FT8 on 10 metres: 28074 kHz when the band opens

What you hear

Either nothing, or the full FT8 chorus of the main article appearing within minutes. 28074 kHz is the frequency people leave running in the background: an empty waterfall, then two stripes, then twenty, and the decodes say where the ionosphere has opened a door, often to a single region a thousand kilometres away.

Who transmits and why

Amateurs who love openings. 10 m needs the highest electron density of any shortwave band, which the sun provides only in the active years of its cycle; the rest of the time the band is carried by sporadic E, patches of ionisation that appear in late spring and summer and vanish in hours. A low-power station with a small antenna works the world here while the band is open, so beacons and FT8 monitors keep watch on it.

When and where to listen

Around a solar maximum, in daylight from late morning to late afternoon, best in autumn and spring: from Europe, Africa and South America after noon, North America towards evening. From May to August sporadic E brings strong signals from 500 to 2000 km, mostly around noon and early evening. At night the band is almost always dead. Pick a receiver in the region you want to hear; the dial is 28074 kHz, USB.

In ShackDeck

Station catalogue → Amateur radio → FT8 10 m. The program picks a public receiver covering 28074 kHz, sets FT8 mode and decodes into the On air list and the map every fifteen seconds; no receiver, antenna or account of your own is needed.