RadCom Assistant Editor | October 2, 2026
Compiled by G0KYA, G3YLA and G4BAO on
Thursday, 1 October 2026.
As we enter October, we think it’s time to get excited
about HF again.
Some of the best HF conditions can occur this month as
MUFs rise. It might take a couple of weeks to get going but it will, we promise
– there’s a good reason why the CQ Worldwide SSB contest is held in October
after all.
Solar conditions have been surprisingly calm. The
solar flux index has been ranging from 90 to 100 but geomagnetic conditions
have been quiet, with the Kp index usually around one to two.
We had a brief excursion to a Kp index of 4 on 26 and
27 September but this was relatively short-lived.
Daytime Maximum Usable Frequencies, or MUFs, over a
3,000km path have been touching 25 to 28MHz at times, but we can expect this to
improve over the next few weeks.
As long as the Solar Flux Index can stay around 100 we
should see some transatlantic paths opening up on 28MHz but they may not be as
good as previous years.
Ten-metre openings at the start of this month may be
fleeting and unreliable.
What we do have is a massive coronal hole on the Sun’s
equator, which could send the Kp index up this weekend as solar plasma impacts
the Earth. Keep an eye on solarham.com
for updates.
If this comes to pass, expect lower MUFs and poor DX
for a day or two.
DX to be worked this week include 5W0AF from Samoa;
9T0MD from the Democratic Republic of Congo; JW6VM, JW7XK and JW9DL on
Svalbard; 7P8JL, 7P8LZ and 7P8TR in Lesotho; 6O2M (Somalia), C5R from The
Gambia and FW1P from Wallis and Futuna.
NOAA predicts that the SFI this coming week may bottom
out at around 90, before rising again, perhaps reaching 100 to 102 by next
weekend.
As mentioned earlier, we can expect the Kp index to
rise, perhaps hitting four on 5-7 October. After this, it should settle to a
more reasonable Kp index of 2 for the rest of the week.
VHF and up propagation news:
Compiled by G3YLA and G4BAO.
The autumn season is typically a mix of still, quiet
weather with high pressure on the charts and, in contrast, a few days later
deep Atlantic lows roll by with wind and rain.
The coming ten days or so will follow that script and
offer a mix of propagation modes for the VHF/UHF fraternity.
The Tropo conditions will dominate in the south and
should probably be in control up to the middle of next week. Northern Britain
will have activity from weather fronts and possible rain scatter for the GHz
bands, which becomes more general from midweek onwards.
The autumn season is also a prime time for aurora, so
keep that mode on the ‘to do’ list and be aware of changes in the Kp index to
values higher than Kp index 5. Meteor scatter is mostly in the realm of random
activity.
Lastly, a surprise mention of Sporadic-E, which for CW
and SSB modes is pretty much done, but last week on Thursday, 24 September
there was some activity for FT8 within Europe.
This was mixed in with Tropo paths so it was difficult
to pinpoint the exact mode being used without looking at detailed measurements
from radiosondes and ionosondes.
The end result is that ‘out of season’ may still
produce Es for digital modes but it’s probably a rare occurrence.
EME now, and the Moon is at maximum declination on
Friday, 2 October so Moon windows are at their longest and peak Moon elevation
is at its highest.
Path losses are low after perigee on 1 October but
will start to increase. 144 MHz sky noise starts the week moderate, dropping
back to low for the rest of the week.
https://rsgb.org/main/blog/news/gb2rs/propagation-news/2026/10/02/propagation-news-04-october-2026/
(Mike Terry, UK/BDXC)