HAPPY EQUINOX
Today is the northern Autumnal Equinox. That's good news for sky watchers because auroras love equinoxes. Around this time of year, the magnetic fields of Earth and sun can link together, setting the stage for geomagnetic storms. Researchers call it the "Russell-McPherron effect," but you can just think of it as "fall colors." Happy Equinox!
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Jen's Instrumental Madness Surf Special for September 21, 1700-2100 UTC, is now up and ready for downloading & listening
Link for my Cast.
RSGB
GB2RS News Team | September 19, 2025
Last week we said that it looked like someone had thrown a switch on the Sun and all the sunspots had vanished. Well, this week we’re pleased to report they’re back!
We have eight sunspot groups, spread evenly throughout the Sun’s hemispheres. Interestingly, the northern hemisphere sunspots are close to the equator, which is what you would expect at this point in the latter part of the solar cycle. The southern spots are somewhat higher in latitude, perhaps indicating that there might still be the potential for a double peak.
On Thursday 18 September, the solar flux index stood at 147 and the Kp index at 2. This suggests that HF conditions might be pretty good, at least until the next geomagnetic disturbance.
There have been no M- or X-class solar flares over the past week.
The solar wind speed dropped from a high of 800 kilometres per second on Tuesday 16 September, to a more reasonable 538 kilometres per second on Thursday 18 September. However, the Bz has been pointing south at times, which can cause problems with a raised Kp index.
The maximum useable frequency, or MUF, over a 3,000km path generally allows for operation between 21 and 24MHz during daylight and 7 and 10.1MHz at night. At 0845UTC on Thursday 18 September, a quick check of the NCDXF beacons on 21.150MHz showed reception of CS3B in Madeira and 4X6TU in Israel.
On 24.930MHz, 4S7B in Sri Lanka, ZS6DN in South Africa, and CS3B in Madeira could be heard. On 28.200MHz the only audible beacon was 4X6TU in Israel.
The NCDXF beacons are a quick way to check worldwide HF propagation in just three-minutes per band, from 20 to 10m. For more details visit ncdxf.org/beacon
HF DX this week has included FP5KE on St Pierre and Miquelon, which is operating until 26 September. PJ7K on St. Maarten, which is active until 22 September, was worked; and VK9NT on Norfolk Island, which is operating until 27 September, also made it into UK logbooks. Check the DX cluster for the latest spots.
Next week NOAA predicts the solar flux index will remain in the range of 125 to 135. The Kp index is forecast to remain low at 2 all week. A coronal hole threatens to push the Kp index higher, perhaps late today, 21 September, or tomorrow, 22 September.
VHF and up:
The first part of the coming week will be under the influence of the unsettled weather pattern with lows and fronts affecting the British Isles. So, it feels like there will be a few more days for the GHz rain scatter folk to play.
Be aware that even among low-pressure systems there can be fleeting moments of good Tropo. On Friday 19 September there were ideal Tropo conditions over southern Britain and south across Biscay to Spain as well as east across the North Sea.
The big change takes place on Wednesday 24 September as an area of high pressure starts to build over the UK. This could last through to the end of the week. So, there is plenty of time to develop some good Tropo conditions over large parts of the UK and near-continent.
There will probably be an elevated inversion some 1 or 2km above the surface. This will be caused by the high itself and may provide ducting conditions throughout the 24-hour period. This may be supported by temporary surface inversions overnight due to the ground cooling.
These features tend to take a while to establish, which suggests that the latter part of the coming week may be the best time to operate. The effect will only just be starting to influence conditions over the western side of the UK for the SHF UK Activity Contest on Tuesday 23 September.
Regarding the aurora prospects, it feels like we should be keeping a watch throughout this autumn period when the Earth’s magnetic field couples with the solar wind more effectively. Earlier last week the Kp reached 5, which is a good trigger to get interested in beaming north for those fluttery auroral signals.
Meteor scatter remains in between events at the moment with no major showers in the period. So, it’s random meteors only which, as we know, tend to favour the early morning, pre-dawn hours.
