Long Distance VHF Beacon
This weekend saw a welcome period of long distance reception of signals on the VHF bands.
These periods, they are called 'Sporadic E events', occur over a period of a few days (if you're lucky) during the Summer and can produce signals as loud as local stations from transmitters far away.
From the UK, most signals tend to be in a South or South-East direction and so bring in stations from across Europe. This event was no exception and this time it was signals from an area along the West coast of Italy that filled my receiver.
Because of other commitments (my wife still has an inner ear infection and is unable to drive so I am now a chauffeur) I didn't have as much time I would have liked but I did get the chance to listen on a band (6 metres) that contains a lot of beacons.
The trace above is of a new beacon, IT9X, located in Messina which is at the top part of the island of Scilly in Italy. It is a new beacon and transmits it's callsign in various transmitting modes which accounts for the rather lovely trace you get.
The beacon was audible for most of the last two days at varying strength but disappeared just before the event finished.
Although I didn't get as much time on the radio as I had hoped, it was a lot of fun and resulted in a lot of stations being heard.
These periods, they are called 'Sporadic E events', occur over a period of a few days (if you're lucky) during the Summer and can produce signals as loud as local stations from transmitters far away.
From the UK, most signals tend to be in a South or South-East direction and so bring in stations from across Europe. This event was no exception and this time it was signals from an area along the West coast of Italy that filled my receiver.
Because of other commitments (my wife still has an inner ear infection and is unable to drive so I am now a chauffeur) I didn't have as much time I would have liked but I did get the chance to listen on a band (6 metres) that contains a lot of beacons.
The trace above is of a new beacon, IT9X, located in Messina which is at the top part of the island of Scilly in Italy. It is a new beacon and transmits it's callsign in various transmitting modes which accounts for the rather lovely trace you get.
The beacon was audible for most of the last two days at varying strength but disappeared just before the event finished.
Although I didn't get as much time on the radio as I had hoped, it was a lot of fun and resulted in a lot of stations being heard.
