Australian stations heard on 28 MHz WSPR over a 4-week period - Jan & Feb 2024

Conditions on the 28 MHz band have been really good for the last few weeks as can be seen from the map above which shows all of the WSPR stations that I heard from the 23rd of January to the 19th of February 2024.

In total, there are 1334 individual stations which is a lot for a mode like WSPR which after all is just a beacon mode and not designed to make two way contacts. There are a lot of interesting paths in the map but the one I will focus on here are the ones to Australia.

My location in north-west Europe is in the region of 15,000 to 17,500 kms from Australia. While it's not exactly the 'other side of the planet' i.e. 20,000kms, it's still a long way for a 28 MHz signal to travel.

In total, I heard 28 stations from Australia over the 4-week period on 28 MHz. The list is shown below...

local   y-m-d txCall txGrid rxCall rxGrid MHz                 W SNR drift kms
2024-02-15 13:58 VK6TQ OF76of EI7GL IO51tu 28.126101 20 -16 0 15139
2024-02-01 13:22 VK6MJV OF77 EI7GL IO51tu 28.126135 10 -27 0 15028
2024-01-31 12:56 VK6LDL OF77vx EI7GL IO51tu 28.126201 5 -20 1 15047
2024-02-13 12:34 VK6HQ OF87av EI7GL IO51tu 28.126028 0.2 -26 0 15071
2024-02-06 12:26 VK6CRO OG65ud EI7GL IO51tu 28.126137 0.2 -24 -2 14335
2024-02-13 12:22 VK6BMT OF78ve EI7GL IO51tu 28.126038 0.2 -25 0 15031
2024-02-03 07:58 VK5ZBI PF95ga EI7GL IO51tu 28.12613     10 -27 0 16794
2024-02-09 07:54 VK5ADE PF94hj EI7GL IO51tu 28.126084 20 -22 0 16849
2024-02-01 08:54 VK4TMT QG62 EI7GL IO51tu 28.126097 0.1 -18 0 16894
2024-02-01 08:56 VK4SA QG62 EI7GL IO51tu 28.12615     0.2 -26 0 16894
2024-02-19 08:58 VK4PK QG62qi EI7GL IO51tu 28.126134 0.2 -19 0 16923
2024-02-14 08:42 VK4NE QG62nj EI7GL IO51tu 28.126133 0.1 -26 -1 16909
2024-02-19 09:00 VK4LA QG62 EI7GL IO51tu 28.125991 0.2 -26 0 16894
2024-02-01 08:42 VK4JBY QH30jq EI7GL IO51tu 28.126168 0.2 -28 -3 15801
2024-02-19 08:42 VK4EKA QG62ap EI7GL IO51tu 28.126177 1 -7 0 16838
2024-02-19 08:58 VK4BA QG62 EI7GL IO51tu 28.126196 0.2 -20 0 16894
2024-02-03 09:10 VK4AGR QG53wg EI7GL IO51tu 28.126187 0.2 -27 0 16768
2024-02-04 09:18 VK3VJP QF12 EI7GL IO51tu 28.126022 0.2 -20 0 17273
2024-02-16 08:06 VK3KCX/1 QF22qd EI7GL IO51tu 28.12603  5 2 -14 0 17449
2024-02-18 09:46 VK3CWF QF22ke EI7GL IO51tu 28.12606 5 -25 0 17415
2024-02-01 08:18 VK3AMW QF22ir EI7GL IO51tu 28.12607  5 5 -16 0 17362
2024-01-30 08:52 VK2XSM QF56og EI7GL IO51tu 28.12605     1 -19 -1 17419
2024-02-06 08:12 VK2VJ QF57vb EI7GL IO51tu 28.12604     1 -21 1 17373
2024-02-01 08:22 VK2QQ QF55gt EI7GL IO51tu 28.126209 5 -23 -2 17427
2024-02-12 09:20 VK2KYB QF56lf EI7GL IO51tu 28.126085 5 -27 0 17410
2024-02-19 09:52 VK2HL QG56 EI7GL IO51tu 28.126156 0.2 -25 0 16406
2024-02-16 08:06 VK2GDF QF67ch EI7GL IO51tu 28.126142 0.2 -14 4 17369
2024-02-01 07:56 VK1KF QF44mr EI7GL IO51tu 28.126049 5 -22 -3 17445

The ones I find of special interest are the low power stations which are in bold running output powers of 100 to 200 milliwatts. On my side, I'm just using a simple cheap half wave vertical CB type vertical to hear all of these stations.

It's just an example of how good conditions are now on 28 MHz at the peak of the sunspot cycle and is in marked contrast to the minimum a few years ago.