Opening on 28 MHz to the Far East - 28th Sept 2021

Tuesday 28th September 2021: There was an extensive opening on the 28 MHz band with signals coming in from several continents as can be seen from the map above. 

If this map was for say 14 MHz then I'd be thinking 'so what?' but it's not, it's for the 28 MHz where we are just below the low VHF spectrum. At 28 MHz, we're near the limit of what is and isn't possible with F2 layer propagations.

What does the map show???

1) Sporadic-E to Europe - Despite the fact that it's the end of September, there are still Sporadic-E openings. Not only do these allow contacts in the 1000-2000km region but they also allow you to reach further south where F2 conditions are more likely.

2) Real East-West F2 propagation - Notice all those stations in the south of Russia, Turkey and the Middle East. That is genuine F2 payer propagation and it's East-West as opposed to North-South. That is a really good sign that we're coming out of the low point of the sunspot cycle.

It's also likely that if there were East-West openings on 28 MHz then North-South paths in the low VHF spectrum above 30 MHz were also likely to be possible.

3) Far East - This opening to Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore was via multi-hop F2 layer propagation. I heard 38 separate stations from Indonesia in the region of 12000 to 13000 kms using a simple half-wave vertical antenna so conditions must have been good.

4) South Africa and South America - Possibly a mixture of F2 layer and TEP propagation. As already noted, it was likely that the opening in this direction extended up into the low VHF spectrum.

5) USA - This is the first time that I heard the USA this season and I wasn't expecting to hear it for another few weeks. In truth, it was barely open and it was what I would have expected i.e. the south-east corner of the USA. What was missing were the single hop F2 signals from Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Maine.

In Conclusion... In total, I heard 368 different stations in 42 DXCC countries on 28 MHz on the 28th of September 2021. The Solar Flux was at 89.

If we are getting East-West propagation now on the 28 MHz at the end of September, I'd expect there will be some pretty good conditions in October and November.

Extensive opening on 28 MHz - 23rd Sept 2021

Thursday 23rd September 2021: There was a reasonably extensive opening on the 28 MHz band with FT8 signals heard from Indonesia to South Africa to Puerto Rico. There have been hints of various openings in the last week or so but this is the first time this season that it has been so extensive.

A total of 139 stations were heard with a combination of some Sporadic-E from around Europe and F2 propagation further afield.

The most unusual signal was D60AC on the Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean.

DX Stations over 4000kms...

Txmtr Band Mode Distance Time (UTC)
YB1TQL 10m FT8 12255 km 15:18:44
PY5JO 10m FT8 9472 km 15:00:14
ZS6AF 10m FT8 9411 km 10:27:29
PY2THO 10m FT8 9100 km 14:54:44
PY2EBD 10m FT8 9084 km 14:55:14
PY2RSA 10m FT8 9073 km 14:46:59
PY4EV 10m FT8 8682 km 14:49:29
D60AC 10m FT8 8621 km 11:45:44
5Z4VJ 10m FT8 7260 km 12:43:44
WP4G 10m FT8 6211 km 16:45:44
9G5FI 10m FT8 5197 km 17:59:59
4Z5ML 10m FT8 4107 km 11:16:29

All of these were heard with a simple CB vertical half-wave antenna.

The solar flux was 90 which is on the way back up again, it had dropped down to 73 a week earlier.

As it's only the end of September, it is still very early in terms of real DX. I suspect once we get to November, we might see some really interesting openings on the 10m band.

Opening to the south on 28 MHz - Sat 11th Sept 2021

The 28 MHz band was open again on Saturday the 11th of September 2021 with an opening to the south to South America, Ghana and Ascension Island.

9G5FI 10m FT8 5197 km 07:34:03
ZD7JC 10m FT8 7542 km 12:02:44

The solar flux was at 92 which is gradually dropping back from the recent surge to 100.

The key thing to note here is that all of the long distance FT8 signals heard on 28 MHz recently are mostly North-South and not East-West. It's a case of 'Yes, the band is open' but just about.

It's likely to stay like this for a few weeks until hopefully more east-west paths start to open up.

Number of WSPR stations heard on 28 MHz in July of 2021

 

The chart above shows the number of individual WSPR stations that I heard on the 28 MHz band from the 1st of July to the 30th of July 2021.

If you examine it carefully, there are subtle differences between the first half and the second half of the month as the Sporadic-E season begins to splutter and the intensity decreases.

2021 Vs 2020: My own feeling is that there were more WSPR stations active on the 28 MHz band in the Summer of 2021 as compared to the Summer of 2020.

I did a comparison between the number of stations I heard during the first 30 days of July 2021 and compared them to the same period of 2020.

Now, there is a caveat with this data as I can't be 100% certain if I was listening all of the time in July 2020 but it's very likely I was.

Looking at the data, I heard an average of 55 stations per day in this time period in 2020 as compared to an average of 71 stations per day in 2021, an increase of just over 28%.

