The Curious Case of... HC6PE

HC6PE continued to be spotted hours and hours after normal propagation on 14MHz had died away last night (05/06 Dec, 2018).

On this occasion, the anomalous spots came here at 23:26UT and 01:48UT.  The only other two dark side stations hearing HC6PE were the top-performing EA8BFK and OE9GHV.

The timing of my spots coincided very nicely, first with the field restoring to quiet levels, and then as it dipped to slightly disturbed conditions.  OE9GHV heard HC6PE throughout the initial disturbed period.  The field remained unsettled after this later disturbance began.

Image: Tromso Geophysical Laboratory.

I am sure this propagation mode is related to field aligned irregularities of some sort, quite possibly located at extremely high altitudes.  The curious thing is that the propagation is clearly transient, yet stable enough over the couple of minutes necessary for a successful WSPR spot to be reported.