QRSS signals from the UK heard on 28 MHz - June 2019

QRSS is morse code sent at very slow speeds with users decoding signals by looking at the waterfall display on a screen. A dot is normally about 3 seconds long.

Update 20th June 2019
Just one lone 28 MHz QRSS signal at 28.0008 MHz from the island of Jersey.

Update 19th June 2019
Rather than putting up a new post, I have updated this one from a few days previous. There was some very good short skip to the UK on 28 Mhz on Wednesday the 19th of June 2019 and the QRSS signals were much stronger...

Most of these stations are using less than a watt into very basic aerials.

16th June 2019...
Conditions today on 28 MHz were very good and I noticed that I was hearing English stations to the east of London on WSPR. At roughly 600kms, this is a pretty short skip distance on 28 MHz and not that usual.

I listened on the QRSS frequency of 28.0008 MHz and recorded the following...

I think the bottom trace is from G0PKT. Above that is G6NHU. Above that I think is G0FTD. And at the top is GJ7RWT.

The audio frequency is shown at the side.

This is a map showing the locations...

The opening didn't last long before the skip went long again back to about 1000 kms and over.

Interesting to see QRSS signals via short skip. I suspect that if I hadn't been using WSPR and seen the callsign of G6NHU, I probably would have never thought to check for these signals.

Just a note of interest. When I heard G6NHU on WSPR, he had a SNR of -17dB and -20 dBd. I have no idea what the SNR of G6NHU was on QRSS but I'd guess it was about the same.

There is an active group of QRSS users at this forum... https://groups.io/g/qrssknights

Back on WSPR on 28 MHz... June 2019

WSPR is a great digital mode for digging signals out of the noise but the problem on 28 MHz is that the number of users on the band is low. FT8 has that critical mass where as WSPR doesn't.

I had thought about setting up a separate receiver and decoder for WSPR on 28 MHz but it didn't seem to be worth the effort.

One of the best things about this blog here and the blogs that I follow is the interaction between readers. People leave comments and put up posts that can spark your interest in something new or unusual.

One of the blogs that I follow is that of Jim, GM4FVM in Scotland. He mentioned in a recent post that he was using WSPR on 28 MHz. That got me thinking about WSPR again! :o)

I dug out the old manual for my radio and rediscovered how to set up the memory channels. I now have the 28 MHz FT8 frequency with all the suitable filters in memory slot '00' and the 28 MHz WSPR frequency in memory slot '01'. There is no more tuning around, I can hop between the two modes by just turning a knob.

The WSJT-X programme allows for easy switching between the two modes as well as shown below...

The upshot of all this is that I can now change from FT8 to WSPR or vice versa in less than 10 seconds.

My primary use of FT8 is to gauge what propagation conditions are like on 28 MHz and to feed those spots up to the PSK Reporter website. To do this, I don't have to have the radio parked on the FT8 frequency all of the time, just most of the time.

I already take short breaks from monitoring the 28 MHz FT8 frequency to work individual stations I see spotted on the cluster on 10m and other bands. What I am going to do now as well is to monitor the 28 MHz WSPR frequency for 10-20 minute periods when the band is open.

It's obviously not as good as listening to WSPR all of the time but at least it allows me to feed some reception reports to the WSPRnet site to let others know that they have been heard.

My first test of this was on Thursday the 13th of June 2019 when I listened for short periods...

The map shows two things...

1) The number of people using WSPR on 28 MHz is low.

2) Note the signal from Vernon VE1VDM in Canada. He was using just 375 milliwatts to a dipole!

Because of my westerly location in Europe, I was the only person to hear his signal on this side of the Atlantic. The distance was about 4,000 kms which is equivalent to two 2,000 km Sporadic-E hops. This isn't far from the maximum distance of about 4,500 kms for two hops.

These are the WSPR stations that I heard in chart form...

Time to consider 28 MHz WSPR??? .....Considering how easy it is, I would suggest that any readers of the blog considering monitoring the 28 MHz WSPR frequency as well. The more people that provide reception reports, the more useful the resource becomes.

Over The Horizon Radar signal heard on 28 MHz - Sun 9th June 2019

Over The Horizon Radars (OTHR) are used by the military of several countries to detect planes and ships in distant locations.

While tuning across the 10 metre beacon band today, I came across an OTHR signal with a buzzing noise on 28.222 MHz. I used the FT8 waterfall display on WSJT-X to see what the signal looked like...

