Following the Intermar e.V. morning net yesterday, Uwe/DF5AM, Lothar/EA8DES and myself agreed for a test connection from Gran Canaria to Lanzarote. Silvia/DM1SIL also joined  from the south of Fuerteventura.

I did run the calculation with VOACAP and a snapshot of the results can be seen in the picture below. It basically provides you with the best frequency to be used at a given date/time for the distance you want to cover. We agreed to try 7195kHz as we had a high probability that this should work.

It worked in one direction. Both Silvia and Uwe could hear me very well with a strong signal but vice versa was just noise and I could not hear anything.

This result is not a surprise as experience shows that receiving while at berth in a crowded  marina is hard. There are too many sailing masts absorbing the incoming signal. We agreed to run another test at the time we are out on the ocean again.

As a HAM radio operator on High Frequencies (HF = 3 – 30MHz) you depend on these external factors and the challenge is to “cooperate” with the propagation conditions of electromagnetic waves influenced by many factors. 

Fair winds…