Remarkable 13,000 km opening on 6-metres between Australia and South America - 12th Dec 2020

At the moment, our colleagues in the southern hemisphere are in the middle of their summer Sporadic-E season and there are of course plenty of openings on the VHF bands.

On the 12th of December 2020, there was a remarkable opening on 6-metres between Australia and South America. For example, the map below from the PSK Reporter website shows the sent/received reports for VK3BD in the SE of Australia.

What is truly remarkable about this is the sheer distance and the path of the signals.

For many, the distance between the stations in Australia and the stations in Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay was in excess of 13,000 kms! 

To put that into perspective for European readers, the distance from say the UK to Japan is about 9500 kms. Every year, there seems to be multi-hop Sporadic-E openings from Europe to Japan on 50 MHz which cause a lot of excitement. This opening from Australia to South America was significantly further.

The second interesting point was the path. In some instances, the Great Circle path crossed part of Antarctica with the most southerly path going as far as 78 degrees south. Again to put that into perspective for European readers, 78 degrees is about as far north as say the island of Svalbard to the north of Norway.

Far northern or far southern latitudes are not areas normally associated with Sporadic-E.

To get a view from the South American side, I took a screenshot of the map for CP6UA in Bolivia.

As the map shows, the stations in New Zealand (ZL) were also getting in on the action and the distance to them was an impressive 11,000 kms or so.

Mode of propagation???... The million dollar question. I presume it was multi-hop Sporadic-E but it was a lot of hops! One of the longest paths that I saw was between VK5BC and PT9FD, a distance of 13,530 kms.

VK5BC PT9FD 6m JT65 13530 km 22:17:50

The maximum distance for one Sporadic-E hop is about 2300 kms. Was it six hops of 2255 kms? Seven hops of 1933 kms? If it was multi-hop Sporadic-E then a lot of patches of Sporadic-E had to line up in a row and at the correct distance for it to work.

Addendum... Someone suggested that Polar Mesospheric Summer Echos (PMSE) with electrons gathering around ice crystals may have been responsible for this opening. I include it here for reference reference.

Contacts... I'm sure many contacts were made but the purpose of this post is just to highlight the fact that the opening occurred.

Looking at the PSK Reporter website, these were the stations that I saw listed...

Australia...

VK1JA

VK2ZQ

VK3OT, VK3BD, VK3DUT, VK3OER, VK3WE, VK3KU

VK5PW, VK5BC, VK5PJ, VK5RM

Brazil - PY5HOT, PT9FT, PY5KD, PY5EK

Paraguay - ZP5DPC, ZP4KFZ

Bolivia - CP6UA

Argentina - LW2DAF, LU3CQ, LU9DO

Chile - CE3SX, CA3SOC, XQ3MCC

Uruguay - CX6DRA

DX-Cluster... Here are a selection of spots from the DX-Cluster...

PT9FD 50276.0 VK3OT 22:19 12 Dec JT65A GG27OR <> QF12ag TU 73 Australia

PT9FD 50276.0 VK5BC 22:00 12 Dec JT65A gg27or PF95jj tks 73 Australia

CE3SX 50276.0 VK5PJ 22:00 12 Dec FF46<>PF95MK TU Peter Australia

CP6UA 50276.0 VK3DUT 21:35 12 Dec Thanks New One Norm. 73 Australia

PY4AQA 50276.0 VK4QG 22:18 10 Dec JT65A -24 dB Australia

VK3OER 50276 PT9FD 23:24 12 Dec 20 JT65 -25 CQ Brazil

VK3OT-@ 50277.3 PT9FD 22:18 12 Dec 20 QF12ag GG27 jt65 qso 73 Brazil

VK3OT-@ 50277 PT9FD 22:14 12 Dec 20 cq pt9fd gg27 jt65a -19 Brazil

VK3OT-@ 50277 PY5HOT 21:42 12 Dec 20 cq gg46 jt65a Brazil

VK3OT-@ 50279 PT9FD 21:34 12 Dec 20 jt65 cq -23 Brazil

VK3OT-@ 50277 ZP4KFX 20:55 12 Dec 20 wow thanks JT65A Paraguay

VK3OT-@ 50277 ZP5DBC 20:50 12 Dec 20 JT65A thanks -19 Paraguay

I also kept a record for some of the Australian stations logs of the signals that they heard from South America for this opening. PSK Reporter normally wipes all records after 24 hours so it's nice to have some record of the opening. See below...

26th June 2009...Big opening to NA on 6m

Big opening on the 26th of June to North America and the Caribbean. Needless to say, with a 2 element beam in the attic pointing east, signals were incredibly weak here.

Opening 26th June 2009...Yellow tracks (50 MHz), Blue tracks (28 MHz)

To put it into context.... 1) My take off to the west isn't great so height above local ground has a big impact. With the antenna in the attic, local houses are also in the way. 2) The 2 element has a front to back ratio of about 10-12 dB so signals coming from the west were getting attenuated a lot. 3) The antenna is indoors.....a loss of probably another few dB. Taken all together, the losses are probably around 15dB when compared to say a 2 element outdoors at the same height pointing west. (15dB is the difference between someone running 5 watts and 150 watts). 

In the early part of the evening, I could really hear very little....only German stations from the east via 1 hop Sporadic-E beaming this way towards North America. Eventually, signals improved slightly and I could just about hear FM5AA (2/1) and V29JKV (319). From North America, some of the stations that I heard were VE1YX (4/1), K1TOL (519), N9XG (519) and K4PI (529) among some others. Just to prove the point that the beam has a reasonable front to back, I could hear G and GW stations on tropo from the east (~300 kms) and were much stronger all evening. Highlight of the day however was the one and only contact I managed to make! I called KY5R in EM64 who was just above the noise level and somehow he managed to hear my 50 watts on cw. Alabama from Ireland on 6 metres with an antenna in the attic pointing the wrong direction.....amazing. 

