Weak opening to St Helena on 28 MHz - 29th Apr 2021

 

Thursday 29th April 2021: This was a reasonably quiet day with only 21 stations in 9 countries heard on FT8.

The main Sporadic-E opening was to the west of the Iberian peninsula with 11 stations heard from Spain and Portugal. Like the higher VHF bands, the Sporadic-E footprint on 28 MHz can often be quite localised with a certain area of a country being heard and nothing from the rest.

The only DX station was ZD7JC on St Helena Island in the South Atlantic. It's probably no accident that it lines up exactly with the Sporadic-E opening. 

It is probably likely that the signal from St Helena traveled to Spain/Portugal via either F2 or TEP propagation and from there to Ireland via Sp-E.

As we move into May, we can expect the big openings on 28 MHz and above to start.