** After reporting on the massive effort on the trans atlantic VHF
communication record news has broken during this week that this last
bastion of the VHF bands has been half conqured.
Terry Gabriel, M0VRL, at Delabole, Cornwall, England, heard a weak JT65
signal, in and out of the noise, on 144,155 MHz around 11:53 UTC on
Saturday morning 5th July 2014, which occurred during the transatlantic
tests conducted by VC1T, a Canadian team. Terry has a big station and
shares an IARU Region 1 Tropo distance record of 4106 km with D44TD in
Cape Verde Islands, established on 144 MHz SSB. The distance between
VC1T, locator GN37os at Pouch Cove, Newfoundland, and M0VRL, locator
IO70po, is 3457 km! They are now using WSJT 9.7, which is the latest
digital version available and feeding 800 Watts into a 43 element Yagi
with a gain of 24 dBd.
Breathtaking news occurred on July 6th at 13:41 UTC when John Regnault,
G4SWX VHF Manager of the RSGB, received a CQ meteor burst (FSK441 mode)
from VC1T. It was confirmed that the received burst was in the format
transmitted by VC1T. They started the 4 hours timeframe and no further
information on chat or e-mail exchanged. During that timeframe G4SWX
received 3 other bursts from which 2 were CQ and one other where only
the VC1T call sign was readable. Screenshots from WSJT are available as
well as maps from the current tropo situation on the North-Atlantic. The
Hepburn Forecasts of the North Atlantic have indicated very poor Tropo
Ducting conditions so far, but there is a chance that tropospheric
conditions could improve from 11 - 12 July 2014 when the tests come to
an end.
A terrestrial two-way contact between North America and Europe has not
been achieved so far on 144 MHz, and it appears to be even more
challenging than making EME contacts over a total distance of 800 000 km
on this band.
communication record news has broken during this week that this last
bastion of the VHF bands has been half conqured.
Terry Gabriel, M0VRL, at Delabole, Cornwall, England, heard a weak JT65
signal, in and out of the noise, on 144,155 MHz around 11:53 UTC on
Saturday morning 5th July 2014, which occurred during the transatlantic
tests conducted by VC1T, a Canadian team. Terry has a big station and
shares an IARU Region 1 Tropo distance record of 4106 km with D44TD in
Cape Verde Islands, established on 144 MHz SSB. The distance between
VC1T, locator GN37os at Pouch Cove, Newfoundland, and M0VRL, locator
IO70po, is 3457 km! They are now using WSJT 9.7, which is the latest
digital version available and feeding 800 Watts into a 43 element Yagi
with a gain of 24 dBd.
Breathtaking news occurred on July 6th at 13:41 UTC when John Regnault,
G4SWX VHF Manager of the RSGB, received a CQ meteor burst (FSK441 mode)
from VC1T. It was confirmed that the received burst was in the format
transmitted by VC1T. They started the 4 hours timeframe and no further
information on chat or e-mail exchanged. During that timeframe G4SWX
received 3 other bursts from which 2 were CQ and one other where only
the VC1T call sign was readable. Screenshots from WSJT are available as
well as maps from the current tropo situation on the North-Atlantic. The
Hepburn Forecasts of the North Atlantic have indicated very poor Tropo
Ducting conditions so far, but there is a chance that tropospheric
conditions could improve from 11 - 12 July 2014 when the tests come to
an end.
A terrestrial two-way contact between North America and Europe has not
been achieved so far on 144 MHz, and it appears to be even more
challenging than making EME contacts over a total distance of 800 000 km
on this band.