As the chart shows, there are a lot more higher Blue days than Red. For example, there are six days in July 2021 where I heard more than 90 stations in one day as compared to none over 90 in 2020.

This isn't just down to conditions, it's due to there being more WSPR activity on the 28 MHz band this year which is a welcome development.

I'm sure as the Sporadic-E season winds down at the end of August, a lot of stations will probably migrate to the lower HF bands. I'm not sure what I will do myself as once the activity level drops below a certain level, it kind of gets a bit pointless monitoring a quiet frequency with no activity. 

It's likely I'll switch back to monitoring the FT8 frequency on 28 MHz over the Winter as this will show if anything unusual is happening on the band.

Lightning detected on the 28 MHz band - 23rd July 2021

 

Friday 23rd July 2021: During the afternoon of the 23rd, I noticed what sounded like a continuous stream of static crashes on the 28 MHz band. I checked the Irish weather website Met Éireann and sure enough, there was a huge thunder storm crossing Ireland about 130-150kms to the north of me.

I have heard static crashes from lightning before but never on this scale. It's usually a static crash every 10-20 seconds but this one was almost continuous.

I was wondering at first if it was some local noise source but I could hear the number of static crashes reduce as the storm moved west.

Even though I am using just a basic CB type half-wave vertical on 28 MHz, I do have a good view to the north. If some of these strikes were from cloud to cloud at a km or two above the ground then I was probably line of sight to some of them.

Top spotter for WSPR on 28 MHz - 22nd July 2021

22nd July 2021: On a few occasions, I have been one of the top five spotters worldwide for WSPR signals on the 28 MHz band. On the 22nd, I was in first place!

As the chart shows, I reported 101 separate WSPR signals which is over 20 more than those in the other top 5 spots.

I should point out that this really has nothing to do with me as it's just my radio listening for WSPR signals on the 28 MHz band all day. The reason I ended up in the top spot is because of my location in the north-west of Europe.

The map above shows the location of the 101 stations. Other than four in North America, the rest were in Europe. The problem with the WSPR mode is that there is a lack of stations transmitting in comparison to say the hugely popular FT8 mode.

This is a closer look at the European stations. The main reason I ended up in top spot was probably because I heard 30 stations from the UK via short skip Sporadic-E and this was in addition to the more usual single hop Sp-E signals out around 1000-2000kms.

At the moment, I am just using a simple half wave vertical above 4m above the ground for reception and it really is nothing special. 

Link...

1) VK7JJ's WSPR Top Spotters website 

Opening on 28 MHz from Alaska to Europe - 11th June 2021

Friday 11th June 2021: There was an interesting opening on 28 MHz on the morning of the 11th of June between Europe and Alaska. This is pretty unusual at this point of the sunspot cycle and especially during the Summer months.

The map above shows the signal paths to KL2R in Alaska. As the signals between Europe and Alaska pass near the Geomagnetic North Pole, they are often distorted with an auroral tone to the signals. It's suprising to see FT8 digital signals get through.

I guess there's always a chance that the station is a pirate but it does seem to be hearing both Europe and Japan on 28 MHz and there is nothing from the USA.

I heard the German Icebreaker station DP0POL several times on WSPR today on 28 MHz and that ship is currently just west of Svalbard. The distance is about 3000kms so there is something going on to the north on 28 MHz.

I have included a list of the stations heard by KL2R in Alaska below. You can check the times and see if the path opens again. It would be really interesting to see more reports of Alaskan stations on 28 MHz.

10-milliwatt WSPR signal on 28 MHz heard in Ireland - 28th May 2021

Friday 28th May 2021: I left the radio monitoring the WSPR frequency on 28 MHz for whole day and I heard signals from all over Europe including DP0POL on the German Icebreaker ship near the north of Norway.

At the end of the day, I got an interesting e-mail from Andreas, DL2KCL about my reception of his very low power WSPR beacon during the day.

Andreas wrote... "You received a transmission from my homemade WSPR-TX on 10m. The TX puts out 10 mW directly from a Si5351A-chip. No PA. It runs from a single rechargeable D-cell with a DC/DC-converter (85 mA).

The antenna is a piece of about 2.5 m thin wire wound on a 18 cm PVC tube in resonance on 28.2 MHz. There is no additional counterpoise."

I checked back through the WSPR logs and amazingly, I had heard the 10-milliwatt signal from DL2KCL a total of 77 times during the day. The weakest signal was -27dB which is buried way in the noise. The strongest signal was -12dB which would have been just about audible to the human ear.

The photo above shows the transmit antenna which is just a quarter wave of wire wound on an 18cm PVC pipe. To hear such a low power system 77 times during the way just goes to show how good conditions must have been.

On my side, I was just using a simple CB type half wave vertical so there was no additional gain to pull in weak signals.

Analysis: The one crucial part of equation is the distance... 1075kms. During the Sporadic-E season, signals in the 1000 to 1500km range are a bit like the sweet spot on 28 MHz. 

