Thursday 10th June 2021: In this second of three posts, we will look at some of the extraordinary paths on 144 MHz that were in excess of 3000kms in length. In the previous post, I looked at the paths from the Canary and Madeira Islands to Europe, this time we'll look at the paths from Israel & Lebanon to western Europe.
This is another long post so scroll down. At the end, I'll have a look at some of the evidence for what type of propagation was responsible.
***
OD5KU in Lebanon had two paths on 144 MHz to Portugal which were over 4000kms in length.
This map are the FT8 paths that were open on 144 MHz and I'll note a few things.
1) Notice how there is no path from Lebanon to Greece. This suggests that the eastern half of the path was via a single Sporadic-E hop.
2) There are plenty of stations clustered around the south of Italy and Sicily showing where the first hop landed.
3) The western limit of the path was not on the east coast of the Iberian Peninsula but at the far western side on the coast of Portugal. This suggests another Sporadic-E at the western half of the 4000km path.
4) Back on the 28th of June 1979, CT1WW in Portugal worked OD5MR in Lebanon on SSB on 144 MHz for what was claimed to be a double hop Sporadic-E contact. That was an IARU Region 1 record for many years. It looks as if the conditions on the 10th of June 2021 were similar.
To have a complete record, here are some of the long FT8 paths from OD5KU...