The Green horizontal lines are just the 15 second time stamps from the programme. What's of interest here are vertical lines which are spaced about 50 Hz apart. As you can see, it switches off at 08:44 UTC.

This is a video I found on YouTube which has a recording of the same type of signal but at a lower frequency....

Japan heard on 28 MHz - Sat 8th June 2019

Saturday the 8th of June 2019 turned out to be an interesting day on 28 MHz with signals from Japan and the USA being heard.

The band was open since about 07:30 UTC and closed at about 17:30 UTC.

This is a map of the FT8 signals heard...

By far the most interesting signals in there are the two from Japan as the multi-hop path goes over the north of Russia.

These are the decodes from the WSJT-X programme...

080845 -18 -1.0 1846 ~  WB8VLC JA9CVY PM86
084730 -14 -0.4 1933 ~  CQ JH0EQN PM97

I actually noticed these just after I spotted them on the PSK Reporter site. My first reaction was ... are they real?... did I make a mistake?... who else is hearing them?

The answers are yes...they are real and no...I didn't make a mistake.

The really amazing thing is that for some reason, I was the only person in Europe to hear them!

After I heard JA9CVY, I checked PSK Reporter to see who had heard him in the previous 30 minutes...

As the trace shows above, he was working WB8VLC in NW Oregon and I was the only person in Europe to hear him.

I did the same for JH0EQN... again, I was the only person in Europe to hear him in those 30 minutes.

I did a check at the end of the day and I was still the only European station that heard either of them all day.

I did spot them on the cluster so that others would be aware that the path was open but I'm not sure if anyone noticed in the blizzard of spots...
EI7GL 28074.0 JH0EQN 09:02 08 Jun IO51TU PM97GI FT8 Japan
EI7GL 28074.0 JA9CVY 08:27 08 Jun IO51TU PM86CB FT8 Japan

The distance was about 9,600 kms which requires about four hops if it was Sporadic-E as expected.

Q. Why was no-one else in Europe hearing them? I'm only using a vertical half-wave although I do have an excellent take off towards Japan.

Europe.....As for Europe, there were plenty of strong signals. There were the beacons heard...

EI7GL 28301.8 PI7ETE/B 13:50 08 Jun IO51TU ES JO22QD Netherlands
EI7GL 28277.4 DM0AAB/B 13:49 08 Jun IO51TU ES JO54GH Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28188.0 OE3XAC/B 13:46 08 Jun IO51TU ES JN78SB Austria
EI7GL 28245.3 DB0TEN/B 13:44 08 Jun IO51TU ES JO42UV Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28271.0 OZ7IGY/B 13:43 08 Jun IO51TU ES JO55WM Denmark
EI7GL 28285.0 DB0MFI/B 13:42 08 Jun IO51TU ES JN58HW Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28177.1 IW1AVR/B 11:37 08 Jun IO51TU ES JN44BN Italy
EI7GL 28292.2 SK0CT/B 09:25 08 Jun IO51TU ES JO89XK Sweden
EI7GL 28285.0 DB0MFI/B 09:23 08 Jun IO51TU ES JN58HW Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28235.1 OY6BEC/B 09:21 08 Jun IO51TU ES IP62OA Faroe Islands
EI7GL 28227.1 IW3FZQ/B 09:20 08 Jun IO51TU ES JN55VF Italy
EI7GL 28205.0 DL0IGI/B 09:18 08 Jun IO51TU ES JN57MT Fed. Rep. of Germany

The interesting one in there is PI7ETE/B. Its power is 300 milliwatts so that means conditions must have been good and it's at about 1000 kms distance which is kind of short for Sporadic-E which suggests the MUF must have been much higher.

North America..... The short opening to North America was in the late afternoon and these three stations were heard...
KU4SD 10m FT8 6128 km 16:45:59
VE3XN 10m FT8 5265 km 15:19:14
NO8D 10m FT8 5473 km 14:48:14

KU4SD in Georgia was heard by me and stations in Spain and the south of France.
VE3XN in Ontario... I was the only person in Europe to hear him.
NO8D in Ohio was heard by many stations in Europe.

These are the stations heard on FT8...

Italian QRSS beacons heard on 28 MHz - Sat 25th May 2019

The Sporadic-E conditions on 28 MHz on Saturday the 25th of May 2019 were really good with plenty of strong signals on the band. This also meant that very low power signals could be heard as well.