We are outside the traditional Sporadic-E season now but, as you may have noticed on the Propquest graphs, there has been the occasional spike on the foEs plot up to 5MHz or so. This is plenty to generate some strong short-skip European signals on the HF bands, especially 10m.
In the morning on Wednesday 17 September, Sporadic-E was probably triggered by the powerful jet stream moving east over the near continent. There may well be further occasions with strong jet streams during the next week, so keep checking the NVIS tab at propquest.co.uk to see if the foEs trace spikes again.
Now for an EME update. Moon declination is decreasing, from its maximum on 14 September. The Moon’s distance from Earth is also increasing until apogee on the 27-28 September. This means path losses are growing over the next week. Sky noise will remain low until 29-30 September.
(Mike Terry, UK/BDXC)
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RSGB
GB2RS News Team | September 12, 2025
As of Thursday 11 September, it looked like someone had thrown a switch on the Sun to turn off all new sunspots! Unless there is a big change, there will be no sunspots visible on the Sun’s surface today, the 14 September.
It is clear that we are no longer at solar maximum.
A bigger problem is a large coronal hole on the Sun’s surface, which is rotating to be Earth-facing. It is on the Sun’s equator so is ideally placed for maximum disruption to the Earth. A high-speed solar wind stream should reach Earth by the 14 September, and geomagnetic storming may be possible at higher latitudes. Expect maximum usable frequencies, or MUFs, to drop and trans-polar paths to be affected once the Kp index rises.
HF is now starting to improve as we head towards mid-September. By 1000UTC Propquest shows that the MUF over a 3,000km path can be as high as 31MHz, as long as the Kp index stays low. This should continue to improve as we head into October.
The best DX last week continued to be T30TTT in Western Kiribati, this time on the 40 and 17m bands using FT8. 9J2FI in Zambia also put in an appearance on the 17m band using FT8. TZ4AM in Mali was spotted on the 15m band using SSB. For Morse enthusiasts, HC5AI in Ecuador was working on the 15m band using CW, according to the CDXC Slack chat group.
NOAA predicts that the solar flux index will start the coming week at 125 but then gradually improve to reach 145 by the end of the week. As mentioned earlier, the Kp index is set to reach 4 or 5 between the 14 and 16 September due to the coronal hole.
VHF and up :
The present spell of unsettled weather is likely to remain the main driver of weather-related propagation modes for the next week. Low-pressure systems are following the jet stream across the Atlantic and over the UK, which is a typical track for this time of the year. This means that we should expect to experience the odd example of rain scatter for the GHz operators, and occasional strong winds will start to test that we have our antennas in good order after the quieter weather during the summer.
This is not to say that there won’t be any Tropo but we will have to look for it carefully. In a mobile weather pattern such as this, the periods of high pressure tend to act as separators between the lows and, as a result, they usually move with similar speed. This makes them short-lived and thus not particularly good at establishing strong inversions for Tropo. There are two low-grade possibilities. One is around Tuesday 16 September as a weak transient ridge moves across the country. The second will be as another weak ridge moves across on Friday 19 September.
The meteor scatter situation is still pretty much in a random activity state, although there was a minor shower of the Epsilon Perseids, which peaked on the 9 September and may have a few left in the tail-off. However, in general, it’s more realistic to assume we’re dealing with random activity. Aurora, on the other hand, has been putting in an appearance lately, so keep watching the Kp index for values climbing above 5.
Now for an update on EME. Today, the 14 September, marks the Moon’s maximum declination – its highest point in the sky. Perigee, when the Moon is at its closest point to Earth, was passed on 9 September, so path losses are increasing. Sky noise is low and will remain so until the 20 to 22September when the new Moon is very close to the Sun.
https://rsgb.org/main/blog/news/gb2rs/propagation-news/2025/09/12/propagation-news-14-september-2025/
(Mike Terry/BDXC)
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| HCJB Studio QSL |
In 1941, live programs were added in Russian,
Swedish and Quechua, the predominant indigenous language of the Andes. The frequencies in use at this time were 6050,
9745, 11775 and 15155 kHz. By 1944, the
station had aired programming in 14 languages including live programs in Czech,
Dutch, French and German. Programs in
languages such as Arabic, Italian and Hebrew were recorded elsewhere and sent
to Quito on large acetate-coated aluminum transcription discs.
