In this post, we'll look at what looks like an unusual 3000km+ opening in North America between the USA and the Caribbean on the 13th of July 2021.
There seems to have been two very active Sporadic-E regions that were both capable of supporting propagation at 144 MHz. The map above shows the paths on FT8 from WP4KJJ in Puerto Rico to the USA. Most of the stations in Florida, in the SE of the USA and up the east coast are all likely to be one hop Sporadic-E. That cluster of stations out around the 3000km mark are probably double hop Sporadic-E.
The longest path that I found on the PSK Reporter website was between WP4KJJ in Puerto Rico and K2DRH in the NE of Illinois, a distance just over 3470kms.
The double hop part of the opening seems to have been mostly confined to Puerto Rico (KP4) and the Dominican Republic (HI8). The map above from HI8DL shows the same single hop and double hop Sporadic-E pattern.
K2DRH seems to have been the furthest away from the Caribbean stations and this is the FT8 map for him...
As you can see, it shows some single hop Sporadic-E to Florida as well as double hop to the Caribbean.
I also found another 3000km+ opening between K2TXB in New Jersey and PJ4NX in Bonaire at 15:02 UTC.
Txmtr Rcvr Band Mode Distance Time (UTC)
K2TXB PJ4NX 2m FT8 3172 km 15:02:30
NV4B also reports that he made a FT8 contact with J79WTA in Dominica, a distance of just over 3370kms.
J79WTA
NV4B 2m FT8 3381 km 15:51:30
WB4OMG 2m FT8 2548 km 17:05:29
On the DX Cluster, N0JK in the east of Kansas reported hearing WP4KJJ at -18dB although the report didn't appear on the PSK Reporter website. The distance was just under 3650kms.
N0JK 144174.0 WP4KJJ 17:05 13 Jul EM28IX<>FK68XF copied -18 rpt
While there were some SSB contacts made, most if not all of the double hop ones were via FT8.
Propagation Mode: It does seem that in this instance, it really was a case of a double hop Sporadic-E opening. The tropo forecast shows some enhancement over the ocean but I suspect it was mostly double hop.
Whether it reflected off the Atlantic ocean at the mid point or was chordal hop (Sp-E cloud to cloud) is open to debate.
There did seem to be another smaller double hop opening around 22:00 UTC but the data I have presented here is after the first one.
These are the FT8 reports that I saw over 2500kms for the opening around 17:00 UTC...
