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...

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.

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...

Weak opening from Europe to Australia on 50 MHz - 29th May 2021

Sat 29th May 2021: It looks as if there was a weak opening from Europe to Australia on the 50 MHz with a few weak FT8 signals making it through.

Txmtr Rcvr Band Mode Distance Time (UTC)

DF5VAE VK4HJ 6m FT8 15477 km 06:05:29

UT7UV VK4HJ 6m FT8 14545 km 04:18:44

SP3MM VK4CZ 6m FT8 15564 km 07:10:14
VK4CZ UT2XQ 6m FT8 14683 km 06:59:59

SP4K VK3OER 6m FT8 15383 km 05:17:41

It looks as if there was a successful FT8 contact between VK4CZ in Australia and SP3MM in Poland, a distance of about 15564kms. The signals seem to have been quiet weak and were in the range of -16dB to -20dB which is below what is audible to the human ear i.e. a cw contact would not have been possible.

As for the propagation mode, it seems likely it was multi-hop Sporadic-E with possibly eight hops required. I say 'likely' as I sometimes wonder what are the chances of getting eight Sp-E hops in a row at 50 MHz.

We still have all of June to go yet so there could be more openings on 50 MHz from Europe to Australia.