Propagation Event of a Lifetime, or an Internet Link by Happenstance?

On July 24, 2021, around 1830 UTC, some potentially incredible 2m simplex contacts were made between a station in New Hampshire and about 20 stations in Southern California. Those contacts may have been part of some kind of incredible propagation event. Or they may have been the result of happenstance, via a set of internet linked transceivers at each end of the continent. Check out the video and let me know what YOU think made these contacts possible.
Big thanks to the @SoCal Simplex Archive for allowing me to share his recording as part of my video. Please check out the links below for more of the audio.
QSO map: caltopo.com/m/...
SoCal Simplex Archive channel: / @socalsimplexarchive
First call from NE1B: • July 24th, 2021 | AM |...
First NE1B QSO: • July 24th, 2021 | AM |...
W2CAZ/M CQ call: • July 24th, 2021 | AM |...
Beginning of about 30 minutes of QSOs with NE1B: • July 24th, 2021 | PM |...
Transmission with apparent packet loss: • July 24th, 2021 | PM |...

[@socalsimplexarchive]

I'm Team Skeptical. Thank you for the great analysis!

[@K6ARK]

And thank you so much for the service you're providing. You were gracious in providing authorization to use your clips as part of the assessment - many thanks.

[@bobwitte1101]

Adam, great analysis. The digital artifacts pretty much nails it. These days, I try to never say never but this has an extremely low probability that it was an RF QSO.

[@HamRadioDX]

Great video Adam. From what I can tell it appears to be either a double hop (single hops are usually maximum 2400km) Sporadic E on 2m (which is RARE!) or, a combo of Sporadic E and Tropo extension. We’ve seen examples here in VK where tropo helps extend a path into a Sporadic E cloud. Quite an amazing contact.

[@StuartM0TTQAmateurRadio]

On that "packet loss" over towards the end, the carrier is constant on the waterfall while the modulation drops off, so it's not a receiver issue. I've listened to the longer recordings and there's no sign of fading. The absence of any kind of fading or other effects of tropo or ionospheric propagation is telling. "Double hop Es" has long been reported and there is debate about what it really is (eg it's really "chordal hop") but you'd expect there to be obvious effects on the transmissions it carries. This is internet based at the CA end for sure.

[@tahoma6889]

Deflective Mic cable could cause that as well. But with the limited stations heard, I am thinking someone set up a link. HOWEVER - How the SDR did not hear those on the CA end, makes me think it truly could be propagation. If it were a link within range, we would likely hear something near the receiver as well.

[@K6ARK]

The SDR has a limited coverage area with a low-level antenna and high squelch level. The suspected remote station is likely coincidentally within line of sight.

[@AndrewMurphy8383]

@@K6ARK I DONT THINK IT LINK REPEATER IF IT WAS WE WILL BE ABLE TO HEAR THE BEEP

[@wild-radio7373]

Too cool! thank you for showing us this !♡♡♡

[@wild-radio7373]

That would have been so weird!

[@rallyden]

I was one of the stations over the high desert. KN6KNE. I was aero mobile around 8-10000’ in a Cessna with an HT rubber duck ant. I heard him and tried to call back while I was in QSO with a couple of stations in LA Basin. He was heard off and on from my posit. Sometimes clear and sometimes not heard at all while others were talking to him. Hard to say if this was direct propagation or accidental linked from my point of view.

[@Buglet720]

I remain a skeptic, as Sporadic-E is usually of widely varying signal levels. Those transmissions sounded too steady, as far as reception quality.

[@chiphungerford]

Great Video, I am in the Northeast my self and one night while listening on a HT I was hearing a ham from Japan as you suspect here it was a digital link but pretty cool either way that someone set that up and there was no need for the folks on either end to need a shift or tone to access the link.

[@HamRadioCrashCourse]

Shenanigans!!!

[@socalsimplexarchive]

Likely. And on-par for the So-Cal Ham Jam scene.

[@nickbasinski5371]

Agreed. Two weeks ago I heard a net in LA re-transmitting on 146.52 in San Diego, and also a SOTA activation re-transmitting on the Catalina repeater. People are doing some goofy simplex links down here right now.

[@GreggK6EGG]

yeah im starting to think that way

[@prestonskillman9463]

W2CAZ here. I was mobile in Massachusetts at the time on i-495

[@K6ARK]

Good info, thanks. NW of Boston? That potentially puts you close to Nashua where I suspect there may have been an internet connected station.

