The Marshall Islands!

I turned on the radio as soon as I got home today and scanned the 10-meter band.  There was a faint signal for a moment on 28.300 MHz.  I stopped and listened for a while and was about to move on when it came back again for a moment.  I hooked up the audio jack and made a recording.  Luckily it soon came back in strong. 

Then almost as quickly it faded back out. 

Decoding it gives "V73TEN RJ39"---that ain't local! 

RJ39 is the grid square system and this places it in the Western Pacific.  I looked up the call sign and it is broadcasting on 25 Watts from the island of Roi-Namur in the Kwajalein Atoll of the Marshall Islands!  That's 2,450 miles (3,940 kilometers) from here. 

In the map above you can see the BL grid square over Hawai'i and the RJ grid to the southwest.  The yellow line shows the distance from the signal to me. 

It makes sense I would pick up a signal from the west.  It was late in the day and the sun was setting.  Solar radiation causes the atmosphere to become reflective in the 10-meter range, so the signal was coming from the direction of more sun exposure.  That's the distance from NY to LA with the power of a small light bulb!  ---and I am on a minimal antenna setup to boot.