Signals heard on 28 MHz - 11th to 15th March 2019

Not exactly an exciting few days but a good reminder that just listening to FT8 signals doesn't show what is really happening on the band.

Mon 11th March... Listened most of the day to the FT8 frequency of 28.074 MHz and heard nothing!

Tues 12th March..... At least there were a few signals on Tuesday.
110830 -11 -0.4  943 ~  CQ G0OYQ IO93
113730 -12 -0.1 1001 ~  CQ ON8DM JO10
145730 -21 -0.6 1820 ~  CQ G4HZW IO83

Wed 13th March... Pretty similar to yesterday with the usual suspects being heard.
124615 -10 -0.0  583 ~  DJ8QX PD1DL RR73
125930 -16 -0.1  582 ~  CQ PD1DL JO22
132200 -17 -0.2 1143 ~  CQ DJ8QX JO31

Thurs 14th March... Just the two regulars on the band.
105630  -3 -0.3  955 ~  CQ G0OYQ IO93
133430 -16 -0.4  875 ~  CQ DJ8QX JO31

Fri 15th March... This was probably the most interesting of the five days. Most days, I just leave the radio on the FT8 frequency and decode any signals heard. The one obvious problem with this is that I have noticed that there is an obvious lack of stations using the band and whenever I hear someone, it tends to be the same person.

FT8 decodes on the 15th...
151315  -7 -0.6 1687 ~  CQ DL2RH JO32
153730   7 -0.4 1318 ~  CQ DJ8QX JO31
171645  13 -0.2 1136 ~  CQ EB1HRW IN71
184715  -1  0.0 1283 ~  CQ EA1GAR IN52

For a change today, I decided to have a listen around the band. Looking at the DX cluster, DX Maps and the PSK reporter websites, it looked as if nothing was happening on the band.



Straight away, I heard the SK7GH/B beacon in Sweden which I put up on the DX cluster. Then I found the OZ7IGY beacon and I opened up the PI4 programme to decode the signal and to upload spots for that.

As you can seen from the map below, there seems to have been an area of Sporadic-E over the North Sea.

Within minutes, OY1CT was being spotted in Belgium and Germany. This is a classic map of Sporadic-E propagation with the lines crossing like the spokes on a wheel. There is an area of Sporadic-E and we are all using it but from from different angles.

The thing is that there had been no sign of activity on the band and now there was activity after I put up the spots on the DX cluster. Co-incidence or chance?

I suspect there are different levels of user on 10 metres. Very few people listen all the time and I suspect that there are openings on the band that go unnoticed. A larger number will try the band if they see some activity reported on the DX cluster or elsewhere.

It's a good reminder that it's not enough to just monitor the FT8 frequency although this is by far the easiest option. It pays to tune around the beacon and cw band as well to see if anything is happening.

These are the spots I put up on the DX cluster today...
EI7GL-@ 28298.0 SK7GH/B 13:42 15 Mar IO51tujo77bf Sweden
EI7GL-@ 28270.0 OZ7IGY 13:51 15 Mar PI4 5 dB Q=100 Denmark 
EI7GL-@ 28270.0 OZ7IGY 14:08 15 Mar PI4 -2 dB Q=90 Denmark
EI7GL-@ 28277.4 DM0AAB/B 14:49 15 Mar JO54ghIO51tu Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL-@ 28251.1 ED4YAK/B 17:10 15 Mar IN80fkIO51tu Spain
EI7GL-@ 28251.1 ED4YAK/B 17:51 15 Mar IN80fkIO51tu Spain

I also heard a F5? station call CQ on 28.110 MHz.