If April showers bring May flowers,
does April Fools bring May Tropo ?
No joke, it did just that 38 years ago.
But never again since as far as we know.
On May 10 1988, call areas W1 and W2 enjoyed
a rare 2M and up 1300+ Mile Tropo opening to
the Turks and Caicos islands. VP5D in FL41
was 59 on SSB for several hours that night.
You'll hear several familiar callsigns working him.
Joe Reisert W1JR wrote it up in his column in
the September 1988 issue of Ham Radio magazine:
https://ia800806.us.archive.org/24/items/hamradiomag/ham_radio_magazine/Ham%20Radio%20Magazine%201988/09%20September%201988.pdf
There were some discrepancies in the reporting,
but the actual date was May 10, and the
grid square Bob gave that night was FL41.
It was only later discovered that he was in FL31.
His signal at my QTH was between S9 and +20,
just amazing for a 1365 mile path.
What's also remarkable was the duct was narrow enough
to exclude Florida. VP5D was in all by himself.
Audio originally recorded on cassette tape
from my then Bristol CT hilltop QTH in 1988:
https://www.newsvhf.com/audio/vp5d-wz1v.mp3
Besides Ham Radio, Bob Cooper was well-known
for his pioneering work in developing affordable
TVRO home satellite TV systems, featured in
a series of articles in Ham Radio magazine.
73 Ron WZ1V
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