Four days of FT8 on 40m... End Sept 2018

A week ago, I had a post up about the results of listening to WSPR signals for a week on 40 metres (7 MHz). I repeated the test by spending 4 days listening to FT8 signals on 40 metres and the results were pretty similar.

The charts are for roughly 24 hours from noon to noon. Antenna used... Doublet which is a full wave on 40m. Only 4-7m above the ground though.

The first obvious difference is the sheer number of stations using FT8 compared to WSPR.

Like the WSPR test, there was a glut of stations from the eastern half of the USA heard but nothing further west. Also nothing from Japan although I did hear one station in China.

Again, the solar flux was down in the 60's and it seems as if the conditions wouldn't support more northerly paths to the west of the USA or Japan.

Again, very few from South America. I suspect this may be a null in the antenna as it is end on.

I heard one VK7 where as I did hear several on WSPR. Not conclusive though. I couldn't really say that WSPR was the difference, it may just have been conditions on different days.

Conclusions.....
1) Huge number of stations using FT8 on 40m compared to WSPR. As expected.
2) No path to Japan or the west coast of the USA at this point in the solar cycle.... for late Sept anyway.
3) Test highlighted a null in the antenna towards South America.