3500km+ opening on 144 MHz between England and Israel - 25th June 2021

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 great for being able to hear unusual signals.
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 4Z5CP 16:49 25 Jun JO01GN<ES>KM72MT lost EU QRM Israel
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.

In Conclusion: Israel has been worked from England before on 144 MHz so this opening is nothing new. It is however a reasonably rare occurrence. Any path that on 144 MHz that is well in excess of 3500kms is always worth reporting.

Link...

1) See my 144 MHz page of plenty of examples of 3000km plus openings on 144 MHz.

3000km+ opening on 144 MHz from Israel & Lebanon to Europe - 10th June 2021

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.

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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...