Sunday 10th October 2021: I got a bit tired of listening for FT8 signals on the 28 MHz band so I decided to go back to WSPR instead. As I had expected, the amount of activity on this digital beacon mode was drastically lower.
I had the radio on from about noon on and as you can see from the map above, it's a bit sparse. I know that if this had been FT8, there would have been lots of stations heard.
The BIG surprise however was the German research station DP0GVN in Antarctica! Wow!
It's always interesting to see Antarctica coming through but it's really nice on 28 MHz. According to their WSPR page, they run 5-watts on WSPR.
The signal however was very weak here. According to the log, I had one single decode at -26dB which is well below what is audible by the human ear.
Looking at the map, there is other evidence of F2 propagation as well. During the Summer months, I used to hear VE1VDM in Nova Scotia via multi-hop Sporadic-E. On the 10th of October, it was very likely due to a single F2 hop as the solar conditions improve.
The solar flux on the day was at 85.
Addendum...
QSO: 28085 RY 2021-10-10 1502 S53M 599 JN86 K3MM 599 FM19
QSO: 28086 RY 2021-10-10 1503 S53M 599 JN86 K1MK 599 FN32
QSO: 28086 RY 2021-10-10 1505 S53M 599 JN86 NA3M 599 FM19
QSO: 28086 RY 2021-10-10 1505 S53M 599 JN86 K2YG 599 FN20
QSO: 28086 RY 2021-10-10 1506 S53M 599 JN86 N1MGO 599 FN42
QSO: 28086 RY 2021-10-10 1507 S53M 599 JN86 KB3AAY 599 FM19
QSO: 28086 RY 2021-10-10 1508 S53M 599 JN86 KC2WUF 599 FN20
QSO: 28086 RY 2021-10-10 1509 S53M 599 JN86 ND2K 599 FN20
QSO: 28086 RY 2021-10-10 1510 S53M 599 JN86 W9ILY 599 EN51
QSO: 28086 RY 2021-10-10 1515 S53M 599 JN86 WQ5L 599 EM50
QSO: 28086 RY 2021-10-10 1515 S53M 599 JN86 KG4W 599 FM17
QSO: 28086 RY 2021-10-10 1516 S53M 599 JN86 WA3AFS 599 FN32
QSO: 28086 RY 2021-10-10 1516 S53M 599 JN86 KO7SS 599 DM42
QSO: 28086 RY 2021-10-10 1517 S53M 599 JN86 K2AL 599 FN20
QSO: 28086 RY 2021-10-10 1519 S53M 599 JN86 VA3LR 599 EN93
QSO: 28086 RY 2021-10-10 1520 S53M 599 JN86 WA4EEZ 599 EL87
QSO: 28086 RY 2021-10-10 1522 S53M 599 JN86 W9FFA 599 EM69
QSO: 28086 RY 2021-10-10 1524 S53M 599 JN86 WA1GOS 599 FN42
Kind regards
Miha, S51FB
2 comments:
Very nice! That station is always very interesting, as it reveals a path that is actually not very difficult to get a signal across, at least on other bands.
I looked at the timing of the spot - 16:48UT - which is ~ an hour before greyline time, or about an hour before the lower bands, e.g. 30m, see the enhancement to DP0. So the rapidly-diminishing D-layer at both ends of the path was clearly playing some role.
Spotted that one hear as well, I had to double check the call when I saw the log on PSKreporter! Sunday was my best day so far for cycle 25 recording up to 33MHz MUF into the Middle East during the mid morning. The NY repeater on 29.62 was quite strong in the afternoon but no utility traffic was heard above that.
Now the FMDX season is over I've switched the S3 to HF with my Wellbrook loop and am running FT8 on all bands from 2200 to 17M, the RX888 takes care of 17-10 on the Log Periodic. It's fascinating to watch the prop change during the day (and night) on each band.
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