[@gregh3248]

Great video and analysis. We have a wormhole in Southern California in the evenings between LA & San Diego inland up to 60 miles on a good night, we get on Wednesday evenings after 8:30.

[@K6ARK]

Greg, even Santa Barbara comes in strong to San Diego regularly. It's a straight shot across the ocean, and tropospheric ducting is common along the coast and out into the ocean. Makes for some fun simplex operation!

[@2metercrew389]

Great video. 👍👍👍

[@josempantaleon]

That was a fun and informative video Adam, thank you for sharing. 73

[@ki8um119]

I worked a Los Angeles station on 2 meters (FM)from my QTH in West Michigan. This was about 2005. This propagation is not unheard of.

[@K6ARK]

Nice! Mode? Antenna? Power?

[@MtKenya-qq3jv]

Another thing you can check is active APRS stations at both locations and whether any digipeter on the other end picked up anything unusual.

[@K6ARK]

Yep, there weren't any that would indicate natural propagation over that path.

[@adam-g7crq]

I'm 5 months late leaving a comment so you've probably figured out that it's a linking station, on the water fall the signals are all Spot on the same frequency in most cases there's normally some variation plus or minus if different transceivers are being used but not in this case, was there any mobile flutter on the mobile station.

[@notionocean]

Nice analysis. It struck me as odd that he would announce his state when calling QRZ on 52.

[@iykury]

it probably makes more sense in the northeast where there are a bunch of small states close together

[@KM4ACK]

Great analysis! Thanks Adam.

[@tahoma6889]

We would think there would be more stations heard. That is fascinating though.

[@Transmissions]

Hah! That’s Bill. He helps run a bunch of the DMR infrastructure out here.

[@K5YVY]

Very good investigation Adam. I agree these folks probably got tricked and that sucks if so. I love making long distance simplex contacts. Great video and evident conclusions. I’m not saying it didn’t or couldn’t happen, I’m quite ambitious about making 2m FM DX someday into Mexico.

[@N7KOM]

Really great, thoughtful analysis of this event. 73 Tim N7KOM

[@robertaldrich2635]

I'll believe anything after, 30 years ago, hearing a trucker's radio program in Casper, Wyoming, over late-night radio.They gave the gas prices and the prices were unbelievably cheap! A couple of dollars less or so! So fine, I thought, gas is cheaper over there. A year later, I happened to wake up again in the wee hours and turned on my radio and heard the same station, and again the prices were a couple of dollars or more cheaper than in Los Angeles. So, next day I called a business in Casper, (McDonald's) and asked what the gas prices were. The young girl who answered the phone said she'd never heard of such low prices! I have heard many years ago about radio programs playing on the radio that had ended thirty years before, and it was a nationwide phenomenon, so I'll believe this kind of thing, or at least not throw it out! There are things we don't know about the world no matter what Science thinks, if you talk to a scientist, and I look forward to scientists finally getting past their own favorite ideas and look at the real world and discover new, quantum leaps of information!

[@Dusty_Ham]

This is quite interesting. I've heard of CB making incredible distances at times, so it's not *entirely* unheard of, but would certainly be unusual! Edit got further through the video, definitely seems like a re-transmission of some sort. It definitely seems like packet loss instead of analog signal loss.

[@HamRadioTV]

With CB on 27 MHz and this was on 146 MHz, is like comparing an Apple to an Orange.

[@davidbrayshaw3529]

@@HamRadioTV Made the trip from Melbourne, Australia to South Dakota running 10 watts ssb on 11 metres back in the early 80's. I can't see that happening on 2 m. any time soon!

[@sfaisalakber]

So for a link to work, there needs to be a transceiver in both New England and SoCal. Both on 146.520. This is the first that I’m hearing about someone putting up any link on 146.520. However, the points you bring up make sense. If there was a propagation event, I think a lot more people would have experienced it. I may not have here in NorCal but certainly those towards Arizona and Southern Nevada might have. Also, I think on the northern end, we might have heard more than just the two people noted in New England. Maybe someone did setup a link between both locations on 146.520?