Up around 28.321 to 28.322 MHz, there seems to be a cluster of low power Italian beacons which also give out their ID in very slow morse code i.e. QRSS where one dot is anything from 3 to 6 seconds in length.

DL8WX has a very good beacon list and he has these two on 28.321 MHz...

IZ1KXQ/B 28.32145 JN54AC La Spezia hills "v v v" QRSS-6:"SP", 17s off 100mw inv vee
I3GNQ/B 28.32157 JN56VJ Tencarola, PD 28 s off, QRSS-3: "GB", tx: 2N1711 200mw CB vertical

I heard both of these signals at the same time and they were about 150 Hz apart...

The 'fuzzy' part of the trace is where the beacon was giving out its ID in normal speed morse where as the dots and dashes are the slow QRSS morse part. Each beacon gives out a code for the QRSS part instead of a full call sign.

As can be seen from the time stamp, these are the two signals over a period of about 15 minutes.

Pretty amazing considering they are only 100 and 200 milliwatts.

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...

*****

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.

*****

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.

*****

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.

*****

21st May 2019...

28.219.6 MHz - ID is FI or FA

*****

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/

The mysterious signal of KI5BLU on 28 MHz... 26th Apr 2019

Two days ago while listening to FT8 signals on 28 MHz, I heard the signal from KI5BLU in Texas... or so I thought.

On the 26th of April 2019, I saw the signal again while the band was open to South America. Note that the trace shows KI5BLU in Texas (locator square EM12). Note that I have Puerto Rico marked ...more later.

This is the traffic that I recorded on FT8 which shows KI5BLU working Ireland, Wales, England and Germany on 28 MHz...
160630  -1 -0.1 1058 ~  EI8GS KI5BLU EM12
160645  16 -0.3 1224 ~  KI5BLU EI8GS -01
160700  -2 -0.1 1056 ~  EI8GS KI5BLU R-11
160715  17 -0.3 1224 ~  KI5BLU EI8GS RR73
160730   1 -0.1 1055 ~  EI8GS KI5BLU 73
160930 -23 -0.1 1431 ~  KI5BLU MW0PPM R+03
161000 -18 -0.1 1431 ~  KI5BLU MW0PPM 73
161530 -14  0.1 1837 ~  KI5BLU G3ZQH IO92
161630 -12  0.1 1835 ~  KI5BLU G3ZQH R-01
161700 -14  0.1 1838 ~  KI5BLU G3ZQH R-03
161730 -15  0.1 1838 ~  KI5BLU G3ZQH R-03
161800 -15  0.1 1838 ~  KI5BLU G3ZQH 73
163645  -7  0.1  924 ~  DK4CF KI5BLU EM12
164400  -7  0.1  754 ~  <...> KI5BLU EM12

Suspicious...
If this was 14 MHz or even 21 MHz, I would have thought nothing of it. But this was April at the bottom of the sunspot cycle. East-West multi-hop Sporadic-E from Ireland to Texas on 28 MHz would be unusual this early in the season.

I then checked on PSKReporter to see who was hearing KI5BLU over a three hour period...

I then selected several of those... AM70E in Spain, G4HZW, G0LUJ, 2E0XXO, G8IXN and G7KFQ in England, MU0WLV in Guernsey, EI8GS in Ireland and F5OIH in France. I then checked what they had heard over a six hour period.

All nine stations as well as myself had heard KI5BLU but had not heard a single other station on FT8 on 28 MHz from the USA.

It's safe to say that KI5BLU was not transmitting from EM12 in Texas.

Initially I thought he was using a remote station as suggested by his QRZ page.... " Elecraft K3-mini for remotehamradio.com"

After a second search on Google, I found this...
KP4/KI5BLU - Palmas - Puerto Rico 04-22-2019
Thomas, KI5BLU will be active as KP4/KI5BLU from Palmas, Puerto Rico, IOTA NA - 099.
He will operate on HF Bands. QSL via KI5BLU, LOTW, eQSL.
Link

This would certainly tie in with the propagation paths that would seem likely to Europe on 28 MHz at the time. The problem is that he is giving out his locator on FT8 of where he lives in Texas rather than where he is in Puerto Rico. He was also not using the KP4 prefix.

This is what confuses people into believing the band is open to the USA when it's obviously not.

