Long path opening on the 50 MHz band between Germany and New Zealand - 28th Jan 2023

In a previous post, I reported on how there was a short path opening on the 50 MHz band between Germany and New Zealand on the 25th of January 2023. What's better than a short path opening? A long path opening of course!

On the 28th of January 2023, there was an amazing long path opening between Europe and New Zealand on the 50 MHz band. More specifically, DK1MAX in Germany managed to complete a FT8 contact with ZL1SG in New Zealand.

DX-Cluster spots...
Spotter Freq. DX Time Info Country
ZL1RS 50323.0 DK1MAX 20:18 28 Jan RF64<>JN58 long path Fed. Rep. of Germany
ZL1SG-@ 50323.0 DK1MAX 20:10 28 Jan FT8 -9 Tnx Max great qso Fed. Rep. of Germany

On the PSK Reporter website, I found three European and two New Zealand stations that were involved in this long path opening. I have put in the approximate long path distances and I have recorded the signal reports that appeared on the site as well.

Txmtr Rcvr Band Mode Distance Time (UTC) Approx Signals
IV3KKW ZL1SG 6m FT8 ~22,000 km 20:23:11 -18dB
DK1MAX ZL1SG 6m FT8 ~22,100 km 20:20:41 -19dB
OE5OLL ZL1SG 6m FT8 ~22,200 km 19:40:41 -15dB

Txmtr Rcvr Band Mode Distance Time (UTC)
IV3KKW ZL1RS 6m FT8 22,000 km 20:27:13 -16dB
DK1MAX ZL1RS 6m FT8 22,100 km 20:03:43 -13dB

Analysis... Let's have a look at what happened. First of all the location of the stations which is important.

ZL1LG and ZL1RS have the same locator square and are located at the far north of New Zealand.

The three European stations are in roughly the same geographic location and are only about 200-300kms apart.

Opening... At the time of the long path opening, there was a path on 50 MHz between ZL1SG and South America.

At the same time, there was an opening from DK1MAX to South America.

It looks as if the two openings coupled into each other and allowed a long path at 50 MHz opening between the far north of New Zealand and a small area in Europe.

I need to stress that the location of the stations had a huge bearing on the opening. Because New Zealand is effectively on the other side of the planet from Europe, the beam heading changes drastically with a small change in location.

The geometry of the path from say the north of Germany is very different than the south of Germany. From the UK, the long path to New Zealand goes almost directly south and over the Antarctic which makes a 50 MHz path highly unlikely.

By contrast, stations to the south of DK1MAX have the possibility of long paths that are closer to the equator and more likely.

Mode of Propagation... The solar flux on the day was in the region of 150-160 but this was after coming down off a peak of around 230 about a week earlier. The path was almost certainly F2 with possibly some chordal hop involved. There may have been some TEP from Europe to South America.

In conclusion... The signals were weak for this long path opening as they were down around -13 to -19dB. If it wasn't for FT8, the opening would have gone unnoticed. It was an amazing opening and there are no doubt plenty more to come. 

Link...
1) I have put links to posts about previous long distance 6m openings up on my 50 MHz page.

Addendum: Max, DK1MAX reports... "That's a screenshot from and after the QSO with ZL1RS. We worked on 50323 as 313 was way too busy with strong EU transmitting 2nd period. Still very much excited. Thanks for the summary in the EI7GL blogspot."

Javier, LU5FF in Argentina reports paths on 50 MHz to the following stations in New Zealand...

Pipe, CE3SAD reports that during the same opening, CE6TK in Chile worked 16 ZL stations in New Zealand. In the CE3 zone of Chile, there was only one.

CE3SAD also recounts a previous long path opening way back on the 21st of April 2001. Operating as CE3SAD/2 from FF48 locator square, he managed to complete some long path contacts with VK4 stations in Australia while beaming towards Europe. The stations were located in the QH30 and QG39 locator squares and the long path distance was in the region of 27,000kms.

CE3SAD did try beaming the more direct short path to Australia but the stations disappeared. It's worth remembering that back in 2001, the dominant modes were SSB and CW and the signals had to be above or at the noise level. It's a huge difference from now when FT8 allows contacts to be made from signals that are buried in the noise.

18,000km+ opening on 50 MHz between New Zealand & the Canary Islands - 7th March 2022

Monday 7th March 2022: There was an extremely long distance opening on the 50 MHz band between the north island of New Zealand (ZL1) and the Canary Islands (EA8) and in most cases, the distances were well in excess of 18,000kms.

If you consider that the circumference of the Earth is 40,000kms then this opening was close to the border line of what is short path or long path. See EA7 below.

Looking at the reports on the PSK Reporter website, the opening from ZL1 to EA8 occurred around 22:30 UTC. What's interesting is the EA8 stations had what looks like a TEP opening to South America about an hour later but it didn't seem to coincide with the ZL1 opening.

Questions... Like many openings, this one raises more questions than it answers.

1) Was part of the path due to TEP (Trans-Equatorial Propagation)? If it coincided with the opening to South America then yes but it seems to have been before it.

2) The map above for ZL1RS in New Zealand shows the shortest paths to the stations in the log on the PSK Reporter website. Was the path to EA8 direct or slightly skewed? Was the real path not actually over South America?

3) I checked the reports for the ZL1 stations and none of them show a South American station and yet, the opening was supposed to have gone over the continent of South America. There seems to have been an opening later from the south of New Zealand (ZL3) to Central America and Mexico. Was the real EA8-ZL1 path skewed and further north?

4) Propagation mode?... I would think that a large part of the path was due to chordal mode without the signal hitting the ground.

Did the signal pass over South America by chordal hop without reaching the ground?

5) How did the signal get across the Pacific which is a feat in itself?

