Tropo opening 31st Jan

[VK7HH]

On Friday the 31st of January, a large tropo opening was predicted to form between VK7 and ZL. Much discussion was had in the week beforehand and several stations decided to try and participate.

Due to the high fire danger and subsequent closure, Mt Wellington was ruled out as a possible spot to operate. Murray VK7ZMS, Richard VK7ZBX and Hayden VK7HH set off to operate from One Tree Hill near Kingston whilst Rex VK7MO operated from home, hoping to work Roger ZL3RC on 10 GHz.

We arrived on site shortly after 6am local time and commenced setting up and the first contact was made to Nick ZL1IU on 2m at 5/5 by Murray. Richard then worked Nick on 70cm at 5/1 both ways. Murray also worked Nick on 432. This is Murray's first contacts to ZL on 2m and 70cm. Congratulations Murray!

Then at 20:08 UTC, Rex worked Nick 5/6 on 1296 MHz, the first contact between VK7 and ZL on 23cm and a new state record at 2432.6km settling a long held frustration having not worked back in 2006 when a similar opening occurred.

Then, 9 mins later at 20:17 UTC, Hayden worked Nick 4/1 both ways on 1296 from his remote site, the 2nd contact between VK7 and ZL on 23cm and a new National and State record at 2458.9km. This breaks the current National Record which was set in 1988 between VK3 and 6 by 3.8km.

Later contacts were made on 2m with varying signal strengths throughout the morning to ZL1SWW, ZL1TPH and ZL3RC. We thank all the stations who participated in giving it a real go on this opening. Unfortunately, despite Hepburn predictions, conditions were not strong enough for any other bands above 1296, despite repeated attempts.

73
Hayden VK7HH

[VK2ZRH]

Congratulations and Well Done Hayden and company!

Preparation meets Opportunity.

Roger VK2ZRH

[VK7HH]

Justin VK7TW speaks with Rex VK7MO and Hayden VK7HH on Ham Radio DX about recent tropospheric ducting allowing an opening to ZL (New Zealand). We go through the various station setups, predicting such events and new broken DX distance records on the 23cm - 1296 MHz band.