3700km opening on the 144 MHz band between Madeira Is and Greece - 11th June 2025

As we continue through the summer Sporadic-E season, the FT8 mode is continuing to show up more really long distance paths on the 144 MHz (2m) band. On the 11th of June 2025, there was a Sporadic-E opening on the 144 MHz band and some of the paths on FT8 from CT9ACF on the Madeira Islands to stations in Europe are shown above.

The longest distance for one Sporadic-E hop might be say 2300kms. In the map above, this is roughly a line running from the west of England to the south-east of France. Any paths beyond this to the east like say to the Netherlands (PA), Germany (DL) and Italy (I) are in the region of 2700-2900 kms and are unusual. 

The really exceptional paths were from the Madeira Islands to Greece. The longest of these to SV1NZX in Athens was just over 3700kms.

Propagation Mode?? ... It's hard to be certain what propagation mode was responsible. There was certainly a Sporadic-E opening but how was the range extended to 3000+ kms?

In the past, we've seen openings like this when there has been a Sporadic-E opening from say Germany to the the south-west of Spain and Portugal and the remaining 1000kms or so to the Madeira Islands was due to a maritime duct. 

The area to the west of Portugal and Morocco is well known for maritime tropo ducts which can last for days if not weeks.

The map above shows the tropo prediction at the time of the opening. It's worth noting that in the map at the beginning of this post, there are very few stations in say Portugal spotting CT9ACF. I would have expected more 'short' distance spots if there was a strong maritime duct.

Perhaps on this occasion, it was a case of double hop Sporadic-E? A chordal hop between two Sporadic-E clouds without hitting the ground in between?

Links... For more examples of long distance paths on the 2m band, see my 144 MHz page.

Addendum: Thanks to John, G4SWX for the following detailed comment...

G4SWX writes... "There were 3 or 4 different sporadic e events in the late afternoon/early evening of 11th June. The path to Madeira to somewhere near the Spanish/Portuguese coast was almost certainly assisted by a tropospheric duct. Hepburn and F5LEN predictions although good approximations they are not always super accurate in the actual position of ducts. I have conducted very many tropo + meteor scatter tests with EA8 and the tropo predictions produce about 60% probability of a tropo path for complex dual mode propagation. Also, Hepburn and F5LEN use slightly different modelling methods so it is wise to use both at the same time. Hepburn predictions at 18:00 utc on 11th suggests that there might be paths to Madeira particularly from SE Spain EA7.

Looking at the PSK reporter flags, many stations including myself reported stations in CT and EA7 around this time. Indeed, when those in the low countries and nearby parts of Germany were working CT9ACF I was working EA8TJ in the Canaries and being heard by several other EA8 stations at just over 3000Km. This is consistent with an ES event to possibly just off the EA7/CT coast and tropo paths to the final destinations

 During the time when stations in N Italy and surrounding countries were working CT9ACF I worked 7X2RF in Algiers JM16 and heard stations in the Balearic Islands EA6. This suggests that again the path from N Italy to Madeira was assisted by a maritime duct South of EA7.

The paths from Greece, SV to Madeira is a far more complex problem to analyse. There was a very intense tropo duct from Greece to Sicily and indeed ducts much further along the Mediterranean. I have attached the Hepburn plot covering the Mediterranean. It is unlikely that the duct extended much further that the Balearic Islands, so e layer reflection is likely to be the propagation from around Sardinia, IS0 to just beyond the EA7 coast. Whether the complete path was a combination of single hop ES plus tropo, one or two ducts or chordal ES plus tropo is hard to say without the LiveMuF maps at the time in question. Unfortunately, EA6VQ’s MuF Maps only allow an animation for the previous 1 hour.

73

John G4SWX"

Appendix...

a) Some of the paths over 2800kms on the 11th of June 2025 are shown below...

Unusual 5560km TEP opening on 144 MHz from St Helena to Madeira Is - Apr 2025

In a previous post from October of 2024, I reported how ZD7GWM on St Helena Island in the South Atlantic had managed to make contact with stations in Spain and Portugal on the 144 MHz (2m) band via Trans-Equatorial Propagation (TEP). During the spring of 2025, there have been similar openings from St Helena to Spain and Portugal.

On the 27th of April 2025, there was an unusual opening from ZD7GWM on St Helena to CT9ACF on the Madeira Islands. The distance was approximately 5,560kms and the transmission mode used was Q65D (60 seconds).