There are a lot more openings on 28 MHz compared to the higher bands like 50 MHz and signals around 1100kms are at the very least 6dB stronger than those out around 2200kms just due to the fact they are closer.

The signals at 1100kms are also coming in around 8 degrees above the horizon which allows it to clear local obstructions at either end of the path. 

Antennas on 28 MHz will probably have more gain at 8 degrees above the horizon in comparison to say 1 or 2 degrees and a 2000km skip distance.

It just goes to show how good the 28 MHz band can be when the conditions are right.

Reception of the German Polar Research Ship Polarstern in the North Sea - 25th & 26th May 2021

26th May 2021: I left the radio monitoring the 28 MHz WSPR frequency for the last 24 hours and heard just over 50 stations from around Europe via Sporadic-E. One station that caught my eye was DP0POL out in the North Sea.

DP0POL is a maritime mobile station on the German research icebreaker 'Polarstern'. While the WSPR station on board is often spotted on the various HF bands, it was just unusual for me to hear it on 28 MHz.

As the map shows above, I heard it in the North Sea as it was sailing past the coast of Norway.

UTC (y-m-d) TX         txGrid RX rxGrid         MHz W SNR drift km
2021-05-25 08:16 DP0POL JO26sw EI7GL IO51tu 28.12601 5 -28 2 1061
2021-05-25 23:56 DP0POL JO19um EI7GL IO51tu 28.126065 5 -19 0 1137
2021-05-26 00:16 DP0POL JO19un EI7GL IO51tu 28.126064 5 -7 0 1140
2021-05-26 00:36 DP0POL JO19to EI7GL IO51tu 28.126064 5 -5 0 1140
2021-05-26 00:56 DP0POL JO19tq EI7GL IO51tu 28.126063 5 -4 0 1146
2021-05-26 01:16 DP0POL JO19tr EI7GL IO51tu 28.126063 5 -7 0 1150
2021-05-26 01:36 DP0POL JO19st EI7GL IO51tu 28.126063 5 -11 0 1153
2021-05-26 01:56 DP0POL JO19su EI7GL IO51tu 28.126063 5 -9 0 1156
2021-05-26 02:16 DP0POL JO19sv EI7GL IO51tu 28.126062 5 -16 0 1159

WSPR North-South Divide on 28 MHz - 16th May 2021

Sunday 16th May 2021: This was similar to the previous few days with plenty of Sporadic-E on 28 MHz but it was less intense. I heard 465 WSPR transmissions from 71 different station on the band.

The unusual signals on this day was the appearance of TA4/G8SCU in Turkey and TF3HZ in Iceland. 

There was some short skip to the UK as well with 15 stations heard but it didn't seem as good as previous days.

I was also reminded about one of the main issues with WSPR on 28 MHz i.e. the lack of stations in some countries.

North-South Divide: As you can see from the map above, there is a real lack of signals from the south of Europe. For example, there are hardly any WSPR signals coming from Portugal, Spain, France and Italy.

When I was monitoring the 10m WSPR band on Sunday evening, I hadn't decoded anything in over an hour. I thought the band was closed. I then switched over to FT8 and there were plenty of stations coming through from Spain, Italy and Brazil.

It really is hard to beat FT8 in terms of getting an overall idea of where the band is open to.

QRSS (Very Slow Morse): With the skip going long, I managed to get a screen grab of the QRSS signals from TF3HZ in Iceland.

First Trans-Atlantic WSPR signal on 28 MHz - 15th May 2021

Saturday 15th May 2021: The last few days have been very good for Sporadic-E propagation with the 28 MHz band staying open for most of each day. The 15th of May started with the band being open from the previous day and finally closed for me at 22:44 UTC. I heard 685 WSPR transmissions from 94 stations during the day.

This was the first day of the 2021 season that I heard a 28 MHz WSPR Trans-Atlantic signal. I got just one decode of Vernon, VE1VDM's signal in Nova Scotia. Vernon was using a QRPLabs U3S transmitter with a 4-watt amp. His antenna was a full size Windom.

UTC (y-m-d) TX txGrid                 RX      rxGrid MHz W SNR drift km
2021-05-15 11:50 VE1VDM FN85ij EI7GL IO51tu 28.126127 1 -22 0 4001

There was also plenty of short skip around with 18 stations from the UK heard on the band.

