7 Dec 2019

2m FT8

Stations that spotted me this afternoon on 2m FT8 RX
Just now I called CQ on 2m FT8 with about 10W to the big-wheel omni. In all, 31 stations spotted me with the best DX report being by S51AT (1251km). Judging by the strong report (0dB S/N) from a couple of Slovenians, I think this was aircraft scatter.

On RX 40 stations spotted on 2m FT8 with best DX being YT5DEY (1752km). Again signal report suggests aircraft scatter.

UPDATE 2339z: At bedtime 66 stations spotted on 2m FT8 RX. As you will see below from Jan, he thinks my DX may be MS or winter Es.

1 comment:

Jan, OZ9QV said...

I had 3 Italians decoded here, the strongest was +10dB, around 1352 GMT.
I suspect this was a bit of winter ES or an early Gemini meteor burst. Also, I think that there are no airplanes in an altitude of about 30 - 50km.That kind of range looks to me out of range for aircraft scatter from planes at only 10 - 13km altitude.
This is one of the fun things we discover with weak signal modes like FT8.
I have seen this phenomenon on 2m in the low part of the Es season. Fun, but usually it does not result in QSOs because the signal bursts are mostly too short lived for a full QSO to be completed.

Vy 73 de Jan, OZ9QV