Poznań or Wrocław/Ślęża were continuously fading down into noise.

Anyway, I’ve been notified about excellent conditions on the 144 MHz band that day, so I continued scanning. For the first time ever, a QSO was made between Spain and Poland via tropo at distance over 1900km. My location was a little too east of the ducting area, however I also found some unusual activity on the 87.5-108MHz band. At one point, I noticed that I’m listening to Ochsenkopf @ 621km instead of Zet Gold from Poznań on 99.4. The signal level was quite unstable, but it was definitely not an aircraft scatter. From time to time the signal was reaching RDS level on both 99.4 Bayern 3 and 90.7 Bayern 1, with a new local PS Bayern1N instead of previously used BR_1_FRA.

This year, the weather at the beginning of October was extraordinary. A massive high pressure system has established itself over the greater part of Europe. It was very warm and the sky was totally clear. I was pretty sure that something special will happen… now or never! All propagation forecasts were very promising at first. However, the ducting area was reduced after each update, at least for Poland. Nevertheless, tropo results were excellent – BBC reception lasted for three days!!