UTC (y-m-d) TX txGrid RX rxGrid MHz W SNR drift km

2021-05-15 11:38 EI2SBC IO63dj EI7GL IO51tu 28.126077 5 -26 -1 177

2021-05-15 10:32 G6PSZ IO82 EI7GL IO51tu 28.126141 0.2 -23 -1 370

2021-05-15 08:48 G8CQX/A IO80jq EI7GL IO51tu 28.126048 10 -28 0 382

2021-05-15 10:28 MW0GRJ IO83kf EI7GL IO51tu 28.126042 5 -10 0 386

2021-05-15 07:52 G0EKQ IO83pi EI7GL IO51tu 28.126076 5 -24 1 417

2021-05-15 09:20 M0SDM IO92pv EI7GL IO51tu 28.126006 2 -13 0 533

2021-05-15 09:48 G8IOA IO92rp EI7GL IO51tu 28.126097 5 -9 -1 540

2021-05-15 10:02 M7SBL IO93rf EI7GL IO51tu 28.126095 0.01 -23 0 551

2021-05-15 08:28 M0GBZ IO91vv EI7GL IO51tu 28.126144 0.5 -23 0 560

2021-05-15 09:40 G4VME JO02cg EI7GL IO51tu 28.12601 0.2 -23 -1 588

2021-05-15 08:12 G8AXA JO01bi EI7GL IO51tu 28.126112 0.5 -18 -3 589

2021-05-15 00:38 G4KPX JO02dj EI7GL IO51tu 28.126089 0.005 -7 1 594

2021-05-15 08:18 M0XDC JO01dq EI7GL IO51tu 28.126084 5 -6 -1 596

2021-05-15 08:18 M0PWX JO01ij EI7GL IO51tu 28.126154 2 -11 0 629

2021-05-15 09:40 G4NJJ JO02 EI7GL IO51tu 28.126075 0.2 -24 -2 640

2021-05-15 05:08 G0MBA JO01 EI7GL IO51tu 28.126049 0.2 -19 0 645

2021-05-15 05:08 G0PKT JO01mt EI7GL IO51tu 28.126061 0.2 -14 0 647

2021-05-15 05:08 G0FTD JO01mi EI7GL IO51tu 28.126118 0.2 -20 0 652

2021-05-15 09:08 GM4SJB IO88ba EI7GL IO51tu 28.126071 5 -13 0 743

EI2SBC: I managed to get two decodes from EI2SBC (Shannon Basin Radio Club) in the centre of Ireland. 

2021-05-15 11:38 EI2SBC IO63dj EI7GL IO51tu 28.126077 5 -26 -1 177 
2021-05-15 11:58 EI2SBC IO63dj EI7GL IO51tu 28.126078 5 -23 -4 177 

At -23dB and -26dB, the signal was really buried in the noise and at a level well below what is audible to the ear. As before, it's hard to be sure of the mode of propagation but I suspect it may have been either very short Sporadic-E or Sporadic-E back scatter.

Short Skip on 28 MHz - Fri 14th May 2021

Friday the 14th of May was another day where the 28 MHz band seemed to be open for nearly 21 of the 24 hours.

I left the radio on the WSPR frequency all day and heard 903 WSPR transmissions from 86 stations on 28 MHz.

The most interesting signals were again the closest ones due to very short Sporadic-E skip.

These were the WSPR stations that were heard just from England alone...

UTC (y-m-d) TX txGrid RX rxGrid                          MHz     W SNR  drift  km
2021-05-14 14:54 G8CQX/A IO80jq EI7GL IO51tu 28.126063 20 -8 0 382
2021-05-14 14:52 G6GN IO81rm EI7GL IO51tu 28.12615       1 -13 0 404
2021-05-14 14:52 G3RVX IO81uj EI7GL IO51tu 28.126081     5 -15 1 423
2021-05-14 19:10 G4GVZ IO81wv EI7GL IO51tu 28.12615  5 -16 0 429
2021-05-14 13:26 G0LQI IO80sp EI7GL IO51tu 28.126175 1 -14 0 433
2021-05-14 10:48 G4ZTM IO92al EI7GL IO51tu 28.126101 1 -20 0 443
2021-05-14 15:16 G4BMC IO90es EI7GL IO51tu 28.126101 5 -16 2 484
2021-05-14 12:04 G4CUI IO93fi EI7GL IO51tu 28.126147 1 -24 0 490
2021-05-14 13:38 G4BOO IO91ij EI7GL IO51tu 28.126049 5 -17 0 491
2021-05-14 09:24 G7GXK IO90is EI7GL IO51tu 28.126015 0.2 -17 0 507
2021-05-14 10:40 M0SDM IO92pv EI7GL IO51tu 28.126008 2 -11 0 533
2021-05-14 10:36 G8IOA IO92rp EI7GL IO51tu 28.126096 5 -21 -1 540
2021-05-14 10:08 M0GBZ IO91vv EI7GL IO51tu 28.126148 0.5 -22 0 560
2021-05-14 13:28 G6JVT IO90st EI7GL IO51tu 28.126121 0.2 -18 0 562
2021-05-14 14:58 G4LRP IO91ta EI7GL IO51tu 28.126148 5 -13 1 562
2021-05-14 13:20 G4NXH IO94hu EI7GL IO51tu 28.126109 0.1 -24 0 572
2021-05-14 15:26 G4YBN JO01bs EI7GL IO51tu 28.126087 1 -19 -1 584
2021-05-14 10:10 G4VME JO02cg EI7GL IO51tu 28.126175 0.2 -21 0 588
2021-05-14 13:56 G8AXA JO01bi EI7GL IO51tu 28.126117 0.5 -20 -3 589
2021-05-14 10:22 G4KPX JO02dj EI7GL IO51tu 28.126138 0.005 -24 0 594
2021-05-14 10:18 M0XDC JO01dq EI7GL IO51tu 28.126088 5 -20 -2 596
2021-05-14 20:12 G6AVK JO01ho EI7GL IO51tu 28.126149 0.5 -22 0 620
2021-05-14 15:10 G8LVK JO01in EI7GL IO51tu 28.126098 1 -19 0 626
2021-05-14 10:40 G4NJJ JO02 EI7GL IO51tu 28.126081 0.2 -19 -2 640
2021-05-14 03:08 G0MBA JO01 EI7GL IO51tu 28.126055 0.2 -27 0 645
2021-05-14 18:24 M0XYM JO01 EI7GL IO51tu 28.126108 0.2 -31 0 645
2021-05-14 03:08 G0PKT JO01mt EI7GL IO51tu 28.126066 0.2 -19 0 647
2021-05-14 13:38 G0FTD JO01mi EI7GL IO51tu 28.126121 0.2 -20 0 652

