Weak opening on 28 MHz to St Helena - 7th Apr 2021

The last few days have been very poor on 28 MHz with hardly any signals heard on the band. There is no real sign of the Summer Sporadic-E season kicking off although that should all change towards the end of April.

On Wednesday the 7th of April 2021, I heard ZD7JC on St.Helena Island in the South Atlantic as well as a handful around Europe.

Txmtr Band Mode Distance Time (UTC)
ZD7JC 10m FT8 7542 km 18:36:14
EA3TI 10m FT8 1399 km 18:17:29
EA2ELH 10m FT8 1236 km 20:12:00
DK3EE 10m FT8 1181 km 17:54:14
F5CUN 10m FT8 1109 km 19:00:59
DL4KAL 10m FT8 1076 km 12:48:01
F1UJS 10m FT8 972 km 18:04:29
G3SED 10m FT8 504 km 18:56:59
G0FWX 10m FT8 435 km 18:19:29

I suspect there may have been a weak area of Sporadic-E to the south of me and then onto to St.Helena via either F2 propagation or TEP (Trans-Equatorial Propagation).

I saw TEP mentioned in the GB2RS news last weekend as part of the propagation forecast... "There have been some North-South paths worked on 10 metres via Trans-Equatorial Propagation or TEP, but these have mainly favoured stations located south of the UK."

This raises an interesting question... how can you tell the difference between F2 and TEP on 28 MHz? If it was 50 MHz then it's very likely to be TEP. But on 28 MHz? I'm not so sure anyone be 100% sure.