Europe & the Mediterranean beaming North Africa

On both Es and F2 it is possible to work into Europe by beaming towards North Africa. For me the path usually falls somewhere between 70 & 90 degrees. During the summers of 2001 and (so far) 2002 on Es, as well as on F2 during the fall and winter of 2001-2002 I had many QSOs with Europeans along this path. On Es sometimes signals are simply stronger beaming that way. At other times they are weaker, but by doing so I am able to drastically reduce or eliminate completely the line noise that plagues me on the direct path. The "usual" Es skew path to Western Europe is reflected in the map below. It presumes EU stations are beaming south to Florida and the Carribean.

Sometimes beaming skew is the only way- for example, Via both Es and F2, I have been able to work Malta with a 90 degree beam heading when nothing at all was heard on the direct path. Particularly on Es this is a bit harder to explain. Was there some sort of F2 involvement? For spring & summer QSOs I highly doubt it, though for fall & winter ones it is a virtual certainty. The skip point in either case could be in a different part of the Atlantic than that theorized in the map above. The map below explores some possibilities.

In fact what is happening may be multipathing of different sorts and the maps may be an oversimplification of what actually occurs. An experienced ham explained to me he believes tropospheric ducting to play a big role in this propagation, and I agree. My path to the East is straight over open water that begins only a few hundred yards away from the antenna. To the South, the water is even closer, and I have few obstructions in those directions except a few trees. The maps and my somewhat tenuous explainations as to why these paths -particularly on Es- work is purely speculative. The point is that they work for me, and if nothing else the maps are useful to get an idea of which way to point the beam. In most cases running high power makes a big difference.

On F2 during the fall & winter 2001-2002 season I made many skewed QSOs to Europe on this heading. Sometimes the stations worked were also beaming on a skewed path, and other times they were beaming direct. Uneven ionization in the F2 layer and takeoff angles into the hot zone likely played a part. One area I commonly worked into on scatter was Finland. More often than not during QSOs to OH I was beaming skewed somewhere between 40 and 70 degrees, and sometimes even further South. Multipathing certainly has something to do with it at times as well, as would the varying locations of highly ionized areas of the F layer on an opening to opening basis.

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