There were 9 that were under 500kms.

28MHz band stays open all day - Thurs 13th May 2021

After the aurora and disturbed conditions on Wednesday the 12th of May, the 28 MHz band opened on that evening at about 18:00 UTC. What was really unusual was that the band stayed open that night and all through Thursday the 13th of May... roughly 36 hours. This is in marked contrast to the Sporadic-E openings for the previous few weeks where the band might open at some stage during the day and then close late in the evening.

As the 28 MHz band was open all day, I left the radio monitoring the WSPR frequency for the 24 hours. I heard a total of 945 WSPR transmissions from 87 stations around Europe which is very encouraging as it looked a few week back that there was very little WSPR activity.

The map above shows what I heard. What makes it different from FT8 is that there is a wide distribution of FT8 stations spread across Europe that are trying to make contacts. WSPR however is concentrated in pockets of activity based around mainly the west of Germany, the Netherlands and the south of England.

What I found of interest was the short skip opening to the UK...

Distances of about 1000 to 2200 kms are pretty common on 28 MHz during Sporadic-E openings but the opening needs to be really intense for the skip distance to drop down to 500kms or less.

UTC (y-m-d) TX txGrid RX rxGrid MHz W SNR drift km
2021-05-13 04:58 EI2SBC IO63dj EI7GL IO51tu 28.126074 5 -27 -3 177
2021-05-13 09:38 MW0GRJ IO83kf EI7GL IO51tu 28.126038 5 -27 4 386
2021-05-13 10:10 G4SRD IO81wi EI7GL IO51tu 28.126088 10 -17 -1 435
2021-05-13 09:38 G4SDL IO83tk EI7GL IO51tu 28.126101 1 -21 1 441
2021-05-13 07:14 G4HZW IO83uh EI7GL IO51tu 28.12613 5 -20 1 442
2021-05-13 10:04 G7GXK IO90is EI7GL IO51tu 28.126099 0.2 -27 0 507
2021-05-13 10:38 2M0WHX IO75wv EI7GL IO51tu 28.126035 5 -16 0 529
2021-05-13 06:20 M0SDM IO92pv EI7GL IO51tu 28.126006 2 -26 1 533
2021-05-13 06:36 G8IOA IO92rp EI7GL IO51tu 28.126092 5 -16 -1 540
2021-05-13 06:30 M0NMA IO92sp EI7GL IO51tu 28.126077 5 -11 -1 546
2021-05-13 06:08 M0GBZ IO91vv EI7GL IO51tu 28.126143 0.5 -19 0 560
2021-05-13 09:44 G6JVT IO90st EI7GL IO51tu 28.126111 0.2 -26 -1 562
2021-05-13 10:16 G4NXH IO94hu EI7GL IO51tu 28.126101 0.1 -26 0 572
2021-05-13 06:40 G4KPX JO02dj EI7GL IO51tu 28.12607 0.005 -23 0 594
2021-05-13 06:18 M0XDC JO01dq EI7GL IO51tu 28.12607 5 -22 0 596

2021-05-13 12:28 G4EDR IO94uf EI7GL IO51tu 28.126091 5 1 2 601
2021-05-13 10:08 G3JKF JO00bs EI7GL IO51tu 28.126125 5 -27 0 603
2021-05-13 10:42 G3DVF IO95 EI7GL IO51tu 28.126179 0.2 -26 0 629
2021-05-13 08:10 G4NJJ JO02 EI7GL IO51tu 28.126076 0.2 -21 -3 640
2021-05-13 05:58 G0MBA JO01 EI7GL IO51tu 28.126046 0.2 7 0 645
2021-05-13 05:58 G0PKT JO01mt EI7GL IO51tu 28.126056 0.2 0 0 647
2021-05-13 06:38 G0FTD JO01mi EI7GL IO51tu 28.126112 0.2 -24 0 652
2021-05-13 09:34 GM1OXB IO87lp EI7GL IO51tu 28.126049 2 -6 0 729

The most unusual signal was that of EI2SBC (Shannon Basin Radio Club) which was 177kms to the north of me. I heard two WSPR transmissions...

