fix(bandopen): the moon is not a band opening

A 2 m opening was announced at 9650 km towards Japan. The callsigns gave it
away — 7M4RRM, JA7RPC, JF1AWC — all working EME, which is routine on 2 m and
reported to PSK Reporter like anything else. Real contacts, real grids, and no
evidence whatsoever about the band: an operator turning a beam on that bearing
would hear nothing.

Removing the flat 2400 km ceiling was right; it threw away genuine multi-hop Es
on 6 m. "No limit anywhere" was the overcorrection. The limit is per band now,
and it is physics rather than a threshold: 2 m reaches a few thousand kilometres
by tropospheric duct or a chain of Es clouds and no further, so 3500 km, and
4 m 4000. Six and ten metres keep no ceiling — multi-hop Es and F2 genuinely do
go round the world, which is the case that started all this.

Pinned from both sides: the 9650 km Japanese burst produces nothing, and a
2000 km 2 m burst in one sector still counts.
This commit is contained in:
2026-08-12 07:00:59 +02:00
parent 8b66030c89
commit 025472820b
3 changed files with 83 additions and 2 deletions
+51
View File
@@ -0,0 +1,51 @@
package bandopen
import (
"testing"
"time"
)
// A 2 m "opening" was announced at 9650 km towards Japan on stations that were
// plainly working EME. The moon is not an opening: an operator pointing an
// antenna at that bearing finds nothing.
func TestEMEIsNotAnOpeningOnTwoMetres(t *testing.T) {
d := New(DefaultConfig())
base := time.Date(2026, 8, 12, 6, 0, 0, 0, time.UTC)
for i, call := range []string{"7M4RRM", "JA7RPC", "JF1AWC", "JK1TPA", "JH1JCQ"} {
if op := d.Add(Spot{
Call: call, Band: "2m", DistKm: 9650, Bearing: 40 + i*3,
At: base.Add(time.Duration(i) * time.Minute),
}, 47.0); op != nil {
t.Fatalf("a 9650 km 2 m path was announced as an opening: %+v", op)
}
}
}
// But a real 2 m opening — an Es chain at a plausible distance — must survive.
func TestLongButPlausibleTwoMetresStillCounts(t *testing.T) {
d := New(DefaultConfig())
base := time.Date(2026, 6, 20, 18, 0, 0, 0, time.UTC)
var got *Opening
for i, call := range []string{"EA1AA", "CT1BB", "EA7CC", "CT7DD"} {
if op := d.Add(Spot{
Call: call, Band: "2m", DistKm: 2000 + i*30, Bearing: 200 + i*4,
At: base.Add(time.Duration(i) * time.Minute),
}, 47.0); op != nil {
got = op
}
}
if got == nil {
t.Fatal("a 2000 km 2 m burst in one sector was not reported")
}
}
// Six metres keeps no ceiling: multi-hop Es genuinely goes that far, which is
// why the flat limit was removed in the first place.
func TestSixMetresHasNoCeiling(t *testing.T) {
if MaxKmFor("6m") != 0 || MaxKmFor("10m") != 0 {
t.Error("6 m and 10 m must have no distance ceiling")
}
if MaxKmFor("2m") == 0 {
t.Error("2 m must have one")
}
}