Big Sporadic-E opening on 28 MHz - Sun 14th Apr 2019

This was easily the biggest Sporadic-E opening of the year so far with no fewer than 224 stations logged here on FT8 on 28 MHz.

It was obvious from early this morning that there was plenty of Sporadic-E over Eastern Europe and as the morning went on, it gradually moved westward.

The main opening for me here on the south coast of Ireland was from about 11:30 to 16:00 UTC.

The two DX signals of note were ZS6S in South Africa and S01WS in Western Sahara.
ZS6S 10m FT8 9354 km 14:00:44
S01WS 10m FT8 2862 km 11:57:14

The most interesting signals for me however were those from the east of Ukraine and the south of Russia. At a distance of roughly 3,100 to 3,700 kms, these were double hop Sporadic-E signals.

Note the skip zone over the west of Ukraine and Belarus where there are no stations heard. This is the classic 'doughnut' ring which exists around every station. This is an area of about 2,300 to 3,000 kms distant where it can be very difficult to work stations. This is more pronounced on 50 MHz than 28 MHz.

Another local Jim, EI8GS was also on and managed to work into Brazil and Canary Islands. My take off in that direction is pretty poor and I heard nothing from the south-west this time out.

Is everyone on FT8???
I looked around the band a few times during the opening. I heard a few weak voices on SSB and nothing else other than a few beacons. It is probably not an exaggeration to say that in excess of 95% of all activity on 28 MHz now is on FT8.

Beacons
These are the beacons I heard today...
EI7GL 28207.1 ON0RY/B 14:17 14 Apr IO51TUJO20CK Belgium
EI7GL 28257.7 DK0TEN/B 13:35 14 Apr IO51TUJN47NT Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28279.0 DB0UM/B 13:33 14 Apr IO51TUJO73CE Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28251.1 ED4YAK/B 11:48 14 Apr IO51TUIN80FK Spain

WSPR
EI3RCW (Regional College Waterford) is a station that monitors WSPR signals on several of the HF bands including 28 MHz. This is what it heard today...

I suspect the receive antenna may not be great on 28 MHz but an obvious problem is the lack of stations on 10 metres using WSPR. These reports when automatically uploaded can help with sites like DXMaps that show propagation paths on 28 MHz and above.

It would be nice if more people considered using WSPR on 28 MHz for the Summer rather than down on the lower HF bands where there are more than enough stations reporting already.

50 MHz
I had a quick listen on 50 Mhz today and heard nothing. Looking at PSKReporter, I suspect the openings on 6 metres may have been short.

FT8 Stations Heard
These are the 224 stations that I heard and were uploaded to PSKReporter. Stations over 2,000kms in Bold.

FT8 signals heard on 28 MHz - Wed 19th Dec 2018

The conditions on 28 MHz for the last one to two weeks have been pretty awful with slim pickings. There was however a nice mid-Winter Sporadic-E opening to Europe on Wednesday the 19th of December.

It started quiet enough with VP8LP in the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic appearing as the third station of the day.

114845 -10  1.6  678 ~  CQ MM0HVU IO85
114845 -14 -0.4 1337 ~  CQ G0OYQ IO93
114915 -20  1.6  678 ~  CQ MM0HVU IO85
123300 -19 -0.1 1865 ~  CQ VP8LP GD18

What was suprising about this was that the band appeared dead. I had the rig turned on and I heard nothing. I glanced at the screen at one point and noticed VP8LP had been heard.

In the afternoon at about 14:15 UTC, the band opened up with several hours of Sporadic-E to Europe.

What's interesting about all these signals is that they were all using the new version of FT8 i.e. WSJT-X Version 2.0. If they had been using the older versions like version 1.8 or 1.9, I wouldn't have heard them as the two systems are incompatible.

It just goes to show that a lot of people have upgraded already and are not waiting for the end of the year to change.

Poor conditions on 28 MHz... Thurs 1st Nov 2018

Over the last week to 10 days, there has been a dramatic drop in the conditions on 28 MHz. The FT8 signals that I heard on Thurs 1st Nov 2018 are shown in the map. Most of the European signals are probably weak Sporadic-E.

And today wasn't exceptional, it's been very poor every day for the last week. I thought it might have been due to the CQWW contest last weekend but no, conditions are awful.

Contrast that to say the 15th of October 2018 when South America, Africa and the Indian Ocean was heard.

On more than one occasion, I checked my antenna to make sure it was working ok and it was.