UTC (y-m-d) TX txGrid RX rxGrid MHz W SNR drift km
2021-05-13 04:58 EI2SBC IO63dj EI7GL IO51tu 28.126074 5 -27 -3 177
2021-05-13 14:58 EI2SBC IO63dj EI7GL IO51tu 28.126078 5 -26 -3 177

Propagation mode? At 177kms, tropo is a possibility even on 28 MHz but I don't think it was. I suspect is was either very short Sporadic-E or Sporadic-E back-scatter. They were running 5 watts which is reasonably high power level for WSPR so it's difficult to be sure.

QRSS: One of the advantages of listening to WSPR is that I can see any QRSS (very slow morse) signals as well as those signals are just below the WSPR ones.

The image above shows a screen grab I took early on Thursday morning. Most of those stations in the Uk were east of London and about 650kms from me.

As an example, the signal say from G0FTD in this image is probably weaker than -20dB and in reality is buried in the noise.

Opening on 28 MHz after Aurora - Wed 12th May 2021

Wednesday the 12th of May 2021 was an unusual day. The first half of the day seemed to be dead on 28 MHz with very little happening which was probably due to an aurora in progress. From about 18:00 UTC onwards, it sprung into life. This is what I heard on FT8 up until 18:30 UTC...

Once it was obvious that the signals were getting stronger, I moved over to monitoring for WSPR signals...

A total of 20 stations were spotted from the northern part of Europe. What was unusual was that the band just seemed to stay open up till midnight and then stayed open overnight.

What was also unusual for me was that I was hearing the SE of the UK which is about 650kms away for several hours. These are some weak QRSS signals I got a grab of...

What was unusual was just steady the signals were. Normally with short skip on 28 MHz, the signals are fading. QRSS signals come in and fade away. On the 12th, the QRSS signals from the UK just seemed to be there at a pretty consistent level for hours. They never got that strong as can be seen from the WSPR reports below but the QRSS signals never really faded out either.

UTC (y-m-d) TX txGrid RX rxGrid MHz W SNR    drift km
2021-05-12 20:48 G0MBA JO01 EI7GL IO51tu 28.126053 0.2 -25 0 645
2021-05-12 18:48 G0PKT JO01mt EI7GL IO51tu 28.126062 0.2 -23 0 647
2021-05-12 19:48 G0PKT JO01mt EI7GL IO51tu 28.126062 0.2 -28 0 647
2021-05-12 20:48 G0PKT JO01mt EI7GL IO51tu 28.126064 0.2 -21 0 647
2021-05-12 20:58 G0PKT JO01mt EI7GL IO51tu 28.126063 0.2 -23 0 647

This was the day of the season where the band seems to stayed open to Europe overnight.

A connection with the aurora event or just coincidence?

Modest day on 28 MHz - 11th May 2021

 

After the big Sporadic-E openings over the weekend, Monday the 10th of May was pretty subdued on 28 MHz with just 7 stations heard on WSPR. Tuesday the 11th of May was however somewhat better with 29 stations heard on WSPR on 10 metres.

It was nice to hear the ZB2TEN WSPR beacon eight times which I think might be running 200mW rather than the 100mW listed. 'Hear' might be a bit misleading in that the strongest signal was -24dB which is about 10dB lower than what I could hear by ear. It just goes to show the power of WSPR fir digging out those weak signals.

It still amazes me that I am listening to a signal coming from their little SOTABEAMS WSPRLite transmitter shown above into a wire antenna.

When there were no WSPR signals for a while, I switched over to monitoring FT8 and it seemed to be mainly the south of Spain, the south of Germany and the north of Italy. The only signal of note was 9G5FI from Ghana.

28 MHz Report for Sun 9th May 2021

Sunday 9th May 2021: While the 9th didn't seem to be as good as the 7th & 8th, there were still lots of Sporadic-E signals on 28 MHz for most of the day. Again, I spent most of the day on WSPR with the receive map for me shown above.

This time, I heard 7 stations running 50mW or less.

(y-m-d) TX txGrid RX rxGrid MHz W SNR drift km
2021-05-09 10:56 G4KPX JO02dj EI7GL IO51tu 28.126063 0.005 -6 
2021-05-09 09:06 DJ4RH JN49bx EI7GL IO51tu 28.126088 0.01 -23 
2021-05-09 10:06 PD0KT JO33le EI7GL IO51tu 28.126094 0.01 -23 
2021-05-09 09:56 OZ0RF JO65fr EI7GL IO51tu 28.125994 0.02 -23 
2021-05-09 08:36 DL1WER JN58cd EI7GL IO51tu 28.126116 0.05 -18 
2021-05-09 08:54 DK9ES JO31 EI7GL IO51tu 28.12608 0.05 -24 
2021-05-09 18:04 ON4LUK JO11  EI7GL IO51tu 28.126197 0.05 -23 

When the skip went short, I managed to get two QRSS (very slow morse) plots from two stations east of London, about 600kms from me.

