Brendan Trophy, yet not.

My blogging colleague, EI7GL, told us yesterday of fantastic news about a successful trans-Atlantic crossing at 144MHz.

The FT8 QSO was made between Cape Verde and Guadeloupe. 

Unfortunately, the rigid rules of men mean that, whilst the crossing is in fact a greater distance - by 26% - than between Ireland and Newfoundland, the QSO will not qualify for the Brendan Prize. 

Is this non-qualification for the prize fair?  Here are the rules, as presented by the IRTS web site this morning:

'The Brendan Trophies and Brendan Shields will be presented to each of the operators of the two amateur radio stations which first establish two-way communication in the relevant category between the continents of Europe and America (North or South) within the Two Metre Amateur Band'

Well, so far as I can see, that pretty much settles it.  Whilst Guadeloupe is on the North American continent, Cape Verde is part of the African continent (despite being 570km off the coast of mainland Africa).  It certainly isn't part of the European continent.

A couple of years ago, inspired by terrain modelling that predicted about 19dB gain (turning 100W output power into 8kW ERP!) towards the USA from a modest 6 element Yagi from my QTH, I thought about giving the Brendan Prize a go.  It seems I still could, although I think it won't be very long before someone will do it now.

At a low angle-optimised height of just 2m (yes, two metres!), I can get 19dB total gain with a 6-ele Yagi.

You might think me woefully overoptimistic, or even arrogant to believe I could do it.  But another factor that led me to think I could is that very regular operating from a comfortable, home location is the key to catching the right conditions.  Operating a DXpedition type outing for a week in late summer, as many have repeatedly done, is too short a time.  Early to midsummer is also more likely to produce a range of propagation effects that might bring about the sought-after results.

The main reason I didn't bother was that I don't have any 144MHz equipment, although I could buy a cheap transverter, I suppose.  But I'd rather a decent 2m SSB rig, which I can't really justify.

The other reason was that one of those who try every year - with huge ladder Yagis and high power - to achieve the qualifying QSO was of the firm view that very low angle paths - such as the one likely to have brought about the Cape Verde-Guadeloupe QSO - probably suffers far too much atmospheric extinction to be considered important. 

It does now look as though this 'expert' opinion was misguided, and I always thought so after I heard it.