#FT8 #10m and greyline enchanced sporadic E?

SFI:70 SN:16 A:5 K:1

Sunspot number increased today to 16! I expected some propagation but am always surprised by the signals. First station worked at my morning coffee break was RA1WY with excellent signals at the side of my HF5B beam.

OH propagation, notice the greyline

Is there something known like greyline enchanced sporadic E? I don't know, but probabely there is. It was definitely a large ES opening towards Finland today. And since most of the stations are in the greyline there I thought there has to be greyline enchanced sporadic E. My antenna is still pointing south, yet the OH stations are as strong as +18dB on FT8!!

Near real time MUF map at the time of OH propagation

After my lunchbreak I decided to leave it on 10m FT8 (what else could I do). I'm not able to remote control the direction of my beam. So it is left at the direction south.

At the afternoon coffeebreak there was time again to do make some remote calls, when I noticed I already received south africa just before local noon. These days the greyline is as early in the afternoon as my coffeebreak at the job. Lucky me! I could prove the enchanced greyline propagation, ES or not, is improving even as high as 28MHz. And indeed, the ZS stations came in very loud although it seems they didn't copy me. Then suddenly I see XT2BR (Burkina Faso) with loud signals even +2dB!! Is it possible.....yes it is, QSO made. Suddenly propagation is wide open to the south. Italy, France, Spain, Austria, Germany, Poland, England all coming in. Greyline is almost gone, but my coffeebreak is over...

Later that afternoon I got a message from another neighbour station PA4O Peter. He reported ZD7GWM (St.Helena island) with loud signals on 10. A few minutes later I received this screenshot. Certainly nice DX on 10! On PSK reporter I saw him as well with +3dB report from my station. Unfortunately, since I was on my job,  I had no time left to work him.

Results monitoring FT8 on 10m today. South america was spotted
late afternoon after the greyline.

Monitoring FT8 today proves that it could be better for probing propagation. However PA0O who was still on WSPR 10m today spotted some interesting paths I didn't see with FT8. A combination between FT8/WSPR would be ideal!

PA0O WSPR results on RX today

If propagation will hold like this till the weekend or even improves, well in that case we don't have to worry about making some DX contacts.

It could be my reception but zooming in at my country I see a lot of stations active on 10m today, it surprised me actually! Like always I seem to receive far more compared to others in my country. I can imagine that if you're living in a city or a large village. Many radioamateurs have a lot of QRM from all kind of appliances these days.