Big Sporadic-E opening on 28 MHz - 30th Apr 2021

Friday 30th April 2021: This was the first real big Sporadic-E opening on the 28 MHz band for 2021 with a total of 403 stations in 39 countries heard on FT8.

Just 4 of those were outside the normal Sporadic-E range and were probably via F2 propagation. 

Txmtr Band Mode Distance Time (UTC)
PU9OJZ 10m FT8 8787 km 20:24:59 Brazil
5Z4VJ 10m FT8 7260 km 14:16:44 Kenya
A45XR 10m FT8 6428 km 11:32:44 Oman
A92AA 10m FT8 5644 km 12:24:59 Bahrain

The European stations heard via Sporadic-E are shown in the map below...

As can be seen, it was a very widespread opening. Unlike some of the previous openings in April, some of the signals were very strong as well. At one stage when I checked, the S-meter on the radio was up at 9+10dB for some of the signals.

The band also seemed to be open for most of the day. The first signal I heard was at 08:40 UTC and the last one was EA1IF at 23:52 UTC.

I did a few scans of the band  and logged 7 beacons...

EI7GL 28251.0 ED4YAK/B 20:15 30 Apr IO51TU<ES>IN80FK Spain

EI7GL 28243.0 F5ZWE/B 20:13 30 Apr IO51TU<ES>JN03SL France

EI7GL 28237.4 LA5TEN/B 20:08 30 Apr IO51TU<ES>JO59JP Norway

EI7GL 28241.6 F5ZUU/B 14:43 30 Apr IO51TU<ES>JN24IL France

EI7GL 28279.0 DB0UM/B 13:15 30 Apr IO51TU<ES>JO73CE Fed. Rep. of Germany

EI7GL 28273.0 DB0BER/B 09:43 30 Apr IO51TU<ES>JO62QL Fed. Rep. of Germany

EI7GL 28271.0 OZ7IGY/B 09:27 30 Apr IO51TU<ES>JO55WM Denmark

EI7GL 28298.0 SK7GH/B 09:26 30 Apr IO51TU<ES>JO77BF Sweden

I did notice more than once that the FT8 frequency might be busy with signals coming in from several countries and yet when I would scan the beacons, I might hear just one on its own.

I can't help wondering if plain old fashioned CW beacons play a useful role on the HF bands anymore?