Sat 29th May 2021: It looks as if there was a weak opening from Europe to Australia on the 50 MHz with a few weak FT8 signals making it through.
Txmtr Rcvr Band Mode Distance Time (UTC)
DF5VAE VK4HJ 6m FT8 15477 km 06:05:29
UT7UV VK4HJ 6m FT8 14545 km 04:18:44
SP3MM VK4CZ 6m FT8 15564 km 07:10:14
VK4CZ UT2XQ 6m FT8 14683 km 06:59:59
SP4K VK3OER 6m FT8 15383 km 05:17:41
It looks as if there was a successful FT8 contact between VK4CZ in Australia and SP3MM in Poland, a distance of about 15564kms. The signals seem to have been quiet weak and were in the range of -16dB to -20dB which is below what is audible to the human ear i.e. a cw contact would not have been possible.
As for the propagation mode, it seems likely it was multi-hop Sporadic-E with possibly eight hops required. I say 'likely' as I sometimes wonder what are the chances of getting eight Sp-E hops in a row at 50 MHz.
We still have all of June to go yet so there could be more openings on 50 MHz from Europe to Australia.
Hi John,
ReplyDeleteI think multihop sporadic-E is unlikely. I'm not active on 50MHz but most days FT8 is running on 28MHz. Mixed propagation modes are most likely involved. Before coming to Queensland I never realized how transequatiorial propagation is constant even at sunspot minimum. We can find 6000Km contacts with JA every day. In our mornings I often hear Central/North America when the TEP is midway over the Pacific Ocean. I assume TEP is involved.
Thanks for your blog.
73 Brian
Hi Brian, thanks for the comment.
ReplyDeleteThere was a similar opening in July of 2020 and I thought TEP might have been part of it but a lot of guys thought it was multi-hop Sp-E all of the way.
https://ei7gl.blogspot.com/2019/07/unusual-50-mhz-opening-from-australia.html
I'm not sure we can ever be 100% certain what it was.
John