Noctilucent Cloud storm

Recent nights have been good for these high altitude night-time visible mesospheric clouds which return strong microwave echoes, so should be good for 10GHz super-DX. See www.spaceweather.com

NOCTILUCENT STORM: Last night, sky watchers in Europe witnessed the finest display of noctilucent clouds (NLCs) so far this year. Electric-blue tendrils spread as far south as France:"I could see the NLCs from my window," says photographer Alexandre Croisier of Brittany, France. "So I rushed down to the beach to take this picture--a 6 second exposure with my Canon 350D.  

In England, the same display stretched from horizon to horizon. "There was quite a lot of detail visible, including swirls and tiger stripes," reports Mark Jones of Leamington Spa, UK. Even city lights did not overwhelm the NLCs. "I had no trouble seeing them from southwest London," says onlooker Maurice Gavin.

July is often the best month of the year to see these mysterious clouds. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for electric blue in the nights ahead.

Transatlantic 6m summer super DX - what mode?

The usual assumption for the super-DX across the Atlantic from Europe to the Caribbean and S.America is multi-hop sporadic-E. Certainly the contact to K1TOL that I made a few years ago was by this mode.

But, with the recent questioning of the mode for the Europe to JA path on 6m in summertime, I am wondering if mesospheric cloud reflection is a possiblity for other extremely long paths too? YV and other places on the north of South America is some 8000kms away from here, yet people seem to work such distances every summer on 6m.

I'd welcome your comments and views.