Signals heard on 28 MHz - Mon 18th to Sat 23rd March 2019

All in all, it was a pretty quiet week on 28 MHz with just European signals heard. Still no sign of the 5V7EI expedition getting this far north on 10 metres.

Monday 18th March 2019..... Two signals heard! I'd guess it's because of a lack of propagation and stations actually using the band.

Tuesday 19th March 2019... Small bit better but still meagre pickings after a day of listening.

Wednesday 20th of March 2019..... This was the day I heard a burst of noise from the sun on 28 MHz after a solar flare. I also heard what sounded like an Italian voice on 28.325 MHz SSB even though there was nothing else on the band at the time... no FT8 signals, no beacons, nothing on 27 MHz.

The one signal of interest here was that of GW7KNF who was pretty consistent at 300 kms on tropo on 28 MHz.

Thurs 21st March 2019... Deja Vu... Usual suspects.

Fri 23rd March 2019... Just four FT8 signals heard on 28 MHz all day. A beacon near Oslo was also heard.

090015 -12 -1.3 1011 ~  CQ G0OYQ IO93
105800 -17 -0.4 2342 ~  CQ DC1LTK JO53
110400 -15 -0.4 1158 ~  CQ EI7HDB IO62
121415 -12 -0.1  965 ~  CQ GM8FXD IO77

EI7GL 28237.3 LA5TEN/B 14:07 22 Mar JO59jp<>IO51tu Norway

Saturday 23rd March 2019... Nothing too exciting. The 5V7EI expedition was on the band but didn't seem to get further north than Spain, Portugal, Greece and Italy on 28 MHz.

The map below shows the stations that spotted 5V8EI in Togo on 28 MHz. The max distance is about 3,800 kms which is about right for one hop F2 propagation. Even though the solar flux is low, the MUF at lower latitudes is higher than further north. In other words, it was probably high enough for 28 MHz to propagate north from Togo to southern Europe.

To get further north to places like Ireland, the UK, Netherlands and Germany, some Sporadic-E is required. You can see this when I heard the EA7 station in the south of Spain.

To get from Ireland to Togo on 28 MHz, several things need to happen at the same time.... The guys have to be on the band, there needs to be F2 to reach southern Europe and then some Sporadic-E to link southern Europe to complete the 1500km journey further north.

Solar Flux at 79.... The solar flux has jumped up to 79 as opposed to the 70 or so for the last few weeks. Are we coming out of the sunspot minimum? Probably not. As the saying goes, one swallow doesn't make a Summer. Long way to go yet.