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Wednesday, April 27, 2022

Was there an 6700km opening on the 144 MHz band between Brazil and the Azores???


I was alerted recently to an unusual APRS report which suggested that there might have been an opening on the 144 MHz band between Brazil and the Azores, a distance of about 6,728kms.

This is the report from the aprs.fi website for CQ1PBA for the 20th of April 2022...

callsign pkts first heard - IST last heard longest (rx - tx) 
PY4CEP-14 7 2022-04-20 20:01:18 2022-04-20 20:59:59 GH60XH - HM77GS 6733.5 km 202° 

I know that Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS) generally uses FM on 144.800 MHz in Europe as a beacon mode but I'm not 100% familiar with the APRS website and what all the reports mean.

I am putting this report here for others to investigate the data on the APRS website and they can come up with their own conclusions. Do a search for CQ1PBA and PY4CEP-14 and see what you think.

I suspect the reports are as a result of some sort of HF Gateway or some other reason that I don't know about. If it was a real opening on 144 MHz then Trans-Equatorial Propagation might be a possible reason but again, I think there is a simpler reason.

Links...

3 comments:

  1. Good Post.
    Problem on APRS is that there is not an agrement on frequencies, Brazil use 145.575 and Europe 144.800.
    I'm working on a software to listen several freq on APRS and study the tropo by layers.

    Best regards.
    EA8CXN

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  2. Actually I can't find proof of what freq. this APRS report was made on. APRS is not only used on 2m but also on HF. As a matter of fact I use APRS with software called Pinpoint on HF together with VarAC. You might want to contact CQ1PBA personally to find out what was happening. 73, Bas PE4BAS

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  3. Nice try.

    The APRS path of the only transmission from PY4CEP-14 so far is
    "APRS via qAR,CQ1PBA" (see APRS.fi).

    q-Construct on http://www.aprs-is.net/q.aspx
    "qAR - Packet was received directly (via a verified connection) from an IGate using the ,I construct. The callSSID following the qAR it the callSSID of the IGate."

    Ahoi
    Pom DG7ACF

    ReplyDelete