The 15th of April 2021 was a reasonably modest day on 28 MHz with a Sporadic-E opening to the Iberian peninsula, some F2 propagation to Greece, Turkey & Israel and some F2 propagation to South Africa and South America.
In truth, the signals were never that strong with me. At one stage while the signals to the east of Spain were clearly audible to my ear, I did a scan of the band and heard nothing else. I did one careful scan of the beacon band and there wasn't a hint of a signal.If we were relying on CW beacons to tell us the band was open then we would miss most of the weak openings. Whatever some people think about the FT8 digital mode, it is a fantastic propagation tool.
The Solar Flux on the 15th was down at 74 which is very low for F2 propagation on 10-metres.
The opening to Spain and Portugal is a sure sign that we are approaching the Summer Sporadic-E season which usually starts near the end of April every year. The openings will come in fits and starts but they will get more numerous and stronger as the weeks pass.
Hi John. Also saw this at 12m, though propagation was pretty rubbish for my location. Others in southern Europe were working Japan mid-morning. Quite a change, as 12m has been pretty dead, even to Europe, past few weeks.
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