New World Meteor Scatter Record on 144 MHz... 7th Aug 2018

It seems to be a week of new records on 144 MHz. Following on from the new Region 1 tropo record on the 5th of August 2018, a new world record for meteor scatter on 144 MHz was set on the 7th of August.

In the early hours of the 7th of August, Dieter DJ6AG (JO51eq) in Germany worked Fernando EA8TX (IL18qi) in the Canary Islands to set a new world distance record of 3428 kms. The FSK contact took several hours to complete with the final decode being received in Germany at 00:14 UTC.

001430 16.0 220 1 26 9 R!RRRR EA TX RRRR RRRR EA8TX RRRR

The new record of 3428 kms breaks the old record between EA8TJ and S50C by 51 kms.

Previous best distances by meteor scatter on 144 MHz in Region 1...

Distance record on 144 MHz Propagation : MS
Band Propagation Call a Loc Call b Loc Mode Date Distance
144 MHz MS S50C JN76JG EA8TJ IL18RJ FSK441 2013-08-12 3377
144 MHz MS EA8TJ IL18RJ PA4EME JO20WX FSK441 2013-08-12 3132
144 MHz MS GW4CQT IO81LP UW6MA KN97VE CW 1977-08-12 3101
144 MHz MS HB9FAP JN47PH EA8TX IL18QI FSK441 2014-08-14 3077
144 MHz MS HB9FAP JN47PH EA8TJ IL18RJ FSK441 2013-08-13 3069

It's very probable that there was a combination of meteor scatter and tropo involved in this record. It was probably a long meteor scatter hop of about 2,200-2,300 kms from Germany to the south coast of Portugal and marine ducting tropo from there to the Canary Islands.

Is this the maximum?



It may be possible to extend the record in Germany but the problem will be the roughly max distance of about 2300kms to reach the marine ducting area by meteor scatter. One intriguing possibility is perhaps from the north of Scotland, Shetlands or Faroe Islands (OY) and be able to reach the marine duct off the west coast of Portugal if it extended that far north?

Links...
1) Southgate radio news
2) Region 1 VHF distance records
3) ON4KST chat