In 1951 HCJB acquired 45 acres of land near the town of Pifo, 20 miles east of Quito, where they constructed transmission and antenna facilities that enabled considerable expansion over the following decades. Initially, eight curtain antennas and two dipoles were erected, and all broadcast activities were moved to the Pifo site in 1953, with two studio-to-transmitter links operating on FM. Broadcasts in German were expanded, not targeting Europe, but rather the many post-war German-speaking communities in South America. HCJB’s first ‘high-power’ shortwave transmitter, a 50 kW unit, was again designed and built in-house in 1956. Here’s a recording of HCJB from 1957:
Then in 1961, HCJB launched
a TV station for Quito - the first licensed TV station in Ecuador. And in 1965, HCJB’s own hydro-electric plant
at Papallacta began generating sufficient electricity to power all the
broadcasts from Pifo. Pre-recorded ‘Voice
of the Andes’ radio programs in Central European languages began to be aired,
and more live programming in Portuguese and Japanese was added in 1967.
Also in 1967, three
100 kW RCA transmitters were acquired from Vatican Radio, and these were placed
into service progressively between 1968 and 1970. HCJB was then receiving hundreds of letters
each week with reception reports from shortwave DXers around the world. The
correspondence department of HCJB responded to its listeners with QSL cards and
Christian tracts.
photo via Radio Heritage
One fondly remembered program was "DX-Partyline", which was hosted from its inception by HCJB missionary Clayton Howard and his wife, Helen. The program was heard for more than 40 years, twice a week, and included the reading of letters from shortwave listeners around the world as well as reception reports sent to the station. "DX-Partyline" also included shortwave radio listening tips, information on antennas, and equipment reviews. In 1974, Clayton Howard suggested a shortwave listeners' club be created, and so ‘Andes DXers International’, (or "ANDEX") began. Members would receive a membership certificate and membership card with the member's name and individual member number, along with Howard's signature. A monthly bulletin was sent to members, of which I was one. In fact, I was one of HCJB’s monitors in the UK, sending them many dozens of reception reports over the years, and I still have an HCJB pennant hanging in my studio. ANDEX eventually had a membership in the thousands and continued as a service of HCJB until 1996.
Besides DX-Partyline, other original radio programming produced by HCJB staff members included "Morning in the Mountains," "Musica del Ecuador," "Musical Mailbag," "Happiness Is," and “Passport”.
In the mid-1970s, HCJB constructed a
secondary transmitter site halfway up Mount Pichincha, the volcano in whose
foothills Quito is built. There, they
installed a 50 kW medium wave transmitter, operating on 690 kHz. On Sunday nights they often ran DX tests, such
as this one:
In 1979, a steerable ‘egg
beater’ antenna was constructed, and in 1981 a 500 kW transmitter, designed by HCJB’s
own engineers, was built at the facilities of Crown International in Elkhart,
Indiana.
Then in the 1990’s, HCJB
engineers built a number of new 100 kW transmitters using the HC-100 design, which
also used operation on SSB with a carrier.
These transmitters were the ministry’s contribution to the “World by
2000” challenge, and they were of a successful design that was deployed not
only in Pifo, but also at TWR in Swaziland and later at Reach Beyond in
Australia. Here’s an Id from June 1994:
Over the years, more
land was bought adjoining the Pifo site, such that it eventually covered more
than 200 acres. By 1995,
there were 13 transmitters and 32 antennas on the Pifo site, beaming to all
corners of the globe. The main studio
compound was in downtown Quito, from where programming was fed to the
transmitter site via a microwave link which replaced the earlier FM links.