[@JD-gn6du]

I once listened to something like this in roughly 2006 where an operator in a fire watch tower near Roseberg OR who was on a hand held radio with a beam antenna picked up the Lyman Hill repeater (N7GDE 145.190 -0.6 127.3) like the repeater was in his back yard. This is roughly 430 miles and this lasted about 18 hours... I've never heard a repeater come to life so quick... the gentleman's radio was on a local to him repeater which used the same tones and offset. The best anyone could think of what happened was natural propagation through tropospheric ducting.

[@phildurall7466]

Nice investigative work Adam! I agree with Stu M0TTQ and your reply!

[@rafaelgcpp]

That distance in FM? Unlikely...

[@W6IWN_Radio]

Amazing!!!

[@DK5ONV]

WOOOW just amazing

[@yakovdavidovich7943]

What kind of linked repeater could anyone confuse for 146.52 simplex? Bizarre.

[@edwardlittle9362]

There were at least two contacts between New Hampshire and San Diego that day: the one shown on your map at 8:20 in the video and another that took place sometime around 1730 UTC. I was doing a POTA activation that day from Palomar Mountain State Park and finished off by doing a few 2m simplex QSOs down the mountain into San Diego. One was with an operator who was all stoked about having just worked New Hampshire. For a linked repeater site (or pair of sites, as someone else pointed out you'd need some physical separation if input and output are on the same frequency) to have coverage from the LA area to San Diego, that would narrow down the possible locations. You're looking at either Santiago Peak in the Santa Ana Mountains, Catalina Island, a boat off the coast, or maybe one of the high points in the San Gabriel or San Jacinto Mountains. 73 DE W6KSR

[@K6ARK]

NE1B made about 20 QSOs to SoCal that day, all of which had line of sight to the LA area. Take a look at the map link in the video description. I mapped each SoCal station location.

[@edwardlittle9362]

@@K6ARK Cool. I didn't notice the linked map earlier. WA0KVD is the one I was referring to.

[@jampskan5690]

This was real, and so is Bigfoot! 🤣

[@andrewd4890]

Hi Adam, very interesting and I have to say I’m skeptical that this was anything more than a couple of internet based repeaters. I can’t do it here but I’d be interested if any analysis of the audio can find a subtone. The source of these recordings may be able to do that. I hypothesise that a couple of guys have set up a simplex repeater and it’s been keyed up accidentally by Bill, who may have a standard subtone set in his radio. Listening to those signals and in particular the quieting level, it is mighty stable. That may be a measure of the quieting in the SDR at the recording station. So the transmitter in the LA area was putting a reasonable signal in to the monitoring station, but only a few local signals were strong enough to reach it. Some may have been using very simple equipment and antennas. What an interesting DFing opportunity. Does anyone do fox hunting in LA? That’s what would seal the deal…. 73 Andrew VK1DA/VK2UH

[@K6ARK]

Good comments, Andrew. Another simple test would be to change to another 2m simplex frequency (perhaps 146.550) and if you can still make the contact, odds are good it's legit.

[@andrewd4890]

@@K6ARK indeed, and if the propagation was real, the vast majority of folk listening on repeater output frequencies would have been hearing repeaters from that area too, given how many zillion repeaters there are in the US. It would not have been any secret if every repeater on 2m was suddenly propagated 4000 km. :)

[@fuchsprellen3000]

This sounds like something put together with a few SDRs coordinated with 2m transmitter stations on each end. Separating the SDR RX and the 2M FM TX locations would keep them from clobbering each other. eg. a SDR receiver in the Nashua area being monitored in LA, and rebroadcast on a separate LA area transmitter. Meanwhile a SDR in LA being monitored in Nashua and being rebroadcast in Nashua. My main reasoning is that the contacts are too discrete to be actual propagation. In an opening like that the band would be pandemonium. As a southern New England ham I can say that 146.52 can be very dead, but not so dead that there wouldn't be any other stations hearing the West Coast in the larger region around Nashua. The New York station could have caught a little tropo into Nashua and got in on it that way. Either way, it's a great example of what happens when you have a lot of high quality monitoring! 73 N1QDQ

[@fuchsprellen3000]

Could also just involve a TX/RX switch on each end... Would be less complicated for this simu-simplex concept.

[@malenve6vid]

Interesting.

[@HamRadioTV]

I'm very skeptical on natural propagation. I would bet something like two AllStar nodes are connect in these two locations with radios on them. It would be fun to go DF the source!! Great vid, thanks for making this!

