unbelievable tropo to the east

There was a super tropo on October 23, 2019. Wolf DK2EA informed me by phone that there is a duct to Corfu island which I could not believe at first, because there had never been such a thing before.

When I arrived at my QTH, which is located on the Swabian Alb at an altitude of 850 meters and switched on the radio, I immediately heard the call on the 144.174 MHz SV8EBX/Tom. His signal was incredibly loud down to +8dB over a distance of 1262 km. Tom’s signal had some QSB but it was constantly receivable so the duct was actually stable.

After the great QSO with Tom I turned the antenna to the north east what I heard was unbelievable. I heard stations from LY and EW as well as nearby station. I had never heard anything like this before over so long distances.

After some CQ calling I got the first response from EW3AA in KO12TC with a distance of 1130 km, then EU4AI came from KO22CE over 1171 km. He was followed by LY2WR from KO24FO with 1289 km. The highlight was EW6X in KO45IM with a distance of 1577 km. It was not that the signals were quiet no they were really loud all better than -10dB up to 0dB.

In addition there were many stations from Poland which were in KO fields and therefore just below or over 1000 km. I saw also in PSK Reporter that I was heard still further, close to the 1700 km, just before Moscow. Unfortunately the QSO did not work to the farthest counter station.

Later this day SV8EBX/Tom asked me in ON4KST chat if we want to try a ssb qso. We moved on the 144.150 MHz because it seemed quiet. Tom called me and I could record him immediately. His ssb signal was 55 and I got a fabulous 57.

Tom was reachable till 26th of October there I made the last QSO in FT8 mode with him. In my neighbourhood is DF9UX (4x11el/1KW) located in JN47nx (which is a round 5km from me) he made a QSO 26th at 16:55 UTC. Tom told me that the DF9UX signal was -15dB. Tom copied me the same time +0dB and a bit more. The difference in that >15dB is that I’m at 850m and DF9UX is about ~200m lower so this clears it was a high inversion layer duct.

That was an unbelievable tropo 23-26th October to the east which will surely stay in my memory for a long time.