Sunday, March 21, 2021

Conditions on 28 MHz - Sunday 21st March 2021


There was a slight jump in the solar flux to 80 today and there was a modest opening on 10m from here to parts of Africa, South America and the South Atlantic. According to the PSK Reporter website, I heard 74 stations on FT8 in 25 countries although in truth, I suspect the vast majority were buried in the noise.

There are two key points here when you look at the map. 

First of all, all the long distance F2 propagation is North-South. There were no East-West openings for example to Russia or the USA. That tells me that yes, the band was open but just about. 

The second thing is the Sporadic-E around Europe.


There was one weak opening to Slovenia and Austria when I noticed that the signals were audible. Some of the other signals may well have been either meteor scatter or weak Sporadic-E. The fact it was a Sunday and a lot of people were on the radio probably helped.

These are the stations that were over 2,500kms...

Txmtr Band Mode Distance Time (UTC)
CX5ABM 10m FT8 10709 km 17:54:29
PY5EG 10m FT8 9475 km 17:56:14
PY2OKB 10m FT8 9195 km 17:49:44
PY1JG 10m FT8 8982 km 17:52:29
PY1EU 10m FT8 8978 km 18:03:44
9J2MM 10m FT8 8297 km 16:00:29
9J2BS 10m FT8 7971 km 13:15:59
ZD7JC 10m FT8 7542 km 10:09:14
ZD7MY 10m FT8 7540 km 12:01:44
ZD8HZ 10m FT8 6673 km 17:49:14
9K2OW 10m FT8 5215 km 09:39:59
5T5PA 10m FT8 3518 km 17:51:44
EA8DFQ 10m FT8 2705 km 18:02:14
VP8NO 10m FT8 12351 km 17:47:59

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