[@K6ARK]

Absolutely. One of the SOTA geeks came up with a good way you could test it when it's occurring if it happens again - just QSY to another frequency briefly to see if the contact is still possible.

[@yakovdavidovich7943]

But who would put something like that up on 146.52? Only someone playing pranks?

[@SQ5TK]

unbelievable!!!

[@jasonportman4591]

Wow!

[@jasonbruner1195]

Was an interesting day for sure - was talking on 146.52 with my local buddies and all of a sudden this fella says "hey where are you guys from?" Central Indiana was our response. He basically said stop pulling his chain, are we driving through Amarillo, TX? I logged the contact and sent him a QSL card but never received one back. Check out my logs from that day and weekend on QRZ... De NY9M

[@K6ARK]

Awesome! That's a much more common path for tropospheric ducting. Very cool to get to make contacts like that.

[@SevenFortyOne]

This is very interesting. There is a known internet link between a repeater in Portland ME and Santiago peak in SoCal. Portland is ~100mi away from Nashua so I don't think that particular link is involved due to the distance and the fact it is a repeater link and not set to work on 146.520. However, the fact that a link exists in the general area may imply there are more...or maybe its just a coincidence.

[@markcarlson6950]

You're not talking about the EchoLink that KC1JMH activates for the Sunday evening Newcomer's Rountable Net on 147.09? The station in Yrupa Valley (KM6KPW) comes in through EchoLink, not a linked repeater on Santiago Peak.

[@SevenFortyOne]

@@markcarlson6950 I'm thinking of the Ka1SHU repeater in Portland, ME. I was in Portland a couple of summers ago and heard constant un-ham like chatter coming from the KA1SHU repeater. I later learned it was linked to a SoCal repeater on Santiago Peak and rebroadcasting traffic. The chatter was worse than what I hear on 11 meters and seemed very out of place for a New England repeater. I'm not sure if the link is still there or active all the time like it was when I was in Portland.

[@markcarlson6950]

@@SevenFortyOne Oh, I forgot about that! That link has since been taken down. I don't know the specifics on why, possibly could have gotten FCC attention. Yes, it was awful. Reminded me of the recordings of "The .61 Slime" that Mr. Mike posted on the NEAR-Fest forum.

[@davidvaughn7752]

And only rec'd in a very small part of Southern California? There would be other phenomena detectable in the signal (associated with ducting) if this were purely an RF signal... Somebody was spoofed - Ahhh, the wonders of the internet. K7GYB

[@eazypeazy6650]

Hi Adam some brits can hit new york repeaters could be propagation aswell tho another x file mystery...

[@davidbrindle504]

Talked with Bill NE1B and listened to the video! Bill is active everyday in contest, DX , GRID Square chaser, and started DMR in NE helping doubling the number of repeater pairs available! He helped set up towers and repeaters and helping with code plugs for DMR repeaters. He also helped with novice test sessions. He was the Motorola enginer for the first Cell phone call between Motorola VP and the media. I can not believe the recordings and that was Bills voice. There were extra issues like the MUF of 174 in mid america, a huge smoke plume going coast to coast and high tempures, coast to coast. Ducting is my guess. Dave Brindle K1WER

[@K6ARK]

Thanks Dave, watch the video and look at the map I shared. Smoke plume data shows smoke was not a factor along the path that day. There are multiple mountain ranges with 10-14k foot peaks in the way that block ducting. Contacts at each end of a theoretical 4,150 km path were exceptionally localized - nobody out of eyeshot of Los Angeles heard his signal. If the propagation was natural and that incredibly strong (good enough for a 59 from a station with 1.5W and a roll-up jpole) others would have heard him. I have zero doubt about Bill's skills as an operator, nor his character. I don't for a second think he fabricated any of this. I think his experience with it was purely coincidental. But I do think it was an internet link.

[@JosephVE3GKT]

Hah! I'll make this easy on all of us. It's 100 percent internet linked. "40 watts and a vertical" across the country on FM, my ass. 40 watts and a vertical wouldn't be that clear across town let alone across the country. The CA end makes sense, it's a transmitter near LA. What's interesting is that mobile station, assumedly in NY, far away from the NH station. And no one else from the north east. Very curious indeed. But definitely internet-linked. Thanks for sharing, 73 de VE3GKT

[@rjzach52]

There were a actually multiple NH stations that also heard the event. Not as well as NE1B so if mega-ducting, the apurature was fairly small.