It's almost as if it has gone from Is this really the sunspot minimum? to This really is the sunspot minimum!

The solar flux is currently at 68 which is more or less rock bottom.

Will it pick up again or will it stay flat as we move away from the equinox?

Big opening across the Atlantic on 28 MHz & 50 MHz...Sun 8th July 2018

There was another big opening across the Atlantic on Sunday the 8th of July with signals on 28 MHz and 50 MHz.

This is what I heard on FT8 on 28 MHz with some signals being heard into the early hours of the 9th.

The most north-westerly signal was from a station in Colorado and according to the PSK reporter website, I was the only person in Europe to hear him.

Looking at the FT8 reception reports for Tom EI4DQ, I could see 50 MHz was also open. As Tom is only a few kms east of me, it's interesting to see what he is hearing on 50 MHz compared to what I am hearing on 28 MHz.

I noticed one strange difference though.

In the afternoon, I was hardly hearing anything on 28 MHz while Tom was hearing North America on 50 MHz. This is a 15 minute snapshot of what we were both hearing at a point in the afternoon.

The difference was so great that it prompted me to check the VSWR on my 10 metre antenna to make sure everything was ok... which it was. It seems that the 28 MHz band was open from the Netherlands to USA at the time and I was in the skip zone. The conditions were fine, it was just that I was in the wrong location for the North American signals to be heard on 28 MHz.

Later in the evening, we were both hearing much the same on each respective band. A 15 minute snapshot is shown below...

It's just another reminder that you need to be careful making assumptions about propagation. Just because you don't hear something on 28 MHz, it doesn't mean the band isn't open. It could well be that you are in the skip zone for a while.

This day was also remarkable for another reason. Someone in the north of Ireland managed to pick up a Canadian radio station on 88 MHz! That was without doubt the best DX of the day.

Opening to Japan on 50 MHz...Fri 29th June 2018

I saw a note on G3XBM's blog today that 6m was open to Japan from the UK. I checked the online FT8 log of local station Tom EI4DQ on 50 MHz and sure enough, there was an opening from Ireland to Japan as well.

Several other EI stations on 50 MHz such as EI3KD and EI7BMB had similar FT8 spots to Japan.

What I found interesting was that I heard nothing like this on 28 MHz with a vertical half-wave and I was listening all day.

Usually 28 MHz is better than 50 MHz and it opens earlier and closes later. Nothing on 10m this time though.

Was the path only open to the higher frequency signals? Was it a case that beams and high power were needed to exploit this opening on 50 MHz?

Illegal fishery buoy on the 28 MHz FT8 frequency

Anyone that uses 28 MHz on a regular basis will have heard illegal driftnet fishing buoys which give out a short carrier followed by an id in morse.

Over the last few days, I have heard one on the FT8 frequency of 28.074 MHz (USB). It is shown below in the waterfall plot as a short narrow carrier in amongst all the FT8 signals.

It is a solid carrier for about 10 seconds and is then followed by the letters E H in morse code. (Something like a 10 second dah followed by dit.....dit dit dit dit ). It transmits every 2m 30s.

I only noticed it in the last few days so I presume that it was only recently switched on.

As for the location, these are the FT8 signals I was hearing at the time....

I would guess either the western Med or out in the Atlantic but it's very difficult to know.

Links...
1) IARU Region 1 page on 28 MHz driftnet buoys

FT8 on 28 MHz... Mon 14th May 2018

Another day full of FT8 signals on the 10 metre band. As such, it was pretty similar to previous days with some slight differences.

It opened to South America again but only to Brazil this time. A cluster of stations from the centre of Asiatic Russia came through.

Lots of signals from Europe again via Sporadic-E...

There was an opening on 50 MHz as well and I heard the beacon in Denmark. I also heard the Danish beacon on 40 MHz which was interesting considering that this is in the new Irish allocation of 30 to 49 MHz.

Over the 24 hours, I heard 583 separate stations in 52 countries.

FT8 on 28 MHz... Sun 13th May 2018

Another day with loads of activity on FT8 on 28 MHz. The map below shows what was heard in the 24 hours of the 13th of May 2018...

The 10 metre band opened in the morning and closed around 22:00 UTC. There was one short spell in the early afternoon where the band closed completely when there was no Sporadic-E propagation.

As can be seen from the map, there was plenty of signals from South America but not a whole lot going East-West. I suspect there would be a lot more spots from Africa if only there were stations active there.

