During the great 4 m opening tonight I saw the MUF rising slowly. Later first QSOs were reported on 2 m between G/GW/EI and the Mediterranean and when I saw ES geometry should be right I switched over to 2 m. Nothing happened except a few locals CQing on 144.300 MHz and I put out a few CQs myself, too, without any response. At some point I had this gut feeling something was going to happen (You know these moments, too, don’t you? 
) thus started to tune the band. Heard a very weak station on .310 but no positive ID. Tuning below the calling frequency reaching .290 I thought wow, great, a Spanish sounding station, just finishing a QSO with DL1RNW, band must be open to Spain via Sporadic E. When he ID’d as EB8BRZ I almost fell of my chair! 🙂 The Canary Islands via terrestrial propagation on 2 m (double-hop ES) – something I had dreamt of for some 20+ years being active on the VHF bands! Gave him a quick call, he responded with call and report, sent him my report and switching back to receive I just heard him fading down into the noise. He later confirmed he got my report all okay. 😎 He came up a few times some minutes later but never making it really out of the noise again.
------------------------------------------------------------------ TIME CALLSIGN LOCATOR TX RX BAND MODE PROP. QRB ------------------------------------------------------------------ 18:26 EB8BRZ IL28HA 53 51 2 m. SSB ES 3700 ------------------------------------------------------------------
Found out later the weak one on .310 was probably EA8AVI. Well, that would have been another great QSO but hey, I need some dreams for the next 20 years, too. 😉