[RVRC] Best DX in quite awhile

[Pete Fierro]

       Greetings
    July 24 2012...Day to remember in DX land! I had fun! Did you?73..Pete KD2ARB   




VHF DX:  BIG VHF OPENING ALONG THE EAST AND SOUTH CENTRAL USA

   
They are calling it one of the best VHF band 
openings since the late 1950’s.  This as hams along the Eastern seaboard and 
South-Central states report what appears to be both a tropospheric duct 
and some double-hop E layer skip that permitted QSO’s from Vermont south to Tennessee and Texas on bands as high as 220 MHz on Tuesday, July 
24th.
>
>One interesting report came to us from Kevin Duplantis, W4KEV.  He says 
that at about 5:30 pm EST in Knoxville, Tennessee that he was tuning 
around the FM broadcast  band when he stopped on WRJK 106.7.   That’s 
when he heard a commercial that seemed out of place so he kept 
listening.  It turned out that instead of WRJK he was hearing a station 
identifying as 106.7 the Wizard, Burlington, Vermont.  After a number of
 fades happened and the Vermont station came back so strong that it 
totally wiping out the local Knoxville station that was only 15 miles 
away.
>
>At that point W4KEV reports that he took to the 2 meter band where he 
made what he describes as a ton of contacts into the northeast and 
southeast and Canada.  Some well over 1000 miles distant.  He then 
switched to the 222 MHz band where he noted a definite E-skip opening 
that lasted a solid half hour.  During this time he hears Canadian 
stations make contact with the lower parts of Alabama and Mississippi.
>
>W4KEV hays that they do not get many tropo openings in his area so this was a thrill to say the least. 
>
>
>Meantime the dxworld.com Propagation Logger for 2 meters shows several 
likely record breaking contacts in sheer numbers if nothing else.  By 
way of example, Mike Larsen, KC0CF in Stanhope, Iowa posted that he 
worked 32 stations from Florida to Virginia during the opening and his 
report was just one of many. 
>
>In all, it appears as if July 24th, 2012, is one that will go down in the VHF and UHF record books and operators world wide are 
hoping its only a precursor of what may be still soon to come in DX in 
the world above 50 MHz.  (ARNewsline™, 2 Meter Prop Logger)
>