[UK-CONTEST] 80m CC CW Tonight - propagation

[g3ory at lineone.net]

Morning all,

I followed the 80m propagation last night by having the output of the 
Chilton Ionosonde visible in the shack.

At tea time there was good E layer propagation with Fcrit up to about 
4 MHz. As the contest approached, this E layer faded leaving F/F2 
propagation with an extraordinary ray Fcrit of about 3MHz where it 
remained for the whole evening as far as I could see.

The contest started as expected with longish skip and the GMs having a 
real ball working all the Gs in the south and midlands of England who 
were having great difficulty working each other.

At 2055 the E layer started to reappear on the ionogram.  By 2130 the 
E layer Fcrit was up to something like 4.5 MHz but by 2200 it was 
fading fast and was down to around 3.5 MHz

Now what I fail to understand is how an ionised layer can reform after 
dark. At the layer height of 110 km on the ionogram, it must surely be 
in darkness at 2100, some four and a half hours after sunset at ground 
level.  Has a bit of ionisation drifted in from somewhere else?  Has 
the increase been triggered by indirect solar activity (indirect 
meaning non line-of-sight)?  Why did no corresponding change occur in 
the F layer? Are these events predictable in any way?

Can anyone tell me what I fail to understand about all this?

73 Bob
G3ORY

>----Original Message----
>From: MM0BQI at blueyonder.co.uk
>Date: 05/01/2010 8:17 
>To: "Stewart Rolfe"<gw0etf at btinternet.com>, "UK-Contest"<uk-
contest at contesting.com>
>Subj: Re: [UK-CONTEST] 80m CC  CW Tonight - any reports?
>
>Hi Stewart
>Conditions and activity seemed good from here in the centre of 
Edinburgh.
>I worked almost everyone I could hear with signals getting louder 
towards 
>the end.
>51 Qs on my loaded 'garden special' dipole is not too bad for me!
>I tried a quick experiment (in the snow) with a short vertical and a 
couple 
>of radials located at the bottom of the garden and this seemed to 
pick up 
>less local QRM so I may think about developing that over the next 
week or 
>so.  My main problem is hearing signals above the local noise so this 
may be 
>a good way to improve things.
>73
>Jim,  MM0BQI
>
>
>
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Stewart Rolfe" <gw0etf at btinternet.com>
>To: "UK-Contest" <uk-contest at contesting.com>
>Sent: Monday, January 04, 2010 11:23 PM
>Subject: [UK-CONTEST] 80m CC CW Tonight - any reports?
>
>
>> Being stranded in the depths of southern England helping my sick 
>> father-in-law meant I missed the CC tonight. A few reports would 
ease the 
>> disappointment though, something to read to stop me going 'ga-ga' 
too.....
>>
>> Looking at the 'logs received' page I see some very respectable eu 
scores 
>> but some big G numbers too so conditions looked as if they were 
good for 
>> eu and inter-G too. Seem to remember last year's January event 
being 
>> pretty poor and mainly long skip so maybe I missed some fun this 
time?
>>
>> Hope to be back for AFS, snow and recovery willing...
>>
>> 73,
>>
>> Stewart Rolfe, G(W)0ETF /p in Winchcombe, Glos
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> UK-Contest at contesting.com
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>>
>> 
>
>
>
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2009: A year in review - http://www.tiscali.co.uk/2009