A staff of over 100 people was employed in
the radio ministry, and nearly double that were involved in the operation of
HCJB’s medical clinics throughout the country.
The eventual closedown of HCJB from Quito came not because of falling listenership or loss of commitment to shortwave broadcasting, but rather because of the decision of the Ecuadorian government to demand the removal of HCJB's shortwave antenna masts, which they determined would be too close to the new Quito airport then under construction. Consideration was given to building a new shortwave station near Guayaquil, but in the end, the mission leadership in the USA decided instead to move their base of operations from Ecuador to Australia.
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| HCJB QSL via Teak Publishing Archives |
The station at Pifo near Quito was gradually shut down and dismantled in the mid-2000’s, and their final broadcast in English was on Saturday May 6, 2006, and on Sunday, September 30, 2009, after nearly 80 years of international shortwave broadcasting from Ecuador, radio station HCJB made its last high-power transmission. The 50 kW medium wave transmitter on 690 kHz was shut down in 2017, but the station does continue to this day from the Mount Pichincha site, with Spanish and Quechua on 6050 kHz, using a 1 kW transmitter and a double-dipole antenna designed to reach the remote rural areas of Ecuador.
Back to you, Jeff.
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| Photo via Space.Com |
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| September 2025 QSL |
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T8WH Hope
Radio, Palau
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Audio Clip - 06 T8WH Hope R, Palau - 2025 06 21 - 0157 UTC, 15680 kHz
and the second just half an hour later, at 0230 UTC:
Audio Clip - 07 T8WH Hope R, Palau - 2025 06 21 - 0230 UTC, 15680 kHz
KSDA Adventist World Radio, Agat, Guam
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Then there’s KSDA, Adventist World Radio, from Agat on the island of Guam. Dan first heard that station back in 1987 and received their QSL for his reception in London, Ontario, Canada. The station is still active today, and he has posted two more recordings of transmissions made in June this year, heard via a web SDR located in northern Thailand. The first is of the start of a program in Mandarin at 1200 UTC on June 7th. The frequency was 9610 kHz:
Audio Clip - 08 KSDA, Guam - 2025 06 07 - 1200 UTC, 9610 kHz
The second was from two weeks later on June 21st, when they were signing off 15680 kHz (the same frequency used by T8WH on Palau) at 1627 UTC:
Audio Clip -09 KSDA, Guam - 2025 06 21 - 1627 UTC sign off, 15680 kHz
KTWR, Agana, Guam
And of course, while we’re in Guam, we must also mention KTWR, Trans World Radio, which broadcasts from their site at Merizo, a little further down the west coast of the island from the KSDA site at Agat.
KTWR recently announced they will be closing their shortwave station on Guam after the current A25 season, at the end of October. But, there are still a few weeks remaining to log this one before they’re gone from the airwaves forever. And, with the help of various web SDR’s located around the globe, the task shouldn’t be too difficult.
Again, Dan has posted two recordings made in June this year. The first recording was made on June 8 at 1100 UTC, through the use of a web SDR in northern Thailand tuned to 11965 kHz, and captures their sign-on announcement:
Audio Clip - 10 KTWR, Guam - 2025 06 08 - 1058 UTC, 11965 kHz
In the second recording he made on July 11, 2025, they are heard at the end of their broadcast on that same frequency, 11965 kHz, with a sign-off just 15 minutes later at 1115 UTC. This recording was made from a web SDR in the Philippines.
Audio Clip - 11 KTWR, Guam - 2025 07 11 - 1114 UTC sign off, 11965 kHz
So, with shortwave stations still active in New Zealand, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Palau, and Guam, there are still some interesting catches of Pacific island stations to be made out there, and since the advent of web SDR’s, you don’t need fancy equipment or antenna setups to hear them. And especially for the stations on Palau and Guam, if you happen to live in their target areas, try listening to them and then writing in. Describe the program content you heard and ask questions about anything you didn’t fully understand. You might just help persuade them there’s an audience for which it’s worth staying on the air!
Back to you, Jeff.
