Hi Alan, Rik and others,
Drawing on ITU-R LF propagation reports, it seems that sea paths can have
"coastal gain" of some 8 dB for a station that is fairly close to the coast
(and the direction of the signal is in a seaward direction). If each end of
the path is so-located, then the cummulative advantage is obvious. Quartz
Hill is ideally sited for sea paths in a northwest sector, and UA0LE could
hardly be in a better direction for us. I'm not sure how close to the coast
UA0LE is sited, but Ed can comment on that in due course.
As I reported earlier, the UATLE received signal last Saturday night peaked
to be actually audible in the fairly heavy static, and gave "Q5" results on
Argo set at 3 second dot length. It could well be that we encountered much
better than usual propagation that night.
In terms of total time that both ends have a dark path, this is where
north/south paths have a big advantage over east/west paths. There were
nine hours of dark path between ZM2E and UA0LE last Saturday night. ZM2E is
well placed to work "right up the Pacific" to Siberia or Alaska, and enjoy
"coastal gain" as well.
73, Bob ZL2CA
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