FT8 on 28 MHz... Wed 9th May 2018

This morning, I noticed that the 28 MHz band was open but I couldn't hear one single CW beacon on the band. After hearing about the popularity of the latest digital mode FT8, I downloaded it and was listening on the band within an hour.

This is what I heard today on 28 MHz in Europe on FT8...

Most are about the right distance for Sporadic-E but there were a few suprises. The stations in the UK and Brittany were about the 500km mark...a bit short for Sporadic-E but not unknown. The ones in Bulgaria, Turkey and Russia are too long for one hop Sporadic and were probably multi-hop.

Outside of Europe, I heard these....

Like yesterday, I suspect that some Sporadic-E was helping out for the first hop to get down to lower latitudes where F2 propagation was possible. Still though, some interesting signals were heard. The one is Angola was a UW5EJX maritime mobile off the African coast.

In the 12 or so hours from 11:00 UTC to 22:00 UTC, I heard 104 different stations spread across 31 countries.

After just one day listening on the mode, I am very impressed at what I heard with a simple vertical antenna.

Links...
1) WSJT-X software suite
2) PSK reporter