South American Skew From Other Perspectives

From a European perspective the scatter path over South America is equally dramatic, and perhaps more informative in determining what is happening. Ken, SM7CMV, points out that skew openings from JO75 to the Americas beaming towards Northern South America followed a pattern. Referring to the late December & early January 2002 openings Ken writes:

I worked alot and it was always the same pattern - opening started FY, YV, 9Y and then moved north Cuban stations, TI, YS, VP5, C6 etc and then the Florida stns and moving on up along east coast USA - and what is interesting all these stns worked without moving the antenna direction which was to the northern part of South America. Later in the end of January openings to stateside were more spotty mostly W1, W2 and W3 and now without the Caribbean warmup.

Ken's observations suggest the openings progressed along the greyline, as local daylight occurs much earlier in FY, VY & 9Y in comparision with continental North America. Moreover, those to the South in the TEP zone benefit from lingering (overnight) ionization from the equatorial bulge, and thus that far South it probably takes less morning sun to get the MUF up to what is necessary for 6 meter propagation than it does in more northern areas. As the amount of local daylight is longer there, the ionization lasts longer as well.

The intensity of the December skew openings was extreme, and at least on the American side of the path the opening was widespread as well. Stations in Kansas, Arkansas and Missouri, and probably other Southern and Midwestern states, used the path to good success. For example, N0JK in EM 17 worked SM, OH, YL, LY and other North East European countries via the scatter path using just a rotatable dipole and 100 watts. Jon noted that even on his dipole signals peaked on the skew path until the band opened direct. Both European and American stations should pay close attention to this path in the future.

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