Topband: VP8STI 160 Meter Path

[Don Kirk]

Larry said "propagation was interesting" and Tree said "W4ZV reported on
the topband chat page that the signal seemed to be coming in from the
North!" in regards to VP8STI last night.

At times I could hear VP8STI in the Midwest (Indianapolis Area), but just
barely, but while listening to them and watching my high definition SDR
based pan adapter I saw the band come alive (like someone turned on a
switch, but I probably missed when the switch was first turned on).  I then
dropped down in frequency (at 0530 UTC Jan 21st), and the band was very
hot, but with very deep and rapid fading.  I then worked UK0LL, UX1UA,
CX6VM, LY7M, SM4CAN, and DF1TL over a 1 hour time span (running 100 watts
into my 68 foot base loaded vertical).

CX6VM was easy copy during this entire 1 hour period of time which was kind
of curious since CX6VM is in the general direction of VP8STI from me, but I
never heard VP8STI much above my S6.2 noise level whereas CX6VM was often
peaking S8 to S9 (but with rapid and deep fade mentioned above).

I have never tried to correlate this phenomena before, but I felt it had to
be related to some kind of geomagnetic storm and I notice the Kp index
spiked early this morning (EST) which correlates well with the 0530 UTC
point mentioned above, and the Kp index was high enough to register as a
geomagnetic storm (as far as I understand it).  Kp index peaked at 6.

Just FYI from someone that really has never looked at the Kp index before
as it relates to this type of phenomena and pretty clueless what it all
means.

Don (wd8dsb)


On Thu, Jan 21, 2016 at 10:06 AM, Larry Burke <wi5a at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> Propagation was interesting. It felt a bit like being on 6 meters. N5DG,
> who
> is only 80 miles NW of me, and I had been listening most of the evening. At
> best we were hearing peeps. Then at 0336z Ed not only starts hearing him
> well, but logs him. Still nothing here. It's a full 20 minutes later before
> I heard and worked him. He came out of nowhere. Signals improved
> considerably after we worked, built to about 569 and stayed that way for at
> least the next 30 minutes.
>
> Ed and I experienced the same situation on 75 meters -- only they built to
> true 5x9 there.
>
> Like Joel, I tinkered with various directions. But they definitely peaked
> SE
> for me. Never heard much, if anything, in other directions.
>
> Larry K5RK
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Topband [mailto:topband-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of MU
> 4CX250B
> Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2016 7:42 AM
> To: w5zn at w5zn.org
> Cc: topband
> Subject: Re: Topband: VP8STI 160 Meter Path
>
> Not a peep from them all evening into New Mexico. Frustrating!
> Jim w8zr
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> > On Jan 21, 2016, at 5:54 AM, Joel Harrison <w5zn at w5zn.org> wrote:
> >
> > Tonight on 160 VP8STI had a good signal. Here in Arkansas their signal
> > arrived from the NE from around 0115z until around 0200z peaking
> > around 5 dB above my noise floor. Around 0200z they went "QRX" for a few
> minutes.
> > When they returned their sig was much weaker and finally faded.
> >
> > As the evening went on their sig returned around 0330z here and was in
> > and out of the noise, still peaking to the NE and somethings shifting E
> to
> SE.
> > Right About a half hour before their SR the signal peaked to the SE
> > and remained their until they faded into the sunrise.
> >
> > Best signal level here was 10 dB above my noise floor.
> >
> > Just wanted to pass that on for the folks (K9LA, W4ZV, etc) that keep
> > track of these paths for us.
> >
> > 73 Joel W5ZN
> >
> >
> > www.w5zn.org
> >
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