5000km mobile contact on 144 MHz SSB between Puerto Rico & Paraguay - 4th Feb 2022

This report is really pretty amazing. Jose, WP4KJJ reports that he managed to complete a SSB contact on 144.300 MHz with Juan, ZP9HTL in Paraguay while operating mobile!

Jose said that he was using an ICOM IC-7000 radio with a COMET vertical antenna on his vehicle.

He said that ZP9HTL was 5/1 on SSB.

This contact was via Trans-Equatorial Propagation (TEP) and the distance was 5,018 kms!

It's one thing to make contacts with Yagi antennas on a mast but to complete a 5,000km+ contact from a vertical antenna on a pick up truck on 144 MHz is pretty amazing. 

Remember that the distance across the North Atlantic between Ireland and Newfoundland is 3000kms. This was 2,000kms further.

There are people operating mobile on the HF bands who would be happy with a 5000km contact but this was on 2-metres!

TEP opening on 144 MHz... It was of course part of a bigger opening as can be seen from the map below.

Most of the activity seems to have been on the Q65 mode.

DX spots from the opening are shown below...

Spotter Freq. DX Time Info Country
FM8QR 144300.0 PU2YMU 02:48 04 Feb TNX QSO Brazil
FM8QR 144300.0 PY2HEN 02:41 04 Feb TNZ QSO Brazil
LU4DJC-@ 144180.0 HI8DL 02:35 04 Feb TEP Q65B Dominican Republic
LU4DJC-@ 144180.0 PJ4EL 02:26 04 Feb TEP Q65B Bonaire
LU4DJC-@ 144180.0 NP4BM 02:25 04 Feb TEP Q65B Puerto Rico
LU8FML 144180.0 HI8CAF 02:22 04 Feb Q65 -11 dB Dominican Republic
NP4BM-@ 144180.0 LU4DJC 02:21 04 Feb tnks q65b tep qso Argentina
HI8GSP-@ 144180.0 LU2DPW 02:14 04 Feb q65 tnx 73 Argentina
LU8FML 144180.0 HI8GSP 02:13 04 Feb Q65 -01 dB Dominican Republic
HI8GSP-@ 144180.0 LU8FML 02:13 04 Feb q65 tnx 73 Argentina
PY2SRB-@ 144180.0 9Y4D 02:13 04 Feb Q65b Tu -11 Trinidad & Tobago
LU8FML 144180.0 PJ4GR 02:05 04 Feb Q65 -15 dB Bonaire
PY5EK 144180.0 NP4BM 01:55 04 Feb Q65B -5 dB 800 Hz tnx tep Puerto Rico
NP4BM-@ 144180.0 PY5EK 01:55 04 Feb tnks q65b tep qso Brazil
PY5EK 144180.0 WP3DN 01:49 04 Feb Q65B -9 dB 1008 Hz Puerto Rico
PY2SRB-@ 144180.0 WP3DN 01:44 04 Feb Q65B -11 Tu Puerto Rico
LU4DJC-@ 144180.0 HI8CAF 01:43 04 Feb TEP Q65B Dominican Republic
PU2KNM 144174.0 FM5CS 01:37 04 Feb SWL FT8 -1 dB 1143 Hz Martinique 
LU4DJC-@ 144180.0 PJ2BR 01:36 04 Feb TEP Q65B Curacao
WP4KJJ-@ 144300.0 ZP9HTL 01:01 04 Feb 5-1 Paraguay

ZP9HTL in Paraguay reports on 5000km TEP opening on 144 MHz to Puerto Rico - Jan 2022

Juan, ZP9HTL in Paraguay sent on some interesting information to me about his experience with Trans-Equatorial Propagation (TEP) on 144 MHz.

With TEP propagation, signals on the 144 MHz band usually cross the Geomagnetic Equator close to 90 degrees i.e. a right angle. This means that openings tend to happen to the exact same area when the band is open.

This can be seen as the TEP pipeline from Buenos Aires in Argentina to Bonaire, Curacao, Aruba & the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean. Likewise, stations in the south of Brazil have a pipeline to Puerto Rico & Guadeloupe.

For ZP9HTL, his pipeline from Paraguay is to Puerto Rico where he is often heard on SSB on 144.300 MHz.

Video... The following clip was sent to me by Juan. 

It shows that what a TEP signal on SSB can sound like. Note the distortion and the very rapid flutter.

Remember, this is a signal on 144 MHz over a 5000km path!

Antenna... On 144 MHz, Juan is using an 11-element LFA Yagi.

DX-Cluster Spots... I have included below the DX Cluster spots for ZP9HTL from the Caribbean. As you can see, they are all from Puerto Rico and they range from the start of the TEP season in September 2021 to now, mid January 2022.

It's interesting to see that the TEP openings happen at pretty much the same time i.e. 00:00 UTC which is about 8pm local time in the evening for the stations concerned.

From these spots, the earliest time is 23:45 UTC and the latest time is 00:39 UTC, a window of about one hour.

DX-Spots...

Spotter Freq. DX Time Info Country

WP4KJJ-@ 144300 ZP9HTL 23:54 21 Jan 22 59 Paraguay
NP4BM-@ 144300 ZP9HTL 23:54 21 Jan 22 59 tnks tep qso Juan Paraguay
NP4BM-@ 144300 ZP9HTL 00:06 14 Jan 22 59 tks qso Juan Paraguay
WP4G 144300 ZP9HTL 00:39 13 Jan 22 55 in FK68 Paraguay
NP4BM-@ 144300 ZP9HTL 00:30 13 Jan 22 still 59 Paraguay
WP4KJJ-@ 144300 ZP9HTL 00:19 13 Jan 22 Paraguay 
KP4EIT-@ 144300 ZP9HTL 00:10 13 Jan 22 5/2 swl Paraguay
NP4BM-@ 144300 ZP9HTL 00:05 13 Jan 22 58 tks tep qso Paraguay