G0KTN Amateur Radio - 2026 current projects and technical notes

  40MHz (8m) TEP propagation from ZS6WAB – Part 2 Solar drivers, event behaviour and what the data can (and cannot) prove Introduction In Part 1, the ZS6WAB 40.675 MHz CW beacon dataset demonstrated that transequatorial propagation (TEP) into Europe is: Repeatable Strongly seasonal More prominent during the stronger years of Solar Cycle 25 The next question is straightforward: What governs individual TEP openings? This article examines how the observed events relate to solar and geomagnetic conditions, while remaining grounded in what the dataset can realistically support. A note on methodology Before looking at the data, several limitations must be recognised: CW spotting is not continuous Event start/end times are approximate Mode labels are operator assigned No direct ionospheric measurements are included This means that the dataset is well suited to identifying patterns and correlations, but not sufficient on its own to establish causation. Sola...

  40MHz (8m) TEP propagation from the ZS6WAB CW beacon Why ZS6WAB matters The ZS6WAB CW beacon is situated near Polokwane, South Africa in QRA locator KG46 and runs 30W to a 5 element yagi pointed north towards Europe on a nominal frequency of 40.675MHz. Its southern hemisphere location makes it ideally placed for studying transequatorial propagation (TEP) into Europe. More importantly, it appears to be the only consistently monitored beacon on this path. The dataset analysed here spans 16 June 2022 to 16 March 2026 and comprises 2,502 reception reports submitted via DX Cluster and the UK Beaconspot archive. TEP: a long-studied but still evolving mechanism Transequatorial propagation is not new. It has been studied continuously since the late 1940s, with the first recognised observations dating back to around 1947. Despite decades of research, TEP remains an active area of investigation, with new refinements and theoretical developments still being proposed. Modern understand...