HAM RADIO: Who is on air right now? 40m Night Band, 27 Sep

Yaesu FT-891 with MFJ-1640 antenna for 40m SSB reception from Nice, France. Kenwood TS-480HX with a 20m dipole for FT8 monitoring, locator JN33PR. Who will we hear tonight? Japan? New Zealand? Or maybe Brazil? And maybe just before sunrise the band will suddenly open toward the USA. While one part of the planet sleeps — another part of the world is still chasing DX. Sometimes the HF bands are almost empty at night. And sometimes a voice suddenly appears out of the noise from the other side of the planet. And all of this happens with: 100 watts, a mobile HF vertical balcony antenna in Nice, France, and a ham radio station that continues living its own life long after midnight. And yes… One ordinary night once turned into a radio story I kept telling for years afterward. But to understand that story, you’ll need to keep reading. ⸻ CQ DX… This is F4WBU. Blind ham radio operator from France. At night this station follows its own rules. Sometimes I actively work DX on SSB. Sometimes I simply leave the frequency open. And sometimes unexpected DX suddenly appears from places nobody thought would be open. No scripted content. No “perfect YouTube.” Just real nighttime ham radio: weak signals, HF propagation, distant voices, DX pile-ups and operators from all over the world. While Europe sleeps, long-distance propagation slowly starts opening across the planet. At first it may be Indonesia. Then New Zealand. And a few hours later the Caribbean may suddenly appear out of nowhere. Sometimes nighttime propagation suddenly wakes up the entire band. Sometimes an FT8 waterfall appears nearby — simply to see which stations my antenna is currently hearing. Because in radio you never really know what you’re going to hear five minutes from now. ⸻ Operators from all over the world regularly gather in the chat: Europe, Asia, Oceania, Africa, North and South America. If you hear the stream — drop your callsign or simply your country in the chat. Sometimes people stay here for hours. Sometimes they simply leave the radio running in the background. And sometimes a sudden DX pile-up turns the whole band into complete chaos. And yes… sometimes the operator may fall asleep. But the station keeps working anyway. ⸻ Ham radio has a legendary award program: DXCC — 340 countries and territories. And yes, I have a simple plan: activate all of them. If a country can’t hear me — I go there. So far there have already been: Monaco, portable activations, and many more still ahead. Maybe Corsica. Maybe a small island in the middle of the ocean. Or maybe a place that’s even harder to leave than it is to reach. ⸻ Now about that story. Ordinary evening. 100 watts. Mobile balcony antennas. First came Kuwait. Then the Canary Islands. Then Canada. And suddenly Australia answered — and at that moment I realized the band had gone completely insane. Then came Portugal. And suddenly I noticed: 5 continents were already in the log. Only one remained. I started searching the band for South America. Found Argentina. Called. Called again. And right at that moment the station disappeared. Then the stream itself died — the laptop battery was completely dead. So I simply placed my phone in front of the transceiver and kept listening. And then a friend from Brazil suddenly appeared on frequency. He answered on the second call. That’s how on July 4th, 2025, this station somehow worked 6 continents in only 3 hours. Sometimes propagation stops feeling like radio. It starts feeling more like magic than radio. ⸻ Nighttime ham radio continues here every day. More DX. More propagation. More radio stories from the dark side of the ionosphere. Become part of the adventure: paypal.me/casadevito ⸻ Welcome Bienvenue Добро пожаловать Benvenuti Willkommen Bem-vindos أهلاً وسهلاً स्वागत है ようこそ 欢迎 Selamat Datang Selamat datang ⸻ #hamradio #amateurradio #dx #hfradio #ssb Equipment / Station Setup Yaesu FT-891 100 watts MFJ mobile HF vertical antennas from 80m to 6m F4WBU — Vitaly Nice, France ⸻ While one part of the planet sleeps — another still calls CQ DX. 73!