Friday 25th June 2021: There was an extensive Sporadic-E opening on 144 MHz across Europe that lasted several hours. Stations in the south of England were able to work the south of Italy, Greece, Albania and North Macedonia. Most of there were in the region of about 2000kms which is pretty normal for one-hop Sporadic-E.
For a brief window of about 10-15 minutes around 16:40 UTC, the path on 144 MHz from England opened up to Israel.
The map above shows three stations in Israel that were heard by G4LOH on FT8.
4X/OM2IB was around 3840kms, 4X1GA was around 3845kms and 4X1BG was around 3820kms.
This is the map for G4FUF near London who heard two stations in Israel.
The distance to 4Z5CP was around 3750kms and around 3520kms for 4X4MH.
From what I understand, both of the English stations were unable to complete the FT8 contacts.
It once again highlights the FT8 paradox.
Because everyone is on the one frequency, FT8 is terrible for making contacts because there is too much interference.
These are the spots from the DX-Cluster which are all for FT8.
G4FUF 144174.0 4X4MH 16:44 25 Jun JO01GN<ES>KM72KD TX 2nd Israel
G4LOH 144174.0 4X/OM2IB 16:42 25 Jun IO70JC<ES>KM72JC Hrd -5 Israel
G4LOH 144174.0 4X1BG 16:34 25 Jun IO70JC<ES>KM72KM Hrd 3 pds Israel
Propagation Mode: It seems likely that the 144 MHz opening from England to Israel was via double hop Sporadic-E. Whether it was via a reflection at the midway point or went from Sp-E cloud to Sp-E cloud (chordal hop) is open for debate.
This is the tropo prediction map from Pascal, F5LEN which shows some enhancement over the eastern part of the Mediterranean. Again, whether a tropo duct was involved in the eastern part of the 3500km+ path is open for debate.
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