The mysterious signal of KI5BLU on 28 MHz... 26th Apr 2019

Two days ago while listening to FT8 signals on 28 MHz, I heard the signal from KI5BLU in Texas... or so I thought.

On the 26th of April 2019, I saw the signal again while the band was open to South America. Note that the trace shows KI5BLU in Texas (locator square EM12). Note that I have Puerto Rico marked ...more later.

This is the traffic that I recorded on FT8 which shows KI5BLU working Ireland, Wales, England and Germany on 28 MHz...
160630  -1 -0.1 1058 ~  EI8GS KI5BLU EM12
160645  16 -0.3 1224 ~  KI5BLU EI8GS -01
160700  -2 -0.1 1056 ~  EI8GS KI5BLU R-11
160715  17 -0.3 1224 ~  KI5BLU EI8GS RR73
160730   1 -0.1 1055 ~  EI8GS KI5BLU 73
160930 -23 -0.1 1431 ~  KI5BLU MW0PPM R+03
161000 -18 -0.1 1431 ~  KI5BLU MW0PPM 73
161530 -14  0.1 1837 ~  KI5BLU G3ZQH IO92
161630 -12  0.1 1835 ~  KI5BLU G3ZQH R-01
161700 -14  0.1 1838 ~  KI5BLU G3ZQH R-03
161730 -15  0.1 1838 ~  KI5BLU G3ZQH R-03
161800 -15  0.1 1838 ~  KI5BLU G3ZQH 73
163645  -7  0.1  924 ~  DK4CF KI5BLU EM12
164400  -7  0.1  754 ~  <...> KI5BLU EM12

Suspicious...
If this was 14 MHz or even 21 MHz, I would have thought nothing of it. But this was April at the bottom of the sunspot cycle. East-West multi-hop Sporadic-E from Ireland to Texas on 28 MHz would be unusual this early in the season.

I then checked on PSKReporter to see who was hearing KI5BLU over a three hour period...

I then selected several of those... AM70E in Spain, G4HZW, G0LUJ, 2E0XXO, G8IXN and G7KFQ in England, MU0WLV in Guernsey, EI8GS in Ireland and F5OIH in France. I then checked what they had heard over a six hour period.

All nine stations as well as myself had heard KI5BLU but had not heard a single other station on FT8 on 28 MHz from the USA.

It's safe to say that KI5BLU was not transmitting from EM12 in Texas.

Initially I thought he was using a remote station as suggested by his QRZ page.... " Elecraft K3-mini for remotehamradio.com"

After a second search on Google, I found this...
KP4/KI5BLU - Palmas - Puerto Rico 04-22-2019
Thomas, KI5BLU will be active as KP4/KI5BLU from Palmas, Puerto Rico, IOTA NA - 099.
He will operate on HF Bands. QSL via KI5BLU, LOTW, eQSL.
Link

This would certainly tie in with the propagation paths that would seem likely to Europe on 28 MHz at the time. The problem is that he is giving out his locator on FT8 of where he lives in Texas rather than where he is in Puerto Rico. He was also not using the KP4 prefix.

This is what confuses people into believing the band is open to the USA when it's obviously not.