Illegal Fishing Buoys on 28 MHz in 2019

I have come across several of the illegal fisheries buoys 28 MHz while the band was open. These are used by fishermen in some countries to mark fishing nets in the ocean so that they can be retrieved at a later time.

While the fishing buoy isn't illegal, they shouldn't be transmitting in the 10 metre band.

See the reports below...

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3rd May 2019... This one was operating on 28.029.6 MHz and used the following sequence...

Carrier for 10 seconds ... followed by the letter 'K' in morse ... and then a gap of 30 seconds before repeating the sequence.

The graphic above shows what it looked like on the FT8 waterfall (note... not the FT frequency!)

The fishing buoy transmits... drifts upwards about 10 Hz for about 2-3 seconds... and then stays on a constant frequency before giving out its ID at the end.

At the time, the band seems to have been open to Portugal and Spain so perhaps it was down in that direction? Impossible to know for sure.

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18th May 2019... Found two while tuning in the beacon band.

28.169.5 MHz - This one was 200 Hz higher than the 10m beacon in Gibraltar. It had the same rapid drift of about 30 Hz as it switched on followed by a 10 second carrier. It then give an ID of 'FA' in morse although it might have been 'FI', it was hard to be sure as it was weak. It then stayed off for about 1 minute and 25 seconds before starting the sequence again.

28.209.8 MHz - This one gave the usual drift at the start of a 9 second carrier. It then gave an ID in morse as 'FI'. It then stayed off for 2 minutes and 20 seconds before starting the sequence again.

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19th May 2019... Another one

28.260 MHz - 7 second carrier followed by 'FI' (might be FA?) in morse. Then a 2 min 20 sec pause before starting the sequence again.

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21st May 2019...

28.219.6 MHz - ID is FI or FA

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Update : Thanks to Rob PE9PE for the following link. It looks as if it may be possible to get an idea of the location of a transmitter by using online SDR receivers and precise timing for direction finding. Link... https://www.rtl-sdr.com/kiwisdr-tdoa-direction-finding-now-freely-available-for-public-use/