Skew Paths to Central America & South America

There is another relatively common scatter path to Central America from the Eastern United States. The scatter point lies somewhere over the South Eastern Carribean or as far south as Eastern South America, and on it one can sometimes hear Central American stations on F2 when the direct path is unusable. Given the path geometry this is likely some form of sidescatter or backscatter, but whatever the propagation mechanism, this path is helpful in working Central American countries not normally heard direct. Though most often useable on winter F2, this path is also useful for working stations as far north as Mexico during the spring of peak solar years.

Like most of the paths discussed, high power is almost mandatory and CW is the mode of choice, but conditions vary opening by opening and barefoot single sideband QSOs are sometimes possible. When the path is open here there is often moderate to strong backscatter from stations in the Southern United States, and it is usually open direct to the Eastern Carribean and/or Eastern South America.

TEP signals from South America are also sometimes skewed. Traditional TEP models rely on a "clean" explanation of the propagation mechanism. Two equidistant stations on opposite sides of the geomagnetic equator make a straight-line point to point contact via a chordal hop across it- In theory at least. The real thing isn't always that simple. Whether it is caused by multipathing, uneven ionization or ion cloud height, or the intervention of anther propagation mode or modes, the path is not always straight. I have noted signals skewed, sometimes up to 30 degrees from the true great circle heading. An even greater skew may be possible, though I have as yet to experience it.

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