The band was open since about 07:30 UTC and closed at about 17:30 UTC.
This is a map of the FT8 signals heard...
By far the most interesting signals in there are the two from Japan as the multi-hop path goes over the north of Russia.
These are the decodes from the WSJT-X programme...
080845 -18 -1.0 1846 ~ WB8VLC JA9CVY PM86
084730 -14 -0.4 1933 ~ CQ JH0EQN PM97
I actually noticed these just after I spotted them on the PSK Reporter site. My first reaction was ... are they real?... did I make a mistake?... who else is hearing them?
The answers are yes...they are real and no...I didn't make a mistake.
The really amazing thing is that for some reason, I was the only person in Europe to hear them!
After I heard JA9CVY, I checked PSK Reporter to see who had heard him in the previous 30 minutes...
As the trace shows above, he was working WB8VLC in NW Oregon and I was the only person in Europe to hear him.
I did the same for JH0EQN... again, I was the only person in Europe to hear him in those 30 minutes.
I did a check at the end of the day and I was still the only European station that heard either of them all day.
I did spot them on the cluster so that others would be aware that the path was open but I'm not sure if anyone noticed in the blizzard of spots...
EI7GL 28074.0 JH0EQN 09:02 08 Jun IO51TU PM97GI FT8 Japan
EI7GL 28074.0 JA9CVY 08:27 08 Jun IO51TU PM86CB FT8 Japan
The distance was about 9,600 kms which requires about four hops if it was Sporadic-E as expected.
Q. Why was no-one else in Europe hearing them? I'm only using a vertical half-wave although I do have an excellent take off towards Japan.
Europe.....As for Europe, there were plenty of strong signals. There were the beacons heard...
EI7GL 28301.8 PI7ETE/B 13:50 08 Jun IO51TU ES JO22QD Netherlands
EI7GL 28277.4 DM0AAB/B 13:49 08 Jun IO51TU ES JO54GH Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28188.0 OE3XAC/B 13:46 08 Jun IO51TU ES JN78SB Austria
EI7GL 28245.3 DB0TEN/B 13:44 08 Jun IO51TU ES JO42UV Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28271.0 OZ7IGY/B 13:43 08 Jun IO51TU ES JO55WM Denmark
EI7GL 28285.0 DB0MFI/B 13:42 08 Jun IO51TU ES JN58HW Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28177.1 IW1AVR/B 11:37 08 Jun IO51TU ES JN44BN Italy
EI7GL 28292.2 SK0CT/B 09:25 08 Jun IO51TU ES JO89XK Sweden
EI7GL 28285.0 DB0MFI/B 09:23 08 Jun IO51TU ES JN58HW Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28235.1 OY6BEC/B 09:21 08 Jun IO51TU ES IP62OA Faroe Islands
EI7GL 28227.1 IW3FZQ/B 09:20 08 Jun IO51TU ES JN55VF Italy
EI7GL 28205.0 DL0IGI/B 09:18 08 Jun IO51TU ES JN57MT Fed. Rep. of Germany
The interesting one in there is PI7ETE/B. Its power is 300 milliwatts so that means conditions must have been good and it's at about 1000 kms distance which is kind of short for Sporadic-E which suggests the MUF must have been much higher.
North America..... The short opening to North America was in the late afternoon and these three stations were heard...
KU4SD 10m FT8 6128 km 16:45:59
VE3XN 10m FT8 5265 km 15:19:14
NO8D 10m FT8 5473 km 14:48:14
KU4SD in Georgia was heard by me and stations in Spain and the south of France.
VE3XN in Ontario... I was the only person in Europe to hear him.
NO8D in Ohio was heard by many stations in Europe.
These are the stations heard on FT8...
