Over the last few days, there have been another opening from the north-west of Europe on the VHF and UHF bands to Cape Verde Islands off the west coast of Africa. The map above shows the opening on 144 MHz on the 22nd of July 2020 with many of the FT8 signals from D4VHF around the 4000 km mark.
xmtr Rcvr Band Mode Distance Time (UTC)
D4VHF GW4VXE 2m FT8 4280 km 19:01:11
D4VHF GW1JFV 2m FT8 4264 km 21:31:14
D4VHF GW6TEO 2m FT8 4249 km 20:44:14
D4VHF EI8KN 2m FT8 4230 km 20:57:11
D4VHF EI2FG 2m FT8 4182 km 19:51:41
D4VHF M0BKV 2m FT8 4181 km 22:49:14
D4VHF EI3KD 2m FT8 4170 km 22:22:14
D4VHF G4LOH 2m FT8 4098 km 23:26:14
M0AFJ D4VHF 2m FT8 4094 km 19:52:26
D4VHF G3NJV 2m FT8 4090 km 21:34:14
D4VHF G7RAU 2m FT8 4086 km 23:25:11
D4VHF F6KHM 2m FT8 3966 km 22:25:14
D4VHF F8DBF 2m FT8 3963 km 22:39:14
F6DRO D4VHF 2m FT8 3870 km 15:30:26
The path was also open on 432 MHz...
As with previous openings of this type, the path is marine ducting. There seems to be almost a permanent 3000 km path from Cape Verde to Spain & Portugal at certain times of the year and this pushes northwards towards the UK and Ireland from time to time.
Just to give an idea of how good this opening was, Tim GW4VXE in the far SW of Wales reports hearing D4VHF on 70cms with a vertical!
It would be really interesting to see if this path extends up into the microwave bands, especially on 1296 MHz.
3 comments:
I am kicking myself that I wasn’t in the shack at the right time for a 70cm QSO. I did work EA8CSB on 70cm though - so delighted with that!
Hello John ....this is Frank VO1HP. I have read with great interest your comments about potential TransAtlantic VHF. I left a comment note on Facebook re the VO1FN SDR Project that I ran from May 2016 to Sept 2018. I wonder if u know about it? There is a good summary on the QRZ page for VO1FN.
73 Frank
So what kind of power levels are we talking here?
Robbie Ei2iP
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