I also spent some time monitoring the FT8 frequency and I heard 279 stations in 36 countries.

28 MHz report for Sat 8th May 2021

 

Saturday 8th May 2021: This was another day where the 28 MHz band seemed to be wide open with lots of Sporadic-E signals from Europe. I heard 358 stations on FT8 in 29 countries but that was only listening on the FT8 frequency for a few hours.

I spent most of the day monitoring the WSPR frequency instead and the chart of stations heard is shown above. As can be seen from the chart, I heard 3 stations running less then 100-milliwatts.

Beacons: These were the beacons heard.

EI7GL 28207.1 ON0RY/B 19:37 08 May IO51TU<ES>JO20CK Belgium

EI7GL 28243.0 F5ZWE/B 14:03 08 May IO51TU<ES>JN02TW France

EI7GL 28194.0 IW4EIR/B 13:04 08 May IO51TU<ES>JN54AS Italy

EI7GL 28240.0 IZ8RVA/B 13:01 08 May IO51TU<ES>JN70LI Italy

EI7GL 28227.2 IW3FZQ/B 13:00 08 May IO51TU<ES>JN55VF Italy

EI7GL 28173.1 IZ1EPM/B 12:57 08 May IO51TU<ES>JN35WD Italy

EI7GL 28257.8 DK0TEN/B 11:02 08 May IO51TU<ES>JN47NT Fed. Rep. of Germany

EI7GL 28205.0 DL0IGI/B 10:23 08 May IO51TU<ES>JN57MT Fed. Rep. of Germany

EI7GL 28241.6 F5ZUU/B 08:12 08 May IO51TU<ES>JN24IL France

QRSS: The best thing about listening to WSPR is that I can monitor for QRSS signals as well as they just 500 Hz or so below the WSPR frequency. I managed to get one screen grab of ON4CDJ in Belgium.

The Sporadic-E season has well and truly started at this stage and you can expect to see lot of signals on the 10m band from now until late July.

Big Sporadic-E opening on 28 MHz - Fri 7th May 2021

Friday 7th May 2021: This was the second big Sporadic-E opening on 28 MHz with 568 stations in 52 countries heard on FT8 (30th of April was 403 in 39). This wasn't even the full extent of the opening as I spent maybe 2 hours listening for beacons or WSPR signals.

The map above shows the big Sporadic-E opening to the centre of Europe and you can see the arc of double hop Sporadic-E stations further east.

The one signal of interest for me was VO1CH in Newfoundland, Canada which was probably double hop Sp-E and a hint of things to come towards North America.

Beacons: I also managed to log 11 beacons on CW...

EI7GL 28257.8 DK0TEN/B 20:12 07 May IO51TU<ES>JN47NT Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28245.2 DB0TEN/B 20:10 07 May IO51TU<ES>JO42UV Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28237.4 LA5TEN/B 19:11 07 May IO51TU<ES>JO59JP Norway
EI7GL 28273.0 DB0BER/B 19:09 07 May IO51TU<ES>JO62QL Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28227.2 IW3FZQ/B 17:23 07 May IO51TU<ES>JN55VF Italy
EI7GL 28271.0 OZ7IGY/B 17:22 07 May IO51TU<ES>JO55WM Denmark
EI7GL 28278.9 DB0UM/B 17:19 07 May IO51TU<ES>JO73CE Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28298.0 SK7GH/B 17:18 07 May IO51TU<ES>JO77BF Sweden
EI7GL 28205.0 DL0IGI/B 17:15 07 May IO51TU<ES>JN57MT Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28194.0 IW4EIR/B 17:13 07 May IO51TU<ES>JN54AS Italy
EI7GL 28251.0 ED4YAK/B 12:27 07 May IO51TU<ES>IN80FK Spain

WSPR: As the band was open to central Europe, I managed to hear a few stations on WSPR...

Even though FT8 is excellent for monitoring band conditions, I find WSPR more interesting in terms of trying to hear weak signals.

I understand the 50 MHz was also open on the 7th but I didn't check. I did try listening for the OZ7IGY beacon on 40 MHz but had no luck.

Looking back at the start of the Sporadic-E season on 28 MHz - April 2021

For every day during the month of April 2021, I listened from about 08:00 to 22:00 UTC every day for FT8 signals on the 28 MHz band. For the first few days, I heard only a few countries every day. The chart below shows from the 7th to the 30th of April.

