VK7JJ

An overnight WSPR session at 14MHz produced a result that was quite unusual, thanks to extremely quiet geomagnetic conditions.

The band had been rapidly becoming quite dead well before midnight.  VK7JJ at the time was only hearing stations local to him, and from the US (mostly in daylight there).

At 22:26UT, VK7JJ heard my 1W at -28dB, but no other UK, or even European station, at all. Because these claims are often the subject of derision and disbelief by some quarters of the 'angry old man' ham community, I always present some proof, dull as it is (my call is near the middle):

It's difficult to know exactly (or even remotely) what mechanism leads to only one signal from essentially half the planet making it to a receiver on the other side of the world.  I understand my unique reception of others to be simply a low noise antenna (delta loop) in a low noise environment, when almost everyone else has significantly higher noise floors.  But my transmissions are not affected by such factors.

For now, the propagation from the UK to VK is clearly an evening long path, and antipodean focusing seems likely to be important, too:

Signal strength predicition for an indicative signal type, at 22UT (Proppy).

If you have good ideas, leave a comment!