Monday, September 20, 2021

Opening to South Africa on 28 MHz - Sun 19th Sept 2021


Sunday 19th September 2021: The map above shows the FT8 signals heard on the 28 MHz band during the day. There were signals from the south of Europe which were probably via Sporadic-E and then longer distance signals from South America, St.Helena, South Africa and Namibia.

It's likely that the signals from the southern hemisphere were via TEP (Trans-Equatorial Propagation) with a single Sporadic-E hop at the northern end of the circuit.

The solar flux was down around the 74 mark.

While this was the first day this season that I heard signals from the south of the African continent, I could hardly say that the opening was exceptional. The two things to take from it are 1) There are openings on 28 MHz almost every day and 2) Most of the DX is on North-South paths.

We have a good bit to go yet before we see the East-West openings from Europe to North America on the 10m band for modestly equipped stations.

The DX heard on Sunday...

Txmtr Band Mode Distance Time (UTC)
LU3DI 10m FT8 10763 km 18:36:44
ZS6AF 10m FT8 9411 km 17:18:44
CP6UA 10m FT8 9376 km 20:42:59
PY2DPM 10m FT8 9208 km 18:45:44
V51MA 10m FT8 8619 km 17:50:59
PT2VHF 10m FT8 8436 km 20:03:14
ZD7JC 10m FT8 7542 km 18:48:44

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