The day was quiet on 6m as the band opened up to Africa in the afternoon, July 23, 2019. I was busy watching for a TU2 station from Ivory Coast and a look to the MUF showed some red spots in southern France, means the MUF was above 140 MHz!
Time to switch to 144 MHz. Not too late and after some CQ-calls CT1FJW popped in, followed by other stations from Portugal. And there was another caller in between – could I trust my eyes? I thought my heart stopped beating. D41CV from Cape Verde was calling me! 15 second periodes for FT8-mode could be sooo long, would the propagations be stable enough to finish? Yes they were and then it was done: D41CV was worked on 144 MHz via Sporadic E plus Tropo Extension over an unbelievable distance of 4.966 km (3,086 mi), also setting a new Region I Distance Record! The signal of D41CV war copied for about less than 5 minutes.
If we have a closer look at the Hepburn Tropo Index, we can find the highest value of 10+ for the area west of Africa just between the Canary and Cape Verde Islands. This maritime tropospheric ducting widens the range of the massive Sporadic E Opening between Germany and EA8. What a lucky constellation today!
Thanks Monteverde Contest Team Club for calling and for this incredible QSO and Record!
Thanks to EI7GL who made a very nice analysis about this remarkable contact, see here.
Heard but not worked were CT1BYM -9, EA1HRR -6 and EA8TJ -7.