2m Tropo

This autumn has been a very unusual one in Wales, as much of the UK.  For one thing, it's been very warm; the first days of November have seen temperatures reach 17 degrees Celsius even here in the north of Wales.  Then there's the total absence of wind.  A normally severe QTH near the coast has been becalmed for weeks on end, with only a day or two of moderate winds interrupting proceedings.

Last night, idly twiddling about on 2m, I started hearing some Northern Irish stations coming in.  Then some of the marginal repeaters were easily accessed.  Within a few minutes, I was having easy simplex QSOs with both the south and north of Ireland.

Peculiar, wave-like features refracting light from the IoM.  Douglas is on the right. The lights along the silhouetted hill are local, and not involved in the refraction feature.

Strangely, one caller from the Isle of Man was pretty weak.  He did say something about his antenna being blocked by buildings, but all the same, he was much weaker than other stations, which made me go out to see if there was anything unusual about the atmosphere.

Detail of the refraction.

Well, there certainly was!  Whilst it was too dark to see land, stray light from street lamps was being refracted in a really odd way.  It would have been nice to see what effect this would have had on the landscape, but sadly, it had all dispersed by this morning.   The eerie lights came just as thick fog, which had affected UK travel all day, was being moved away by a slowly strengthening easterly wind (right to left in the image.)

Large waves in an inversion layer being disturbed by shear from a developing but slight wind just above, as seen January 16, 2012, looking SW from north Anglesey (again, an easterly wind.)  Contrast enhanced image.

Waves in sea fog/low cloud, looking towards IoM, July 22, 2013.  This kind of disturbance was probably responsible for the strange refraction of streetlights in the earlier images.

There seems to be a kind of wave pattern set up in a low layer over the sea.  This is not unusual, often being the result of shear disturbance of an inversion, such as when calm conditions are beginning to be blown away.  Even without such disturbances, you can often see the surreal 'Fata Morgana' super refraction quite often, which also enhances propagation.

Fata Morgana affecting the landscape of the Isle of Man on August 10, 2012.

The lights are pretty odd, seemingly being lensed.  It may be that the weak 2m signal was just in the wrong place, relative to the waves that were probably lensing radio signals as much as they were doing so for light.

Whatever the exact details, it was a good night on 2m!