[Elecraft] Seems That 6 Meters is Some What Open

[Jim Brown]

On 6/21/2018 1:03 PM, ANDY DURBIN wrote:
> So what is the the magic set of circumstances that opens a 6 m path between AK and AZ?

It's important to understand how E-skip works. It's called "sporadic E" 
because it depends on sporadic activation of the layer for reasons that 
are not understood by me. Propagation from E-skip is often "spotlight" 
in nature, especially when more than one hop is involved. We can work 
"single hop" when the ionized cloud is roughly midway between us and the 
other station; for two or more hops, at least two ionized clouds must 
line up -- that is, ground to cloud one to ground to cloud two to 
ground. With double-hop Es, it's common to be able to work stations 
within a radius as small as 50 miles. And then one or both of clouds 
moves and a different radius is illuminated.

Yesterday, for example, from here near San Francisco, stations 50-100 
miles E of me were working China, and stations in TX and OK were working 
JA. I heard none of it. But at various times, a single skip cloud 
provided a path down to San Diego and into XE, another into AZ, S NM, 
and S TX. That was all before noon. Eventually I started seeing the SE 
US -- AL, FL, SC, GA, NC. Toward evening, we started seeing (and working 
New England and the upper Midwest (8-land). And so on. VT was there for 
perhaps an hour, then gone. Same for RI. VE3 was there for about an hour.

After dinner, I returned to the shack to see a screen full of JA. It was 
roaring for at least an hour -- but around 10:20 PM local, it quickly 
faded.

A great place to see (and study) this is this map. It stays in my 
browser during Es season (roughly May to July in NA). Once in a while, 
click on the <MUF ES> all the way to the right above the map.

https://www.dxmaps.com/spots/mapg.php?Lan=&Frec=50&ML=&Map=NA&HF=&DXC=ING2&GL=

73, Jim K9YC