[@Johnyrocket70]

I went to his live stream and I didn't appear on his screen 5 miles away with 25 watts.

[@Andrew-DX]

This is definitely a linked repeater. It’s possible to make a 2 meter contact by e-skip on average around 1000 miles for a single hop, but at this frequency, one hop is rare enough. Two hops would be almost impossible. The transmission exhibits no fading like e-skip. Tropo is out of the question. I made five 2 meter FT8 contacts from my QTH in Ohio to Texas on field day. That was typical single hop e-skip.

[@davidbrayshaw3529]

I'm going to raise this as a question rather than a statement. I certainly don't have the qualification to make the latter but I'm certainly interested in others opinions regarding my enquiry. My understanding is that the inherent wide bandwidth of an FM signal precludes it from successful ionospheric refraction. Part of the frequency range of the modulated signal will most likely be absorbed resulting in lost intelligence even if elements of the signal are still detectable. Is it possible to "skip" a signal that's 12khz. wide? I acknowledge that such a broadbanded signal will propagate as a consequence of tropospheric ducting but is it even possible for this to occur in relation to E layer, D layer, F layer "Skip".? Anyone's thoughts regarding this would be very much appreciated.

[@SOTA-plus]

I was on Mt. San Gorgonio attempting to make contact with NE1B using a 3-element yagi. If I remember correctly, best signal was pointed South-East with 15 degrees of elevation.

[@K6ARK]

Interesting info, thanks. Did you try pointing West at all?

[@SOTA-plus]

@@K6ARK I turned around in a circle a few times (it’s a handheld Arrow Antenna), and there was a clear single maximum. - Edit: I’ll be up there again in two weeks, and will take a compass bearing.

[@Lugeix]

Wild Fire Smoke plume propagation??? The lack of fading or phasing is odd, if it was a real DX event.

[@ahbushnell1]

I noticed on the local stations you can see the reply on the water fall even though it's too week to hear.

[@K6ARK]

Right, the antenna/station there does not seem to be particularly sensitive, and the squelch is set at a decently high level. The signal coming from NE1B and the NY station are very strong

[@ahbushnell1]

@@K6ARK I didn't think about squelch.

[@jaspatters1]

Im about a hour from Bath and I had a two meter FT8 contact into Florida during the ARRL VHF Contest at 10 watts with a m2 horizontal loop mounted inside my garage about 10 feet from my station. I had two others in Georgia and Alabama that heard me on psk reporter. The one thing I noted was the signal kept coming in and out at a regular and routine rate. Two meters was active on ft8 and six meters was wide open with E.

[@K6ARK]

Great contact! NH to FL is not uncommon, particularly on weak signal modes. So cool what works sometimes.

[@jaspatters1]

@@K6ARK yeah, I heard the ft8 on my 705 while I was testing the swr on one of my ht antennas. I thought, who in this valley of the allegany mountain is on 2 meter FT8. Glad I checked it out. Putting up a pair of phased loops shortly. Glad you posted this, it's cool to see others are seeing this too.

[@grinch1007]

what k6ark neglected to tell every one was in those emails the Cali station received from NE1B was the NOAA smoke maps of the forest fires that traveled from Cali to New England that day. Also the cali stations were also received by other stations here in NH. I am still a believer in such a rare event. ~K1MIZ

[@K6ARK]

Chuck, I excluded the GOES IR imagery because they actually show only water vapor, not smoke. The smoke from the fires in Northern CA and OR is not visible in those images.

[@K6ARK]

I added a 7/24 smoke layer shapefile overlay to the map I created. caltopo.com/m/49R5 Data source: ospo.noaa.gov/Products/land/hms.html

[@briantheminer]

Wouldnt it be great if we could do this even but a few times a year I’m in the U.K., now I’m monitoring 146.520 😏

[@brianchandler3346]

I'm wondering if they unknowingly were going through a repeater after some ducting? (so like NH gets out further than usual, then through a repeater there to Cali? or some combination thereof?)

[@K6ARK]

That is my suspicion as to what happened. There may have been some localized enhanced propagation, but I really think some form of internet link in the LA area was involved for the SoCal coverage.

[@K6ARK]

With that many stations accessing an internet linked machine, I would not expect that there would be a CTCSS applied to the system.

