Propagation Research

This is Melbourne!

To all readers,

Here in Melbourne, it is winter, with snow having fallen on the nearer  hills in the Yarra Ranges.

Winter is always associated with large windows-of-opportunity opening up during our daytime hours for study of long-haul multi-hop propagation on frequencies between 5900 kHz and 13 MHz, and this season  has proven to be no exception.

We are allowed only 9 hrs. 33 mins of daylight on the days from June 17 to 24, and our latest sunrise occurs on June 8 and 9 at 7.31 am (7.31 am local)

Our earliest sunset happens on June 8 at 5.08 pm (07.08 UTC).

Coupled with continuing low solar activity, I am anticipating some technically interesting propagation across our midday period on 6 MHz and 7 MHz, such as at 12.18 pm (0218 UTC), when the sun is at its highest point (altitude), 29 degrees, above the northern horizon, at that time.

According to IPS, Sydney, the 10.7 cm solar flux is down to 140, and the daily equivalent sunspot number has dropped to 94, as we progress through Sunspot Cycle 24.

The 9 MHz region has (so far!) been the most productive in terms of observed spectrum occupancy across our noon period, with long path propagation from Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and short path from Asia and the Americas.

These are some key observations made on June 6 between 0200 and 0230:

9430 MOLDOVA VOR Kishinev Russian

9535 SPAIN REE Noblejas Spanish

9620 COSTA RICA REE Spanish

9645 ROMANIA RRI Spanish

9665 MOLDOVA VOR Kishinev English

9690 SPAIN CRI Noblejas Chinese

9760 GERMANY RFE Biblis Tajik (to 0200*)

9815 CHINA CRI Kashi Chinese

9835 RTM Kajang Malay

9855 GERMANY RL Biblis Uzbek

9870 AIR Nat Network

9885 TAJIKISTAN Dushanbe Tibetan

9895 CYPRUS BBC Limassol Pashto

9925 GERMANY HRT Wertachtal Croatian

Good monitoring!