As can be seen from the chart, the second week of April continued at a low level with just a few countries heard every day. The 10th was one of those exceptions in that I didn't hear a single signal  despite listening all day. 

The chart clearly shows that the Sporadic-E season started on the 15th of April with the third week being in marked contrast to the second week.

Lyrid Meteor Shower: For Sporadic-E to occur, there needs to be a supply of metallic dust from the residue of meteors burning up in the atmosphere at a height of about 100kms. The first real meteor shower of the Spring is the Lyrids which goes from the 18th to the 25th of April and peaks on the 22nd.

Was the early arrival of the Lyrids responsible for the Sporadic-E season starting on the 15th and 16th. The exact start and finish of the shower seems to be different depending on what source you look at.

The 23rd of April is for me always a main date for Sporadic-E. I just noticed every year from my logbook that it was a date that stood out. It's probably no accident that it comes just a day after the peak of the Lyrids.

Methodology & shortcomings: In hindsight, I probably should have recorded the number of stations and countries on a day by day basis but I wasn't really planning to record the start of the season. The chart was just an idea I had once the month was over.

I was able to extract the number of countries heard on FT8 from my previous blog posts but the exact number of stations heard wasn't good enough that I would have confidence in the data for a chart.

As we are still near the bottom of the solar cycle, most of the signals that were heard were via Sporadic-E. It might be more difficult to repeat this test near the sunspot peak as there could be a F2 propagation in the mix as well.

I'll make a note in my calendar and I might repeat the exercise in 2022 and see if the results are the same.

German beacons heard on 28 MHz in 2020

During the Summer of 2020, I did many scans of the 28 MHz beacon band from about 28.160 to 28.340 MHz. This post is about the number of days that I heard one of the 10m beacons in Germany.

The map above shows the distribution of 28 MHz beacons in Germany. Note that the DB0MFI beacon in the south of Germany was off air in 2020.

The chart below shows the number of days in 2020 that I heard a German beacon on 28 MHz...

1) DL0IGI with its 50 watts into a vertical antenna was heard on 46 days and is easily the most consistent German beacon here in Ireland.

2) DL0UM has just 4 watts into a vertical dipole and was heard on 44 days. Like DL0IGI, it is about 200kms further away from me compared to some of the other beacons and perhaps the slightly longer skip distance made a difference?

3) DK0TEN (10w GP) and DB0TEN (2w GP) were both at 44 days. (Note - GP is a ground plane vertical antenna)

4) DF0ANN (5w dipole) and DM0AAB (10w GP) at 36 and 37 days were slightly behind. As for why?

5) DB0FKS was heard on just 19 days but this can be easily explained due to the fact it has just 1-watt into a small DV-27 vertical antenna (i.e. a loaded mobile whip).

6) DB0BER (5w) was heard on just 5 days. I'm not sure why there are so few reports?

In terms of distance, the German beacons are about 1,200 to 1,500 kms from my location in Ireland.

In 2019, I did a similar experiment... report HERE. It's interesting that the results for 2020 and 2019 are pretty much the same. 

Most of the beacons were in the same order with DL0IGI on top and DB0UM in second place. The key difference was that DL0IGI had a much greater lead in 2019.

In 2019, I heard DL0IGI on 35% more days than DB0UM whereas in 2020, it was just 5% more days.

In conclusion... The reason I collected this data was to see if there were any unusual findings.

a) Was there a difference between North and South Germany? For the second year running, the answer seems to be no. The slightly more northern path didn't seem to have fewer openings.

b) Did distance matter? I seemed to hear beacons at 1,200kms as often as ones at 1,400kms but DB0UM out at 1,550kms seemed to have the edge. The problem is that this is only one data point although I do suspect that extra few hundred kms does give it a slight edge.

German 28 MHz beacons... These are the current ones as of the end of 2020

28.205 MHz - DL0IGI - JN57MT - 50w Vert
28.210 MHz - DB0FKS - JN49IT - 1w DV27 GP
28.245 MHz - DB0TEN - JO42UV - 2w GP
28.257 MHz - DK0TEN - JN47NT - 10w GP
28.265 MHz - DB0ANN - JN59PL - 5w Dipole (Used to be DF0ANN)
28.273 MHz - DB0BER - JO62QL - 5w
28.278 MHz - DM0AAB - JO54GH - 10w GP
28.279 MHz - DB0UM - JO73CE - 4w Vert Dipole
28.285 MHz - DB0MFI - JN58HW - 9w GP (Off Air - Last spot on DX-Cluster Sept 2019)

Methodology notes...
1) The equipment used for reception was a Kenwood TS690 transceiver with a vertical half-wave antenna. The take off to the east towards Germany is good with no obstructions.
2) I usually scan the beacon band on 28 MHz once I hear FT8 signals at a reasonable level that are easily audible. i.e. I know for sure the band is open.
3) All beacons must be positively identified before I post them on DXMaps which in turn puts them on the DX Cluster.
4) The mode of propagation for all signals heard was Sporadic-E.