Sunday, June 17, 2018

Opening on 28 MHz to North America... Sat 16th June 2018

There was another nice opening to North America on Saturday the 16th of June 2018 with quite a number of stations being heard on the FT8 digital mode. The signals seem to have been there at various times from about 13:00 to 23:00 UTC.


The signals were almost certainly via multi-hop Sporadic-E. If you listen to one particular station then it just looks as if the band is just open to the United States. However if you look at a plot of many stations received over time, patterns emerge.

The station in Newfoundland at about 3200 kms was probably double hop Sporadic-E... 2 x 1600 kms.

The bulk of the stations in the east of the USA at about 5,000 kms were probably triple hop... 3 x 1700 kms.

The stations in Texas, Arkanas, Louisana and Oklahoma at about 7,000kms were probably four hops... 4 x 1300 kms.

What is interesting is the skip zone going from Alabama to Missouri at about 6,500 kms. It was a bit too long for triple hop (3 x 2200) and too short for four hops (4 x 1600 kms) on this particular day.

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