18,970km Opening on 50 MHz between the Canary Islands and the east of Australia - 13th June 2021

13th June 2021: Over Back on the 2nd of June, there was a 16,200km opening on the 50 MHz band between the Canary Islands and the north of Australia. On the 13th of June, the opening was to the east coast of Australia, a distance of just under 19,000kms.

These are the FT8 report for VK4HJ from the PSK Reporter website...

Txmtr Rcvr Band Mode Distance Time (UTC)
EA8DBM VK4HJ 6m FT8 18971 km 06:31:14
VK4HJ EA8DBM 6m FT8 18971 km 06:25:59
9H1TX VK4HJ 6m FT8 15950 km 05:56:44
Z37CXY VK4HJ 6m FT8 15268 km 06:09:14
SV2JAO VK4HJ 6m FT8 15235 km 05:14:14
SV9CVY VK4HJ 6m FT8 15006 km 07:01:44
VK4HJ SV9CVY 6m FT8 15006 km 06:26:59

What's amazing about this is that the circumference of the Earth is about 40,000kms and this is almost half the circumference.

If this happened at the peak of the solar cycle then it might be understandable but we are just after the sunspot minimum. 

If it was multi-hop Sporadic-E then we have to believe that there were at least nine Sporadic-E clouds all lined up neatly in a row which I don't believe is feasible. I suspect that the TEP (Trans-Equatorial Propagation) region centred around the Geomagnetic Equator was partially involved.

Here are some of the DX spots from the cluster.

VK4MA 50313 EA8DBM 06:31 13 Jun 21 strong -4 Canary Islands
SV9CVY 50313 VK4HJ 06:43 13 Jun 21 still -12 cqing Australia
SV9CVY 50313 VK4HJ 06:28 13 Jun 21 539 ~ CQ DX VK4HJ QG63 Australia
EA8DBM-@ 50313.5 VK4HJ 06:28 13 Jun 21 FT8 -18dB Australia
9H1TX 50313.5 VK4HJ 06:10 13 Jun 21 JM75FU<ES>QG63 Australia 

SV9CVY 50313 VK4HJ 06:09 13 Jun 21 -2 working EU Australia
SV9CVY 50313 VK4HJ 05:58 13 Jun 21 ur best +1 amazing 73 tnx Australia

New Zealand: This is the first time this Summer that I've seen a signal from New Zealand reach Europe on 50 MHz...

This time, the distance was 17,170kms. Again, there is a path open to Japan, there's a path open to Europe.

PSK Reporter spots.

Txmtr Rcvr Band Mode Distance Time (UTC)
ZL1SG SV9CVY 6m FT8 17173 km 06:29:59
SV9CVY ZL1SG 6m FT8 17173 km 06:28:41

DX-Cluster spots
SV9CVY 50313 ZL1SG 06:30 13 Jun 21 2210 ~ CQ ZL1SG RF64 New Zealand
SV9CVY 50313 ZL1RQ 06:25 13 Jun 21 tnx 73 ur best -13 New Zealand
ZL1SG-@ 50313 SV9CVY 06:30 13 Jun 21 -18 TKS QSO Crete

As can be seen from the cluster spots, the FT8 signals at -13dB and -18dB were buried in the noise and a CW/SSB contact would not have been possible.

15,000km opening on 50 MHz between the Canary Islands & Guam in the Pacific - 3rd June 2021

Thursday 3rd June 2021: Another day, another 15,000km opening on the 50 MHz band.... well almost. This time the longest opening seen on the PSK Reporter website was the 14,966km path between KG6DX on the island of Guam in the Pacific and EA8DBM on the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands.

EA8/DF4UE on the neighbouring island of Lanzarote was just 150kms behind.

I checked the PSK Reporter site and there were paths open for both to multiple stations in Japan as well. IF the signals took the direct path then they crossed over the north of Russia.

