144Mhz Tropo

Last night I worked EC1AJL on 2m, here are his antennas in Spain...dream on Steve!

At last! An opening on 2m!

Since putting up my new antennas conditions have been either flat or awful. Over the last few nights I have been watching the weather maps and monitoring the pressure on my new weather station. High pressure of 1036 sitting over the country for most of the week, but then starting to slowly move to the South East. This is the recipe for good conditions into Europe! I was really pleased with myself for remembering how to predict an opening like I used to do back in the 1970's and 80's.

On Wednesday I heard several French stations and some German and Danish stations, most too weak to work with my measly 5 watts, but then later in the evening two quite strong French stations F6BGR and F1UVN were heard and I managed to work them with no problem!

Last night, the opening moved more to the South West with some quite strong stations from Spain coming through. I managed to work two stations EC1AJL and EA1FDI on the North coast of Spain!

Gosh! This was amazing with just 5 watts and a 5 element! It is something like 15 years since I have worked Europe on 2m, and I can't remember if I worked any stations in Spain!

Now i'm writing QSL cards!