6) How much of the path was due to F2? Sp-E? TEP?

Answers... If we were at the peak of the solar cycle then it may not be a big deal. But we're not, we're just on the way out of solar minimum, the solar flux is just 118 and this is up at 50 MHz. 

I think at best, we can make educated guesses but I think that's all we can do. Whatever the reason for the opening, it's probably no accident that this opening occurred near the equinox and it's likely to happen again.

Reports...These are some of the reports from the PSK Reporter website...

ZL1RS...

Txmtr Rcvr Band Mode Distance Time (UTC)
ZL1RS EA8/DF4UE 6m FT8 18986 km 22:23:29
ZL1RS EA8AXT 6m FT8 18828 km 22:19:29
ZL1RS EA8RH 6m FT8 18745 km 22:35:56
ZL1RS EA8TL 6m FT8 18742 km 22:34:56
ZL1RS EA8TH 6m FT8 18694 km 23:19:26

ZL1SG...
Txmtr Rcvr Band Mode Distance Time (UTC)
ZL1SG EA8/DF4UE 6m FT8 19019 km 22:06:56
EA8AQV ZL1SG 6m FT8 18929 km 21:48:11
ZL1SG EA8AXT 6m FT8 18861 km 22:00:59
EA8AXT ZL1SG 6m FT8 18861 km 21:49:41
ZL1SG EA8RH 6m FT8 18777 km 22:33:56
EA8RH ZL1SG 6m FT8 18777 km 22:31:41
ZL1SG EA8TL 6m FT8 18774 km 22:34:59
EA8TL ZL1SG 6m FT8 18774 km 22:31:41
EA8TH ZL1SG 6m FT8 18725 km 23:17:41

ZL1RQ... Note CN9YZ in Morocco & YS1AG in El Salvador...
Txmtr Rcvr Band Mode Distance Time (UTC)
ZL1RQ CN8YZ 6m FT8 19768 km 20:52:26
ZL1RQ EA8/DF4UE 6m FT8 19019 km 22:10:56
ZL1RQ EA8AXT 6m FT8 18861 km 21:36:29
EA8RH ZL1RQ 6m FT8 18777 km 22:30:41
ZL1RQ EA8RH 6m FT8 18777 km 22:11:29
ZL1RQ EA8TL 6m FT8 18774 km 22:29:29
EA8TL ZL1RQ 6m FT8 18774 km 22:17:41
EA8TH ZL1RQ 6m FT8 18725 km 23:22:41
YS1AG ZL1RQ 6m FT8 11511 km 01:31:41

ZL1AKW...
Rcvr Band Mode Distance Time (UTC)
EA8TH 6m FT8 18318 km 23:17:26

EA5GJ reports the following... "ZL1RS receives 3 decodes from EA7HCL on 50 MHz for the long step in an intense opening this afternoon with South America, we are facing the first Pacific-Europe Long Path openings on 6 meters, in many years... #50MHz #Propagation". 

Note that none of these appeared on the PSK Reporter site.

EA7HCL is in the far south of Spain and this opening for him was actually long path. For the EA8 stations, it was short path.

These are the spots from the DX Cluster for the evening / morning. As you can see, all of the activity seems to have been via digital modes like FT8 on 50.313 MHz...

Spotter Freq. DX Time Info Country
ZL3OZ 50313.0 YS1AG 00:36 08 Mar wkng PY. -18 El Salvador
ZL3OZ 50313.0 XE1HG 00:20 08 Mar part QSO tnx. Mexico
XE1MEX 50313.0 ZL3OY 00:04 08 Mar Tnx QSO New Zealand
XE1MEX 50313.0 ZL3OZ 00:00 08 Mar Tnx QSO New Zealand
ZL3OZ 50313.0 XE1MEX 23:30 07 Mar CQ at -6 through -19 Mexico
EA8TH 50313.0 ZL1RS 23:23 07 Mar FB Signal. TU Bob New Zealand
ZL1RS 50313.0 EA8TH 23:23 07 Mar tnx qso Canary Islands
EA8RH 50313.0 ZL1RS 22:17 07 Mar tnx qso new one New Zealand
ZL1RS 50313.0 EA8RH 22:09 07 Mar tnx qso Canary Islands
ZL1RS 50313.0 EA8TL21:48 07 Mar tnx qso Canary Islands
EA8TL 50313.0 ZL1RS 21:45 07 Mar calling you ft8 New Zealand
ZL1RS 50313.0 EA8AQV 21:32 07 Mar tnx QSO Canary Islands
ZL1RS 50313.0 EA8/DF4UE 21:26 07 Mar Canary Islands
ZL1RS 50313.0 CN8YZ 21:01 07 Mar rx only, calling ZL1RQ Morocco
ZL1RS 50313.0 EA7HCL 20:18 07 Mar 3 decodes ... Spain

16,000km+ opening on 50 MHz from Australia & New Zealand to Europe - 17th June 2021

Thursday 17th June 2021: Another day, another opening on 50 MHz between Australia and Europe. This one however was different as several stations from the Adelaide area (VK5) in the south of Australia were involved.

It also seems as if a small number of stations in New Zealand and the Australian states of Victoria & Western Australia managed to work Europe as well. Info further down post.

All the areas of Australia are not the same in terms of propagation, Stations on the north coast have a pipeline into Japan & China via TEP (Trans-Equatorial Propagation) whereas stations in the south of the continent are a bit too far south.

That's why openings on 50 MHz between the south of Australia and Europe are always of interest. It raises the very real question of just how exactly does a signal at 50 MHz travel so far near the bottom of the sunspot cycle.

The maps and station list below are derived from FT8 reports on the PSK Reporter website and it may well not include everyone. I couldn't find any information on SSB or CW contacts being made but that doesn't mean they weren't.

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.