Topband: Long Delayed Echoes

[Tom Rauch]

>          I always maintain a healthy dose of skepticism
about things I
> don't understand, but I also try to keep
> an open mind.

So do I.

Some things have some reasonable chance of happening, some
don't. I expect someday we might have cold fusion or a cure
for most forms of cancer. I expect Jane Fonda might even
have a chance at being president.

I don't expect *real* LDE's beyond a minute or so on HF.

I often wonder what the guys who first
> reported 80m long path openings must have thought
> nearly 40 years ago:
>
> K2RBT > 9M2DW  2JAN67  2201z (1st East Coast)
> W6NLZ > EP2BQ 18DEC72  1454z (1st West Coast)
>
> Sept 1975 CQ Magazine article by K6UA and W6KW (ex-W6NLZ)
>
> Today there is still no scientific explanation for this,
> yet the path is quite common under certain conditions.

Seems reasonable to me a signal could make it that distance
through scattering or through other mechanisims, since the
distance could always be shorter than the longpath distance.

Being polite with my wording....It does not seem reasonable
or logical by any stretch of imaginary circumstances to
expect an EM wave could somehow exit an antenna with low or
modest ERP and "hang out"  for 50 minutes either bouncing
around in a soup we know has several dB attenuation per hop
or making it out through that soup to some asteroid or other
object in space that would require a path long enough to
delay things 50 minutes, and still have enough receive
signal to be readable in the best locations.

At least it keeps people busy, including the most likely
source of the "long echo" who probably is so busy rolling
around laughing he doesn't have time for more sinister
mischief. I remember the antics of a certain WB8 who
recorded, edited, and replayed a certain few Hams he enjoyed
having fun with. He spent hours in his basement drinking
pots of coffee while editing tapes. I'd hate to see him
today with a digital recording or VCR capable of doing a
good HF recording and playback!

Now where did I put my numerology book?

73 Tom