Wednesday, September 29, 2021

Opening on 28 MHz to the Far East - 28th Sept 2021


Tuesday 28th September 2021: There was an extensive opening on the 28 MHz band with signals coming in from several continents as can be seen from the map above. 

If this map was for say 14 MHz then I'd be thinking 'so what?' but it's not, it's for the 28 MHz where we are just below the low VHF spectrum. At 28 MHz, we're near the limit of what is and isn't possible with F2 layer propagations.

What does the map show???

1) Sporadic-E to Europe - Despite the fact that it's the end of September, there are still Sporadic-E openings. Not only do these allow contacts in the 1000-2000km region but they also allow you to reach further south where F2 conditions are more likely.

2) Real East-West F2 propagation - Notice all those stations in the south of Russia, Turkey and the Middle East. That is genuine F2 payer propagation and it's East-West as opposed to North-South. That is a really good sign that we're coming out of the low point of the sunspot cycle.

It's also likely that if there were East-West openings on 28 MHz then North-South paths in the low VHF spectrum above 30 MHz were also likely to be possible.

3) Far East - This opening to Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore was via multi-hop F2 layer propagation. I heard 38 separate stations from Indonesia in the region of 12000 to 13000 kms using a simple half-wave vertical antenna so conditions must have been good.

4) South Africa and South America - Possibly a mixture of F2 layer and TEP propagation. As already noted, it was likely that the opening in this direction extended up into the low VHF spectrum.

5) USA - This is the first time that I heard the USA this season and I wasn't expecting to hear it for another few weeks. In truth, it was barely open and it was what I would have expected i.e. the south-east corner of the USA. What was missing were the single hop F2 signals from Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Maine.

In Conclusion... In total, I heard 368 different stations in 42 DXCC countries on 28 MHz on the 28th of September 2021. The Solar Flux was at 89.

If we are getting East-West propagation now on the 28 MHz at the end of September, I'd expect there will be some pretty good conditions in October and November.

1 comment:

PE4BAS, Bas said...

Hopefully the propagation will be like this during the ARRL 10m contest in December. 73, Bas