Transatlantic on 6m, the "new normal" on 50MHz?

[Why do you keep writing about Sporadic E Jim?] 

Because there isn't anything else at present.

Not quite true, there have been several auroras. These events all have something in common - I missed them. I got back in on 2 May just in time to catch the last of a good aurora and on 50MHz I managed to work G8BCG in IO70, a distance of 623Km. This is a pretty good result on aurora for me as G8BCG is probably the furthest south I have worked on aurora in the UK. Sadly, I missed everything else in that event.

But it is true that I am not writing about big tropo openings on the higher bands because there have not been any. Maybe soon there will be. Other esoteric modes = zero.

So time to consider again the issue of transatlantic 6m propagation. This is not due to storms positioned 2000km apart across the ocean, as I have been reading recently. I shall stay away from further discussion of what the mechanism might be, other than a final guess.

Since my first transatlantic contact from here with VO1SO back on 18 June 2011, there have been 31 days when I have had 50MHz contacts across the North Atlantic. For this exercise I am excluding Mexico, the Caribbean, Central and South America - this is North Atlantic only. This was done in an attempt to screen out Trans Equatorial Propagation which is tricky to identify.

After that first contact I had to wait a week short of five years until the next one. Then there were two days in 2016, five days in 2017, six days in 2018, two days in 2019, five days in 2020, three days in 2021, none in 2022, and six in 2023. Plus one now in 2024.

There is one feature which applies to all 27 days of contacts across the North Atlantic up until the end of August 2023. All of the contacts in that period were during June, July or August. The earliest was 4 June and the latest was on 24 August. This shows the characteristic lag mentioned in the last posting for Es contacts in general, starting about 17 days before midsummer and ending 65 days after midsummer, making the lag about 7 weeks (see last posting). Not much data for this one so maybe that lag is a bit exaggerated.

What makes the last four contact dates unusual is that they fall way outside the usual pattern. The dates are 27 and 30 November 2023, 1 December 2023 and 1 May 2024. If I needed more evidence that the Es season is getting longer then here it is (if it is Es). Before this week my earliest QSO across the North Atlantic was 4 June. The latest one was 1 May. 

I only made two contacts that day, and I failed to confirm a third one (VE1SKY). There were several stations heard such as K1SIX, K7BV, K1KA, WW1L etc. The point here is that this was a substantial opening even if I only worked two stations.

50MHz contacts at GM4FVM on 1 May 2024.

So what propagation gives transatlantic 6m propagation on 1 May? Is that the same process as in November and December the previous year? When my previous contacts on this path have all been during the period from June to August, it makes me wonder.

Sporadic E which is vastly more sporadic than I have ever seen, or F-layer, or something else???

All the books say that Es is not influenced by the sunspot cycle, and I cannot really see how it could be. Surely not that.

73 Jim

GM4FVM