[@johnk9843]

Great video Adam,I watched early weather on WMUR (Manchester, NH) they commented that the West Coast Fires smoke was headed across the US. The wife and I were out driving that morning she commented about the haziness.I said it was the West Coast Fires. A town just south oF Nashua,NH, Dunstable,MA, the fire chief sent out an email because he got so many calls regarding the smoke.I think this skip was caused by the smoke particles across the US. W1MBG

[@K6ARK]

John, take a look at the map that I linked. I posted a shape file onto the map of the smoke plumes on Saturday the 24th. The smoke plumes were far north of the path between New Hampshire and Southern California. The fires are in far northern California and Oregon, and the smoke is blowing northeast, then straight east. Those fires are over 500 miles from Southern California. I don't see how that could have miraculously impacted propagation on that specific day with smoke nowhere near the propagation path. It just doesn't make sense.

[@K6ARK]

If the contact was from New Hampshire to Washington or Oregon, then that might be a more reasonable argument. That's where the smoke plume was.

[@RJDA.Dakota]

E-skip is a very awesome, strange thing. As a kid I remember seeing a TV station from Flagstaff, Arizona on our living room tv... in Florissant, Missouri in the late 1960s. Strange, but very cool.

[@harryr.6744]

I think this is a real propagation event. Sunday morning I talked to N4AOW who worked a station on 2 meter FM simplex in Nebraska from near Chattanooga TN. We were amazed that this was possible. So maybe there will be more reports of this nature as the word goes around about this DX opening. The ARRL VHF/UHF column editor usually gets these reports for QST publication.

[@K6ARK]

Yeah, tropo across the East, Southeast, and Midwest is pretty common. Us West-coasters are jealous of the propagation you get. It's exceptionally rare for that to reach California though. Too many mountains in the way, and lots of dry air.

[@Tonpilot]

Good analysis. BTW I made contact with him at 1:41 local and I'm one of the few stations that can be heard on SoCal Simplex KZbin recording. Anyway, couple more info for you to consider: my brother was flying at 10,500 ft over Lucerne Valley in the high desert and heard him. Not sure how well he heard him. Other SOTAs made contact too. If remote, where do you think it is from...can you take a rough estimate? Also, a meteor lit up the skies near Oslo Norway and crashed into the woods at around 4pm PDT, which is roughly 2 hours after all the contacts ended. Could this be an influence?

[@K6ARK]

An aircraft at 10,500 ft over Lucerne valley would have line-of-sight coverage of the LA basin. Ground stations in Lucerne and Victorville could not hear him. I believe there was an internet linked station somewhere in the LA basin, either relatively close to San Pedro, or on a higher point in the area. What's strikingly odd is that no stations without RF coverage of LA were able to make the contact or hear him. A meteor 3-5 hrs later over Norway would have no impact on this. Meteor scatter propagation is very short-lived too.

[@K6ARK]

Here's a map with all of his contacts and others I heard mentioned but couldn't hear on the SDR. caltopo.com/m/49R5

[@Tonpilot]

@@K6ARK I'm a new ham so I'm not familiar with remote ops. How would one set this up? Thanks for the analysis!

[@K6ARK]

@@Tonpilot www.arrl.org/files/file/VoIP.pdf

[@Tonpilot]

@@K6ARK BTW...if you like to update your map, that was me near the end of your list of events telling a "KNE" to go to "55". KNE is KN6KNE, not KA6KNE. KN6KNE was in a Cessna at 10,500' over the high desert and was heading back to Long Beach from a very long trip and I heard him faintly in the midst of all the traffic going on, so I wanted to tell him quickly to go to another frequency.

[@Sean-AI7EQ]

If this is internet based wouldn't it require a link/remote base at both ends? This is very interesting. Hope you can find out more.

[@K6ARK]

Yes there would have to be a simplex transceiver at each end linked via the internet. People do this regularly, but usually not on 146.520 for obvious reasons.

[@Sean_Hartley]

@@K6ARK I hope someone can figure out "the rest of the story"... Thanks for sharing and very interesting.