There are two unusual things about this 144 MHz contact...

1) It is as far as I know the very first contact ever between St Helena and the Madeira Islands on the 2m band.

2) At 144 MHz, TEP signals usually cross the geomagnetic equator at right angles i.e. 90-degrees. This means that the usual path is from St Helena to the southern regions of Spain and Portugal.

What's unusual here is that the geomagnetic equator begins to bend near the west coast of Africa allowing another TEP path to the Madeira Island region.

I'm just wondering why there aren't any contacts from the Canary Islands (EA8) to St Helena? Is anyone trying?

Lasse, SM0KAK sent on the very detailed report below...

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Unexpected QSO on 144MHz - ZD7GWM (St Helena Island) in IH74DB worked CT9ACF (Madeira Island) in IM12JU on 2025-04-27

Notes by SM0KAK 

ZD7GWM has previously mainly made many QSOs with the South Western part of the Iberian Peninsula (the mainland of CT+EA) on 144MHz via TEP. 

The QSO with CT9ACF was very unexpected! 

The QRB 5561 km is normal for TEP on 144MHz. The time of day 22:00UTC is also expected for these longitudes, and the “normal” paths from ZD7GWM to EA4, EA7 and CT mainland were open.

This QSO was very unexpected because of 

1) The wide footprint (CT9ACF is located very far from previous QSO partners)

2) The very bad takeoff at CT9ACF (in the direction towards ZD7GWM)

WIDE FOOTPRINT

Footprints of TEP on 144 MHz are normally less than 1000 km wide, and the possible directions is usually up to 10 degrees wide.

Stations located furthest from CT9ACF that have been worked previously worked by ZD7GWM are  EA7KBX in IM87VK (1454 km from CT9ACF) and a single out layer QSO with EA3CJ last year in JN01SE (1899 km from CT9ACF). This makes the footprint much bigger than the expected 1000 km.

The QTF from ZD7GWM to CT9ACF is 347 degrees, the QTF to EA7KBX is 3 degrees, and to EA3CJ 6 degrees. Hence the difference in QTF is 16 degrees, which is much more than the expected 10 degrees.

This wide footprint could probably be explained by the very curved shape of the magnetic dip equator on these longitudes. The more curved it is, the wider footprint should is expected to be (assuming that you are located so that your signal can cross it with a 90 degree angle).

 

BAD TAKEOFF AT CT9ACF

CT9ACF has a very bad takeoff towards ZD7GWM. The elevation required to clear local mountains is about 7 degrees! The beacon ED8ZAA is in the same general direction as ZD7GWM. QRB is 498km and the beacon is located at 1000 masl. This beacon is rarely heard at CT9ACF. When it is heard it is usually via reflection off a minor island close to CT9ACF, or reflection off mountains in Morocco. But on this evening ED8ZAA was 599+ via the direct path! Good tropo propagation was forecasted, so the beacon was definitely heard via tropo. The strong beacon signal was the reason why CT9ACF wanted to try TEP with ZD7GWM for the first time. It is likely that the strong tropo was required to pass the local mountains. Elevation for TEP signals is normally low, in the order of 1 degree. 

(There is a good example of mountains blocking a TEP path: FR5DN is very active on 144MHz TEP. His local mountain is at elevation of 4 to 5 degrees, and it limits his success quite a lot. He gets about 10% of the openings compared to FR4OO who has sea takeoff and is located about 38 km away. The openings at FR5DN are also shorter and weaker.)

Tropo forecast around CT9ACF at the time of the QSO

 

PROPAGATION

The QSO occurred while ZD7GWM had TEP to CT/EA, and while CT9ACF had tropo to ED8ZAA. The signals had very slow QSB, but faded 22:20 UTC. This is typical behaviour of TEP on 144MHz. 

My conclusion is that propagation was TEP, plus tropo near CT9ACF. There was also tropo in the forecast at ZD7GWM that might have had an influence. However it seems very unlikely that this was a pure tropo QSO. 

EQUIPMENT USED

Garry ZD7GWM has a good takeoff and is using 50W to a long vertically polarized omni directional antenna. He has been running TEP skeds on 100-150 evenings since September 2024!

Steve CT9ACF is using 2x9 element LFA yagis (horizontal polarization, vertically stacked). He is running 900W on EME, but less for terrestrial QSOs.

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Thanks to Lasse, SM0KAK for the above report. For more info on other long distance 2m openings, see my 144 MHz page.