T|he great circle path is a lot shorter than looking at a flat map leads one to believe - just over 4000 miles.
Even so, it's an intriguing path at the peak of midsummer, and the strength of my ~25W signal, coming from a vertical delta loop operated at its first harmonic and so with quite a high pattern, must point to Es.
And, yes, I did check with Bill that he wasn't listening remotely (he wasn't).
This therefore seems to be a westward polar path that is, to the east, leading to lots of Europe-Japan QSOs all the way up to 6m at the moment.
NLC coverage a couple of days ago. |
When you look at how NLC - intimately related to, and essentially the visual manifestation of PMSE - is now covering the polar regions down to mid latitudes, this kind of DX is perhaps not really surprising - though many will argue it is some big mystery, devoid of explanation.