Conditions on 28 MHz...Tues 23rd Oct 2012

Another good day on the 10 metre band with the solar flux at 144. The photo above shows the 57 WSPR stations heard on 28 MHz between the time the band opened at 7:34 UTC and closed at 19:56 UTC.

Points to note....
1) Lots of spots from Australia including Tasmania :o)
2) I heard a station in Japan for the first time on WSPR on 10m! Note the Northerly path. Japan on 10m was pretty common at the peak of the last solar cycle back in 2001. Those northerly paths are still proving difficult at the moment with the flux at 144.
3) Absence of signals from Africa and South America has more to do with a lack of stations using WSPR rather than a lack of propagation.
4) The band opened to the NW coast of the US which again is a Northerly path and a good sign. It was open to the same area the previous day as well.
5) Backscatter.......every day now, I am hearing stations in the UK. A while back, I was wondering if the mode of propagation was tropo, aircraft scatter or Sporadic-E? Now I'd be almost certain that it's F2 backscatter. It seems to be remarkably consistent day after day. If the band is open then the backscatter is present. The thing is that WSPR is hearing signals that are normally buried in the noise.

These are the stations in the UK heard on the 23rd of Oct via backscatter. Most are using 5 watts. G4ILO had 2 watts into an attic dipole...

Timestamp Call MHz SNR Drift Grid Pwr Reporter RGrid km az
 2012-10-23 16:24 G4HZW 28.126086 -25 0 IO83uh 2 EI7GL IO51tu 442 251 
 2012-10-23 13:32 G3JKF 28.126153 -23 1 JO00bs 5 EI7GL IO51tu 603 285 
 2012-10-23 11:12 G4ILO 28.126172 -23 0 IO84hp 2 EI7GL IO51tu 455 229 
 2012-10-23 10:32 G4FDD 28.126065 -20 0 IO93kx 5 EI7GL IO51tu 540 247 
 2012-10-23 10:32 M5DND 28.126142 -19 1 IO82ll 5 EI7GL IO51tu 370 261 
 2012-10-23 10:30 MW0BYS 28.126099 -23 0 IO71mr 5 EI7GL IO51tu 235 275 
 2012-10-23 09:52 GW7PEO 28.126167 -18 0 IO83gh 5 EI7GL IO51tu 370 246 
 2012-10-23 09:14 G8JNJ/A 28.126049 -20 0 IO90hx 5 EI7GL IO51tu 495 284 

Some of the WSPR stations heard using less than one watt...

Timestamp Call MHz SNR Drift Grid Pwr Reporter RGrid km az
 2012-10-23 14:58 K9AN 28.126185  -20   0   EN50wc   0.5 EI7GL IO51tu 5982 49 
 2012-10-23 14:40 VE3EWW  28.126095   -9   0   FN03gv 0.2 EI7GL IO51tu 5160 54 
 2012-10-23 14:38 N4AU 28.126151  -9   0   EM62vp 0.05 EI7GL IO51tu 6420 46 
 2012-10-23 14:16 W8AC 28.126186   -14   0  EN91jm   0.05 EI7GL IO51tu 5434 52 
 2012-10-23 13:22 K3DCW   28.126110   -7   0   FM18qt 0.5 EI7GL IO51tu 5319 51 
 2012-10-23 10:36 OK2SAM   28.126145   -19   0 JN99du 0.5 EI7GL IO51tu 1874 287 
 2012-10-23 10:18 LB9YE 28.126055  -16   0   JP54pu 0.5 EI7GL IO51tu 1829 227 
 2012-10-23 08:34 VK2GEL   28.126146   -25   0 QF56oc 0.5 EI7GL IO51tu 17434 327 

50 MHz.......I also noted that there was an opening from the UK and Ireland to South Africa according to the DX cluster. No sign yet of any F2 East/West conditions.