August is, I have found, usually a quiet month for radio, however this month the sun made sure of that.
An extreme event occurred that raised the flux index to 333, a level that I had never seen before. It should have bought a DX bonanza but for some reason the A index rose from a friendly 2, way up to 99 with a total radio blackout. It was so bad that I went into the lounge to watch TV instead but found that it too had pixelated itself into oblivion. In desperation I gave myself a refresher course in operating the DVD player!
When things calmed down a few days later, I found most of my contacts were with the west of America; California, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Utah, and the Dakotas were regulars together with the western provinces of Canada, but almost nothing from the mid-west states and provinces. A nice surprise for me was a FT8 contact with a station in Alaska for a new grid square.
Much as I tried, I could hear nothing of N5J in the Pacific - which was frustrating as Samoa had been easy to hear just a few weeks earlier.
The end of the month brought the retirement of Laurie Margolis G3UML, having worked in BBC news for 50 years. To celebrate, the BBC Radio 4 did a short piece remembering his contact with Bob Mcleod VP8LP who went on air to confirm the invasion of the Falklands in the 1980s. The piece included a short recording of Bob talking to Laurie on SSB. By coincidence the night following this broadcast, Bob was on 15m and I was lucky to break his pileup for a quick chat on SSB, he even remembered my name!
Bob has dropped in to our lunchtime nets over the years and my log shows about 15 contacts.
A couple of weeks earlier I made a FT8 contact with VP8VK who lives in the far west of the Falklands on Saunders Island. She and her family share this island with 5,000 sheep, 150 cattle and loads of penguins. The card shows a contrast to last month’s tropical island!
Since my last report I have reached an annual total of 190 DXCCs. These new ones include; K8, EP4, 3B8, TO8, OJ0 & OH0, TR3, and CY9. Mostly on 15m, FT8 but also some CW and a couple of SSB contacts. So now we enter September and look forward to the equinox.
Things have started to change with some bands closing several hours earlier, however still a few to work!
Cheers & good DXing
Chris, G4ZCS
