5000km mobile contact on 144 MHz SSB between Puerto Rico & Paraguay - 4th Feb 2022

This report is really pretty amazing. Jose, WP4KJJ reports that he managed to complete a SSB contact on 144.300 MHz with Juan, ZP9HTL in Paraguay while operating mobile!

Jose said that he was using an ICOM IC-7000 radio with a COMET vertical antenna on his vehicle.

He said that ZP9HTL was 5/1 on SSB.

This contact was via Trans-Equatorial Propagation (TEP) and the distance was 5,018 kms!

It's one thing to make contacts with Yagi antennas on a mast but to complete a 5,000km+ contact from a vertical antenna on a pick up truck on 144 MHz is pretty amazing. 

Remember that the distance across the North Atlantic between Ireland and Newfoundland is 3000kms. This was 2,000kms further.

There are people operating mobile on the HF bands who would be happy with a 5000km contact but this was on 2-metres!

TEP opening on 144 MHz... It was of course part of a bigger opening as can be seen from the map below.

Most of the activity seems to have been on the Q65 mode.

DX spots from the opening are shown below...

Spotter Freq. DX Time Info Country
FM8QR 144300.0 PU2YMU 02:48 04 Feb TNX QSO Brazil
FM8QR 144300.0 PY2HEN 02:41 04 Feb TNZ QSO Brazil
LU4DJC-@ 144180.0 HI8DL 02:35 04 Feb TEP Q65B Dominican Republic
LU4DJC-@ 144180.0 PJ4EL 02:26 04 Feb TEP Q65B Bonaire
LU4DJC-@ 144180.0 NP4BM 02:25 04 Feb TEP Q65B Puerto Rico
LU8FML 144180.0 HI8CAF 02:22 04 Feb Q65 -11 dB Dominican Republic
NP4BM-@ 144180.0 LU4DJC 02:21 04 Feb tnks q65b tep qso Argentina
HI8GSP-@ 144180.0 LU2DPW 02:14 04 Feb q65 tnx 73 Argentina
LU8FML 144180.0 HI8GSP 02:13 04 Feb Q65 -01 dB Dominican Republic
HI8GSP-@ 144180.0 LU8FML 02:13 04 Feb q65 tnx 73 Argentina
PY2SRB-@ 144180.0 9Y4D 02:13 04 Feb Q65b Tu -11 Trinidad & Tobago
LU8FML 144180.0 PJ4GR 02:05 04 Feb Q65 -15 dB Bonaire
PY5EK 144180.0 NP4BM 01:55 04 Feb Q65B -5 dB 800 Hz tnx tep Puerto Rico
NP4BM-@ 144180.0 PY5EK 01:55 04 Feb tnks q65b tep qso Brazil
PY5EK 144180.0 WP3DN 01:49 04 Feb Q65B -9 dB 1008 Hz Puerto Rico
PY2SRB-@ 144180.0 WP3DN 01:44 04 Feb Q65B -11 Tu Puerto Rico
LU4DJC-@ 144180.0 HI8CAF 01:43 04 Feb TEP Q65B Dominican Republic
PU2KNM 144174.0 FM5CS 01:37 04 Feb SWL FT8 -1 dB 1143 Hz Martinique 
LU4DJC-@ 144180.0 PJ2BR 01:36 04 Feb TEP Q65B Curacao
WP4KJJ-@ 144300.0 ZP9HTL 01:01 04 Feb 5-1 Paraguay