A very quiet afternoon on 20m FT8

I had a quiet Saturday afternoon in prospect so set about getting on the radio for a few hours to see what I might work on 20m RTTY. My setup was such that I wasn't expecting much but I was surprised just how little I actually found. 

Using the Airlink Express software for AFSK RTTY connected to my Xiegu G90 and a shortened loaded vertical,  I heard not a single RTTY station on 20m. Zip, nada, nothing! I checked spotting websites for 20m RTTY activity but saw nothing for today although there were a few (and I mean only a few) spots for yesterday, the 9th. Now I realise that my antenna is a significant limitation but I'd expected to hear something, even if they may not have been able to hear me, but no, nothing at all.

I then tuned up and down the CW band segment to see what I could hear there. Again, very quiet, although I could hear some weak signals at times. The loudest station I heard was a Portuguese station calling CQ contest, and there were stations calling him but they too were quite faint with me.

I tried the same up and down the phone segment of the band which was also very quiet with a long Slovenian station calling CQ content with only very few replies in the time I was listening.

Right I thought, FT8, there'll be plenty of activity on there. And there was...but it was clear from the waterfall display in JTDX that there was deep fading (which might be a consequence of some form of variable blanketing or absorption) affecting signals. I'd see a band full of signals one minute, only to be presented with a largely blank waterfall a few minutes later. This meant that there were precious few decoded signals to be seen in the 'Band Activity' window. 

I managed to work a handful of stations on 20m (in Spain, Norway, Italy, Portugal, Germany, Finland, Ukraine, Poland and Denmark) and I worked one Italian station (IK2ZJP) on 17m in a brief foray to see what propagation was like on that band (it was just as bad).

Meagre pickings on 20m FT8	PSKReporter showing my 20m spots

I checked PSKReporter to see just where I'd been heard and what it showed was that the propagation on 20m was very much favouring continental Europe and Scandinavia, consistent with my experience on the band. In a way it was reassuring to see that it was just poor conditions that I been battling instead on anything inherent in my simple setup. I'll certainly be trying again before too long to see who's out there and to what extent the propagation gods are favouring us and hoping for better luck next time.

Radio:  Xiego G90

Antenna:  Loaded vertical for 20m

Power:  10w

Location:  Barton under Needwood