Here is a selection of EI related dx spots from the night... EI7IX 50208.0 K9UHF en53io53 tnx 0038 27 Jun United States W1DYJ 50140.0 EI7IX FN42IO53 0013 27 Jun Ireland N3CR 50140.0 EI7IX 0000 27 Jun Ireland N5DG-@ 50095.0 EI1IP 2354 26 Jun Ireland N4GN 50095.0 EI2IP IO61 2354 26 Jun Ireland N1BAA 50140.0 EI7IX IO53 > FM16 2353 26 Jun Ireland W3ATO 50140.0 EI7IX FN20IO53 2343 26 Jun Ireland K8YTO 50095.2 EI2IP IO61<>EN82 2342 26 Jun Ireland VE3DO-@ 50140.0 EI7IX IO53>EN94 huge e/c pileup 2337 26 Jun Ireland N2CG 50140.0 EI7IX IO53 59 into NNJ FN20wv 2332 26 Jun Ireland VA3XJ 50140.0 EI7IX EN82MHIO53 loud in en82 2320 26 Jun Ireland K1DAT 50051.8 EI0SIX/B 549 >FN42 2248 26 Jun Ireland EI9FVB 50167.5 KB8U EN71sw, Washtenaw cty MI 2236 26 Jun United States EI9JF 50089.9 K4BI Jim EM74 2221 26 Jun United States EI9FVB 50178.1 WD5K EM12nr, Dallas cty TX 2211 26 Jun United States VE3EN 50150.0 EI0CL tnx ! 2205 26 Jun Ireland EI9FVB 50208.4 KB8U EN71sw, Washtenaw cty MI 2202 26 Jun United States EI7GL-@ 50005.3 K1TOL FN44IO51 cq..in the bcn sectio 2202 26 Jun United States EI9FVB 50150.0 EI9FVB Clg cq dx NA 2155 26 Jun Ireland EI9FVB 50187.7 K8MD EN82bq, Livingston cty MI 2152 26 Jun United States EI9FVB 50200.0 N8CJK EN84gg, Iosco cty MI 2148 26 Jun United States EI9FVB 50128.4 WC2K Clg you here 2125 26 Jun United States VO1KVT 50167.0 EI3GYB IO53<>GN29LF 2123 26 Jun Ireland EI9JF 50081.0 AA1ON 579 2122 26 Jun United States K4YMQ 50146.0 EI2JD EM63IO63 2111 26 Jun Ireland NZ3M 50205.0 EI4EY 2111 26 Jun Ireland W5THT 50215.0 EI4EY 2109 26 Jun Ireland W2YR 50147.0 EI2JD 2105 26 Jun Ireland W2YR 50205.0 EI4EY 2102 26 Jun Ireland VE1SKY 50205.0 EI4EY FN74<>IO52 2046 26 Jun Ireland IK4IDF 50147.0 EI2JD 2031 26 Jun Ireland EI2IP 50110.0 WP4G cq cw 2008 26 Jun Puerto Rico EI2IP 50122.0 8R1DB cq still here 2007 26 Jun Guyana W4UDH-@ 50185.0 EI4EY 55 in EM52 2000 26 Jun Ireland FM5AA 50120.0 EI9FVB FK94> EI9FVB 50120.0 FM5AA FK94IO51QV 1957 26 Jun Martinique EI7GL-@ 50045.4 OX3VHF/B GP60qqIO51 2510 kms 1952 26 Jun Greenland EI7IX 50045.0 OX3VHF/B 599 over 1 hour 1944 26 Jun Greenland EI7IX 50104.0 V29JKV fk97io53 up .5kc 1939 26 Jun Antigua & Ba EI7IX 50104.0 V29JKV cq 539 1913 26 Jun Antigua & Ba EI2IP 50117.0 TZ6EI Still in most evening 1843 26 Jun Mali EI7IX 50175.0 WB4SLM em82io53 tnx 1842 26 Jun

Recent events...

31st Dec 2008.......Back on HF....

Spent the day repairing my old Doublet antenna. 3 years of neglect (.......and running over the feedline with the lawnmower ;o) had taken it's toll. Ran a new lenght of 300 Ohm twin lead cable from the shack to the feed point of the antenna. Replaced 2 other lenghts of cable. Left the antenna that evening at a mere 1.5 metres above ground level and even at that height, I managed to work DL7VPE/P near Berlin on 80m cw. Raised the antenna the next day so that now, it is roughly 5 metres above ground level. Still a bit low but enough for the moment so that I can use 3.5 MHz to 18 MHz. Even at this height, it seemed to work fine on 80m for the IRTS counties contest. Also worked OH0 and ZD8 on 30 metres over the last few days. Getting a bit more height on it should make a big difference.

3rd Jan 2009.....Quadrantids Meteor Shower...

I was on for this one. Plenty of pings and bursts. I must put up a seperate post about it soon.

5th Jan 2009...ARRL Logbook Of The World...

I had posted the documentation back on the 22nd of December to the ARRL. Received my password by e-mail from the ARRL on the 5th of Jan. A wait of only 2 weeks. I hope to be up and running on LOTW by the end of January :o)

6th Jan 2009...EI 6 Metre activity evening...

I had a listen around 21:00 and heard nothing. From what I hear from e-mail correspondance, it would seem that this activity evening is no longer supported. Seem's a pity.