What is the approximate maximum distance along the Earth’s surface normally covered in one hop using the E region?
Explication
The E region is much lower, around 100 to 120 km, so a ray leaving at the same low takeoff angle comes back down much sooner and covers only about 1,200 miles, roughly 2,000 km, in one hop. Hop length follows layer height, which is why the E region hop is about half the F2 hop.