Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP

Propagation Report from Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP

25 October, 2009

Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is still at very low levels. There was a sunspot trying to form in the northern hemisphere but currently the visible disk is spotless.

20 and 15 m will provide best opportunities for DX with 10 m showing signs of waking up in the afternoons. Conditions to the East and the West will be good from the afternoons onwards.

During the late afternoons and early evenings it will be good towards Europa. In the mornings it may be possible to make contacts with Australia on 20 m. In the afternoons there are good possibilities for contacts with the USA on 15 m. Contacts with New Zealand are going to be challenging. During the afternoons and evenings 20 and 15 m contacts may be possible with Brazil.

This is what Hannes had to say about DX conditions.
Listen now to what did happen during the past week:
"To his surprise Ean ,ZS1PR, heard John, ZS4S, in a SSB QSO with a Canadian station on Tuesday evening (20th) at 19:55 CAT. When the Canadian station signed off at 20:00 Ean called John and a contact with reports of 55 in both directions resulted.

"Then John turned his Cubical Quad towards Cape Town and the signal strengths increased to over S9 in both directions. At times John's signal was S9+30 with Ean".

Later they were joined by Shane, ZS4TW, Henk, ZS1ACD, and Dennis, ZS1AU. When they signed off at 21:10 signals between Cape Town and Bloemfontein were still good.
Ean also reports that 20 metres in Cape Town are open for DX virtually every evening till around 22:00 CAT.

Back to Hannes. Local conditions are going to be good on 40 m during the day time. 80 m may perform well during the early mornings and late afternoons over the shorter distances. 30 m will perform well over the longer distances during the middle of the day. 80 m is the frequency of choice in the evenings.

Please visit www.spaceweather.co.za for further information.

South African Radio League

• All propagation reports can be found at:
http://www.southgatearc.org/propagation