Ukrainian DX Blog: Global HF Weekend

29 October 2018

Global HF Weekend, November 2-4, 2018

The Global HF Weekend is coming up November 2-4, 2018. The GHFW occurs the 1st weekend in April and the first weekend in November every year. The idea is that it's a set time for listeners and stations to try testing to different parts of the world. Over the past few years, the high frequencies have not been great for propagation between Europe and North America, but stations have still been able to reach other continents by operating at other times, etc.

An interesting twist this year is that some hardcore DXers will be listening over the weekend from Prince Edward Island. These guys primarily DX on medium wave and their logs are phenomenal. They literally logged at least 30 countries on medium wave. They also actually heard a number of pirates on the band, including Radio Calypso, Monte Carlo Radio, Bluebird Radio, Radio Doctor Einstein, Witte Tornado and the Lady, and Polkaman. I wonder how many pirates from Europe or North America will test anywhere from 1611 up to about 1720 or 1730 kHz for this DXpedition? Whoever does so has a great chance to be heard in PEI, Canada.

Of course, others will be listening on shortwave, and I'm looking forward to hearing who might turn up. I plan to be updating this blog with information about the weekend and also about Halloween coming up. If any stations send schedules to me, I'll post them here without station names for security reasons.

A. Yoder

Source: Hobby Broadcasting Blog

Thanks also to André (Cool AM) for the GHFW promo:

17 March 2018

Next Global HF Weekend

Hi,

Just writing with information about the next Global HF Weekend:

March 30, 31, and April 1, 2018

It’s still a couple weeks away, so be sure to mark the next Global HF Pirate Weekend on your calendar.

The idea behind the Global HF Weekends are to promote friendship through radio around the world. The hope is that listeners will be able to hear different stations and for broadcasters to reach distant locations. Anyone may participate.

The last one, which occurred during the first weekend of November 2017, was very successful. A handful of North American stations were reported on Europe and vice versa. And South American stations were heard in the North. Other stations were active specifically for the weekend, but just for a local or regional audience.

We’ll see how many stations show up during the next GHFW. It seems unlikely that stations will be using 13 meters this time and much more likely that stations will be trying the 6900-kHz range and possibly 31 and 25 meters.

March 30, 31, & April 1, 2018
Maybe 15010-15090 kHz, probably 6200-6400 kHz and 6800-6990 kHz

Of course, these were general frequency ranges used by pirates during prior Global HF Pirate weekends. Some stations will surely operate on frequencies and times outside of these ranges. In fact, the way conditions have been lately, frequencies at or below 15 MHz seem like they will be more effective for intercontinental broadcasting. These will be updated on the Hobby Broadcasting (http://hobbybroadcasting.blogspot.com/) blog as it happens and also check the loggings on HF Underground (https://www.hfunderground.com/).

Andrew Yoder

Thanks to André, CoolAM Radio!