[@TheNoCodeTech]

Sus

[@AA0Z]

I don't think your getting a holiday fruit basket from NE1B this year after he sees this video. :)

[@K6ARK]

Lol, he seems like a 100% stand-up guy. I mean in no way to diminish his part of all of this. I'm glad he was taking advantage of the opportunity and making contacts. I hope we are able to prove this was natural propagation. And if that's the case, can you imagine how he'd feel if he just blew this off as an internet link? I think he did everything he should have in the scenario, including being skeptical about the actual mode of propagation and trying to objectively assess all of the factors in determining what actually happened. Bill seems like an awesome guy and a hell of an operator.

[@GreggK6EGG]

I thought it was possible, but I'm starting to think its BS, once I heard the packet loss...

[@levlev4186]

This is too stable to be natural.

[@K6ARK]

I agree, I would expect fading and/or distortion. Signal reports are all the same. With two different stations NE1B reports their signal strength in dBM. Bother times it's -104 dBM. Stations running HTs get similar full quieting signal reports too. I'd love for this to be a natural event but I don't think it is.

[@levlev4186]

@@K6ARK BTW... call is HA5OGL

[@kevinkc3onohelijeepworld953]

Wow and they say 2m is dead 😳 wonder what power the SD station was putting out. Only 40w out 😳 my buddy says he use to talk around the world on 20w and a bicycle with a whip antenna. Very interesting 🧐 wonder if sun one linked the repeater bc the SoCal repeater is hopping most times. Is that the real popular repeater 2mtr crew ?? Wonder if that’s why sun one linked it ????

[@K6ARK]

One of the SoCal stations that receive a full quieting signal report was running 1.5W to a JPole. Some others were using 5W HTs

[@kevinkc3onohelijeepworld953]

@@K6ARK yup I agree on digital linked system that the NH station didn’t know about. Now to set one up so I can mess with the 2mtrCrew guys ☺️😆

[@K6ARK]

😆 😈

[@waynejohnson5463]

you can have a tropo duct feed a Es path, with the 2M Es that occured in the last few weeks it seem possible, but I am betting on a moron running a simplex node on a standard simplex frequency

[@K6ARK]

I agree. The biggest red flag to me is that the signals were so strong over such a long distance with marginal power levels, yet the coverage at each end was exceptionally localized to areas that had ground wave propagation available to common areas.

[@shelbycobrat]

Could cloud seeding be causing this?

[@mikegianfrancesco9431]

I worked him few times from my qth bronx ny de w2mgf

[@billbarber196]

A clarification of the unique conditions on July 24th, 2021 were explained in this month's QST, October 2021, ""The World Above 50 MHz", on p. 80 and p. 81. This did not seem to be Tropo duct related, but more Sporadic-E caused by NLCs. Read more about this phenomena in QST. Thanks to all those who sent QSL cards and did LOTW uploads documenting this event on 2 meter FM from CA to NH!

[@joeblow8593]

Interesting: While the MUF DID go to 209 mhz on July 24 2021. It was at 21:52 UTC, not 1830 UTC according to a screen shot on the WTFDA FM DX sub forum. The halfway point was over EM46 which doesn't really fit as being a half way point between San Diego and New Hampshire. The collateral subsequent (other DX reports) do NOT support any cross country VHF skip event that day. July 24 was a significant day for FM and VHF DX, but not enough I didn't run across any screen shots what would support a multi-hop chordal (cloud to cloud) event either. While 146.520 FM skip is definitely possible, conditions THAT day did not have any indication of multi-hop from CA to NH. Now on QRZ there WAS a reported 146.520 FM skip between New Hampshire and Minnesota, but THAT was on July 14 2021 forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads/i-just-worked-kb0fae-in-minnesota-on-146-52-fm.772205/ However: There HAVE been multi-hop chordal (cloud to cloud) events that supported 2 or 3 hop DX on the FM broadcast band, most notably on July 14 2021 when an FM Dxer located in Goldfield Nevada picked up 98.1 in West Yarmouth Mass at 2481 miles! A bit down in the comments, notice a DX maps screenshot of what looks like multi-hop chordal cloud to cloud event with half way points spread out across map that DID support such an event! forums.wtfda.org/forum/wtfda-dx-talk/got-fm-dx/92014-excellent-double-hop-sporadic-e-opening-july-14

[@K6ARK]

Nice! But re: that last link/propagation event. That was a broadcast station received by a DXer. This event included a "full quieting" copy of 1.5W into a JPole to an omnidirectional vertical over 2,500 miles away.