3051 km opening on the 144 MHz band across Australia? - 24th Dec 2022

Very long distance propagation paths on the 144 MHz band are always of interest and those that exceed 3000kms are especially so. In Australia and New Zealand, there are quite a number of radio amateurs using the WSPR beacon mode to cary out propagation tests.

Leigh, VK2KRR reports on a special 3051 km opening on 144 MHz on the 24th of December 2022. It should be noted that countries in the southern hemisphere are now in the middle of their Summer Sporadic-E season.

Leigh writes..."This afternoon 24.12.22 at 0524z I noticed a report on WSPRview of VK2EFM to VK6CPU/p on 2m at 3051 km. Initially I thought it must be a mistakenly reported spot sent to wrong band, but upon further investigation and discussion with those involved, it appears this spot was real, which is quite unbelievable really considering the circumstances at the time.

The crazy part about it was that the propagation was well in decline from a quite good high MUF period which had lasted a  number of hours with MUF reported up to 107.7 MHz and path covering a good deal of southern Australia. 

Coincidentally at the same time there is also tropo propagation across the Great Australian Bight from VK5AKK to VK6CPU/p and VK6NI.

To make it somewhat more questionable, Allan Savins VK2EFM transmitted on both 6m and 2m WSPR at the same time at 0524z as was demonstrated by the local reports.

The propagation question would be, how did the signal get across? A double hop E, a Chordal E? or maybe a single E hop then into tropo ducting across the Bight?

Notice the path exactly lines up with the VK5AKK tropo path, which is interesting.

Also of note is that there was no reception of any 6m WSPR signal from VK2EFM in VK5 or VK6 at 0524z, the max distance was 440 km to myself which was probably some sort of backscatter.

The last 6m reception of VK2EFM in VK5 was 12 mins prior to the 2m path, and the last EFM 6m to VK6 was 14 mins prior, quite weak at -26 dB.

Another thing to note was that from midnight to 6am that 6m WSPR had good paths happening, I had a path with VK8RH all night, and was still there at 6am. So the MUF was raised through the night which is a good predictor of high MUF during the day.

Edit- oh and congratulations to Nigel VK6CPU and Allan VK2EFM for this path. VK6CPU/p is actually a remote station at Albany set up by Rob VK6LD by the way.

Leigh VK2KRR"

Analysis... Just to add to the available info, there was only one spot for the opening between VK2EFM and VK6CPU/P and this is it...

Local   (y-m-d) TX txGrid RX rxGrid MHz W SNR drift km
2022-12-24 05:24 VK2EFM QF56oq VK6CPU/P OF84xx 144.490478 10 -20 0 3051

This is the predicted tropo map from F5LEN...

It suggests that there were reasonable tropo conditions on 144 MHz across the Great Australian Bight. This would account for signals going 1800kms from the SW corner of Australia to Adelaide but what about the remaining 1200kms or so from Adelaide to Sydney?

I suspect it was probably a Sporadic-E opening from Sydney and then a tropo duct across the Bight but it's impossible to be sure.

A similar opening to this happened back on the 15th Dec 2020 as outlined in this previous post HERE

Links..

1) More examples of long distance paths on 2m can be found on my 144 MHz page

12,000km opening between Australia & California - 27th Dec 2021

Monday 27th December 2021: It was interesting to see that there was a recent opening on the 50 MHz band between the SE of Australia and southern California. Unlike openings from Australia to South America, this one crossed the equator and went to North America.

There is a very active group in Australia & New Zealand using the WSPR beacon mode and on the 27th of December, VK2IJM and VK2EFM in New South Wales heard N3IZN in California.

 UTC (y-m-d) TX txGrid RX rxGrid                         MHz         W SNR drift km 
2021-12-27 01:16 N3IZN DM13ji VK2IJM QF56ni 50.294549 100 -24 0 12115 
2021-12-27 00:52 N3IZN DM13ji VK2EFM QF56oq 50.294554 100 -18 0 12091 

The distance was just over 12,000kms.

Propagation Mode?? The first most obvious answer is that it was multi-hop Sporadic-E but I suspect the reality is more complex that that. The signal path crosses the TEP zone around the equator so that may have had some impact. The solar flux is up around 120 and the MUF is now above 30 MHz most days. Is it reaching 50 MHz near the equatorial region?

Western Australia to Europe?? The example above was just over 12,000kms, that is the same distance from the west coast of Australia to the south-east of Europe. Are there openings between Europe and Australia on 50 MHz at the moment?

15,000km+ opening on 50 MHz between SE Australia and Europe - 14th July 2021

Wednesday 14th July 2021: Openings on the 50 MHz between Europe and Australia near the bottom of the solar cycle are supposed to be 'special'... i.e. a rare occurrence... something that doesn't happen very often.

And yet the 14th of July saw yet another opening. I'm in two minds at this stage if I should be even recording these events are they seem so common? I need these openings to stop soon so I can take a break! 😂😂

The map above shows the extent of the opening from VK2XN in New South Wales in the SE of Australia. You'll notice that opening on the 14th seems to be mainly to the south-east of Europe. The longest path on FT8 was to IS0AWZ in Sardinia at 16,334kms.

