Opening on 28 MHz - Mon 20th Apr 2020

Monday 20th April 2020. There was more weak Sporadic-E around Europe today on 28 MHz with 52 stations heard in 13 countries.

The most interesting signals for me were from the Canary Islands. As the list shows below, I heard eight EA8 stations on FT8.

I also managed to work AM8WARD on CW who had a genuine 599 signal.

That level of signal suggests to me that it was coming back off the F2 layer in the ionosphere and was not multi-hop Sporadic-E.

It just goes to show that the F2 MUF can reach as high as 28 MHz at 52 deg North even at the bottom of the sunspot cycle.

It was also my first contact on 28 MHz since July 2019!

Stations heard on FT8 over 2,500kms...
Txmtr Band Mode Distance Time (UTC)
LU9DCE 10m FT8 10778 km 15:07:59
LW2DAF 10m FT8 10776 km 15:08:29
LU1VFU 10m FT8 10705 km 15:12:44
ZS1F 10m FT8 9891 km 14:32:44
ZS1A 10m FT8 9887 km 15:19:59
EA8BEV 10m FT8 2803 km 16:57:59
EA8DSB 10m FT8 2737 km 16:58:29
EA8AUW 10m FT8 2705 km 16:58:44
EB8AC 10m FT8 2704 km 16:59:44
EA8DIG 10m FT8 2693 km 16:45:44
EA8DIB 10m FT8 2685 km 17:07:29
EA8AR 10m FT8 2681 km 17:01:59
EA8CZK 10m FT8 2681 km 17:04:47
YO9HP 10m FT8 2628 km 15:11:44