Opening to Australia on 28 MHz - Sat 14th Nov 2020

 

As can be seen from the map above, there was a pretty good opening on 28 MHz on Saturday the 14th of November 2020. Even though I have heard the north and west of Australia earlier this week, what really stood out on the 14th was the opening to the south-east of Australia. That is the furthest part of the continent away from me and the signals have to travel roughly 17,500 kms.

In total, I heard seven Australian stations on FT8 on 28 MHz...

VK3BE 10m FT8 17540 km 09:36:14
VK2BGL 10m FT8 17482 km 09:16:44
VK3EW 10m FT8 17464 km 09:49:29
VK3FZ 10m FT8 17437 km 10:32:29
VK2LAW 10m FT8 17434 km 09:23:14
VK2NSS 10m FT8 17419 km 10:01:44
VK2JAS 10m FT8 17419 km 10:09:44

The map also shows that there was some Sporadic-E to central Europe as well as some F2 propagation to eastern Europe and Russia.

The other signals of interest for me were the three from Newfoundland.

VO1NE 10m FT8 3362 km 14:44:44
VO1AW 10m FT8 3238 km 12:44:44
VO1CH 10m FT8 3164 km 12:54:29

I'd be pretty confident that these were via F2 propagation as the distance to the west to Newfoundland is about the same as the other F2 signals from the east.

The solar flux on the 14th of November was 82 which is slowly reducing having reached a recent peak of 94 on the 6th of November.