I found the map for VK2OO near Sydney to be of interest...

Notice how the 50 MHz went up as far as Finland. Also notice how VK2OO also had what seemed to be a big opening to Japan at about 04:00 UTC (~8000kms) and this was followed later by the opening to Europe around 07:00 UTC. It has all the appearance of TEP (Trans-Equatorial Propagation).

As far as I can tell, the opening from Europe seemed to be largely confined to VK2 and VK3 stations in New South Wales and Victoria in the SE of Australia.

These are the spots from the DX Cluster... 

VK2WJ 50313.0 UR0MC 07:36 14 Jul FT8 QF56ss -> KN99ea Ukraine

VK3OER 50313.0 LY2IJ 07:20 14 Jul 071830 -10 0.2 2342 ~ CQ DX L Lithuania

LY2IJ 50313.0 VK3OER 07:17 14 Jul TU QSO! Australia

DO5OT 50313.0 VK3DUT 07:13 14 Jul JO62WL<ES>QF32VF ft8 TNX new o Australia

LY2IJ 50313.0 VK3ZYC 07:04 14 Jul TU QSO! QF31<>KO25 Australia

IK6DTB 50313.0 VK2XN 06:35 14 Jul TNX 73 Australia

SV2JAO 50313.0 VK2XN 06:12 14 Jul kn10<es>qf59 Australia

VK3ZAZ 50313.0 S57RR 05:49 14 Jul FT8, CQ vk Slovenia

VK3OT-@ 50313.5 S57RR 05:46 14 Jul into vk3 Slovenia

VK3OER 50313.0 4O6AH 05:31 14 Jul 052700 -14 0.2 922 ~ CQ DX 4 Montenegro

VK3DUT-@ 50313.0 406AH 05:31 14 Jul -17 rx only Montenegro

VK3DUT-@ 50313.0 I6WJB 05:30 14 Jul -18 rx only Italy

SV1DH 50313.0 VK3BD 05:30 14 Jul CQ -16db and gone Australia

FT8 paths for Australian stations on 50 MHz to Europe are shown below...

18,000km opening on 50 MHz between Europe and Australia - 7th July 2021

Wed 7th July 2021: There was yet another opening on the 50 MHz band between Australia and Europe on the 7th of July except this one seemed a bit more extensive. Looking at the PSK Reporter website, I found at least 15 Australian stations active for the opening.

These are the spots from the DX Cluster and they seem to indicate that as per usual, all of the activity was on the FT8 digital mode.

Spotter Freq. DX Time Info Country

VK3OT-@ 50315.0 G3NSM 06:30 07 Jul decoded on ft8n England
VK3OT-@ 50314.0 UR0MC 06:13 07 Jul CQ VK FT8 Ukraine
VK3OT-@ 50313.0 UT7QF 06:11 07 Jul TNX QSO 73 Ukraine

SP6NVN 50313.0 VK5PJ 07:17 07 Jul -23 db hrd Australia
S57RR-@ 50323.5 VK3ZL 06:47 07 Jul FT8 -19dB JN65um<>QF22 TU! Australia
OH7KM 50313.0 VK2OO 05:57 07 Jul cq -20 Australia 

DG1VL 50313.0 VK4HJ 05:22 07 Jul FT8 -13dB 469Hz Australia
S57RR-@ 50315.3 VK2EFM 05:20 07 Jul FT8 -14dB JN65um<>QF56 CQ Australia

The longest path I could find was 18,009kms between VK2EFM near Sydney and EA1YV in the NW of Spain. That is only 2000kms short of the maximum distance without going to the long path (20,000kms+).

Q. Are there more 50 MHz openings to Australia from Europe??? ...There does seem to be an extraordinary number of openings from Australia to Europe at the moment on the 50 MHz band. This is after all a VHF band, it's not HF.

Is this year exceptional? 

Are there a lot more openings than usual?

Were these 50MHz openings happening in 2020 and I just didn't notice them?

I reported on one opening in July of 2019 and that seemed to me at the time to be very unusual. I think if I had noticed all of these openings in 2020, I would have written about it. If it was say from the SE of Australia to the Ukraine then I may not have said anything but any opening on 50 MHz from Australia to Western Europe is always special.

* * * 

FT8 reports on 50 MHz between Australia and Europe from the PSK Reporter website from the 7th of July 2021 are shown below...

50 MHz opening from Australia to Europe - 1st June 2021

 

Tuesday 1st June 2021: Yet another opening on 50 MHz from Australia to Europe but this one was perhaps not as good as previous days.

Update: Roger, VK3FZ reports that he made a successful contact with OZ3K in Denmark.
VK3FZ to OZ3K on 50.315283 in FT8 at 2021-06-01 05:42:00Z (OZ: Denmark)
Sent -21, Received -15
Antenna: 6-element LFA Yagi

A list of paths to Europe is shown below...