Saturday, May 8, 2021

Big Sporadic-E opening on 28 MHz - Fri 7th May 2021


Friday 7th May 2021: This was the second big Sporadic-E opening on 28 MHz with 568 stations in 52 countries heard on FT8 (30th of April was 403 in 39). This wasn't even the full extent of the opening as I spent maybe 2 hours listening for beacons or WSPR signals.

The map above shows the big Sporadic-E opening to the centre of Europe and you can see the arc of double hop Sporadic-E stations further east.

The one signal of interest for me was VO1CH in Newfoundland, Canada which was probably double hop Sp-E and a hint of things to come towards North America.

Beacons: I also managed to log 11 beacons on CW...

EI7GL 28257.8 DK0TEN/B 20:12 07 May IO51TU<ES>JN47NT Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28245.2 DB0TEN/B 20:10 07 May IO51TU<ES>JO42UV Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28237.4 LA5TEN/B 19:11 07 May IO51TU<ES>JO59JP Norway
EI7GL 28273.0 DB0BER/B 19:09 07 May IO51TU<ES>JO62QL Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28227.2 IW3FZQ/B 17:23 07 May IO51TU<ES>JN55VF Italy
EI7GL 28271.0 OZ7IGY/B 17:22 07 May IO51TU<ES>JO55WM Denmark
EI7GL 28278.9 DB0UM/B 17:19 07 May IO51TU<ES>JO73CE Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28298.0 SK7GH/B 17:18 07 May IO51TU<ES>JO77BF Sweden
EI7GL 28205.0 DL0IGI/B 17:15 07 May IO51TU<ES>JN57MT Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28194.0 IW4EIR/B 17:13 07 May IO51TU<ES>JN54AS Italy
EI7GL 28251.0 ED4YAK/B 12:27 07 May IO51TU<ES>IN80FK Spain


WSPR: As the band was open to central Europe, I managed to hear a few stations on WSPR...


Even though FT8 is excellent for monitoring band conditions, I find WSPR more interesting in terms of trying to hear weak signals.

I understand the 50 MHz was also open on the 7th but I didn't check. I did try listening for the OZ7IGY beacon on 40 MHz but had no luck.

1 comment:

Photon said...

Great stuff, John! I managed CU6 both ways on 10m with a simple vertical delta, and was hearing A71 throughout the day. Unusually, on both 10m and 12m, it was pretty tough going across to Latin America on the 7th, even when using a 3 ele on 12m. That's Es, I guess!