16,000km+ opening on 50 MHz from Australia to the Canary Islands - 2nd June 2021

Wednesday 2nd June 2021: Another day and yet another opening on 50 MHz between Europe and Australia. 

The longest path on the day however seems to have been between VK4ABW in Darwin on the north coast of Australia and EA8DBM on the island of Tenerife in the Canaries. The 50 MHz path which was on the FT8 mode works out to be around 16,220kms.

Just to put that in perspective, that's the same distance from Darwin to the Great Lakes in North America.

As the map shows above, the 50 MHz was also open to Europe and it managed to open up to G7RAU in the far south-west of England as well.

Txmtr Rcvr Band Mode Distance Time (UTC)
VK4ABW EA8DBM 6m FT8 16221 km 08:04:59
VK4ABW G7RAU 6m FT8 14234 km 07:09:27
VK4ABW OG2A 6m FT8 12147 km 07:56:45
VK4ABW LY2BAW 6m FT8 12144 km 08:47:42
VK4ABW LY2IJ 6m FT8 12094 km 07:32:29
VK4ABW YL2CP 6m FT8 12090 km 07:03:29
VK4ABW ES6RQ 6m FT8 12047 km 07:02:59
YL2GD VK4ABW 6m FT8 11984 km 06:59:44
UR5LAK VK4ABW 6m FT8 11332 km 08:59:44
VK4ABW UR0MC 6m FT8 11224 km 08:13:59
UT4MF VK4ABW 6m FT8 11166 km 08:38:14

* * * 

VK8MS in Darwin also heard EA8DBM but nothing from Europe.

Txmtr Band Mode Distance Time (UTC)
EA8DBM 6m FT8 16234 km 08:03:44

* * *

VK6KXW on the west coast of Australia managed to hear three stations in Europe.

Txmtr Rcvr Band Mode Distance Time (UTC)
IK0AGU VK6KXW 6m FT8 13357 km 05:26:29
YL2GD VK6KXW 6m FT8 12968 km 07:29:14
UT8IO VK6KXW 6m FT8 11840 km 05:57:44

* * *

There was also a path from VK4WTN on the east coast of Australia to two stations in eastern Europe.

Txmtr Rcvr Band Mode Distance Time (UTC)
VK4WTN UA4CC 6m FT8 13307 km 05:09:59

UR5LAK VK4WTN 6m FT8 13967 km 05:37:44

* * *

Mode of Propagation: The 50 MHz band has been open between Europe and Australia for four of the last fives days. Whatever the mode of propagation is, the simple 'it must be multi-hop Sporadic-E' is probably not the full explanation. 

It would be interesting to know if European stations working Japan, China and Australia are experiencing any skewed paths or is everything on the correct beam heading?

6000 km plus contact made between the Canary Islands & Kazakhstan on 70 MHz - 18th June 2019

I recently came across details of a remarkable 70 MHz contact that was made on the 18th of June 2019 between EA8DBM in the Canary Islands and UN7MBH in Kazakhstan. It's possible that someone hadn't noticed the date on the FT8 screen capture when posted online and thought it was from 2020 instead.

Despite the fact that it's over a year old, it was still an interesting contact as it was in the region of 6,112 kms. As you can see from the screenshot below, the contact was made via the FT8 digital mode.

While most Sporadic-E contacts on 70 MHz might be in the region of say 1500 to 2200 kms, the 6000 km plus distance for this contact suggests that it may have been triple hop Sporadic-E.

Triple hop Sporadic-E on 50 MHz is interesting but not that unusual. After all, most of the 6-metre contacts between Europe and the USA are triple hop or more.

However as the frequency get higher, a higher level of ionisation is required. At 70 MHz, single hop Sporadic-E is very common, double hop is a more unusual but triple hop is more exceptional.

I searched on the net for more information on this remarkable contact but there didn't seem to be anything about it. I thought I'd make a post about it so that at least a record of it now exists.

I know that there have been triple hop contacts from the north-west of Europe to the Arabian Peninsula but I don't think any of those exceed 6000 kms.