The map below shows the activity from Europe. The most consistent signals all day were from the south to Spain and Portugal.

The Solar Flux was 69 today which is pretty low. Overall, I heard 445 different stations in 49 countries over the last 24 hours.

FT8 on 28 MHz... Sat 12th May 2018

Another day listening to FT8 signals on 28 MHz and it was another busy one. Although it was similar to the previous days, it was different. The chart below shows what was heard during the 24 hours of Saturday the 12th of May 2018...

Nothing exotic from the east this time but it did open to North America! These signals from the south-east of the USA and one from Canada were heard around 14:00 to 15:00 UTC and were most likely multi-hop Sporadic-E. The ones from the USA were around the 6000km mark... three x 2,000km hops. The Canadian one was around 4,000kms... two 2,000 hops.

The South American signals were interesting. The ones from Brazil and Argentina were from the afternoon while the three signals from Chile were in the late evening.

The map below shows the signals here a bit closer to home...

Interesting signals from Mauritania and Western Sahara, both possibly double hop sporadic-e.

Sometimes it's the signals that are missing are the interesting one. No signals from Denmark or the south of Sweden today although I know there were stations active there.

Even though the maps might suggest that the band was wide open all day, it really wasn't. This is what was heard during the 17 hours or so that the band was open. At any one instant, the band was often open to just a small area but over the day, different signals appeared as the conditions changed.

Overall, I heard 519 stations today in 61 countries.

FT8 on 28 MHz... Fri 11th May 2018

Another interesting day listening to FT8 digital signals on the 28 MHz band. This is what I heard during the 24 hour period...

Signals from stations in China and Kazakhstan were heard at about 4:45 UTC which was dawn at my location. F2? Sp-E?

Several from South America including the Falkland Islands.

Cape Verde, Maderia and the Canaries in the Atlantic.

TR8CA in Gabon and the maritime mobile station off the coast of Angola again.

Again, plenty from Europe....

It still suprises me how many stations in the UK I can hear. They should normally be too close except for when the Sporadic-E conditions are pretty intense. As for today??? Direct Sporadic-E? Backscatter? Meteor or Aircraft scatter?

Interesting little group of stations out in Eastern Ukraine and in Russia. The band was also open to Germany at the same time so the eastern european signals were probably double hop Sporadic-E.

In total, I heard 387 different stations in 44 countries. Not as busy as the 10th of May but pretty good all the same.

FT8 on 28 MHz... Thurs 10th May 2018

I left the radio on 28 MHz all day today listening on the FT8 frequency. From what I could hear, the band seemed to be open from early morning until after midnight.

This is what was heard during the 24 hours of Thursday the 10th of May 2018...

Considering the solar flux levels are down at 70, it was pretty amazing what could be heard on 10 metres. Some of the notable signals heard were....

Five stations in Indonesia.
One in China as well as several in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
One in South Africa and a maritime mobile station off the coast of Angola.
Brazil, Argentina and Chile in South America.
Two in Puerto Rico, two in the Dominican Republic and one in Dominica in the Caribeean.
And of course, plenty in Europe...

According to the PSK reporter website, I heard 865 stations in 59 countries in the last 24 hours.

It was interesting that because I was the only station in Ireland for most of the day, I was sometimes the only person hearing a distant station because of my westerly location.

At one stage, I had a look at the WSPR website. At that instant, there were 70 stations monitoring the 10 metre band on WSPR then where as there were 302 on FT8 at the same time. That's the thing that impresses me most about FT8, it seems to have the critical mass of people using it for it to be useful. I have noticed that on WSPR in the past, the band was obviously open to certain areas but there just wasn't anyone on from those locations.

Another advantage of just listening on this mode is that I don't actually have to be there. I was away from the radio for most of the day and the PC was doing all the work of decoding the signals and uploading the spots to the PSK reporter website.

This was only my second day listening on FT8 and I'd imagine I'll be using it now for the Summer for the Sporadic-E season.

FT8 on 28 MHz... Wed 9th May 2018

This morning, I noticed that the 28 MHz band was open but I couldn't hear one single CW beacon on the band. After hearing about the popularity of the latest digital mode FT8, I downloaded it and was listening on the band within an hour.

This is what I heard today on 28 MHz in Europe on FT8...

Most are about the right distance for Sporadic-E but there were a few suprises. The stations in the UK and Brittany were about the 500km mark...a bit short for Sporadic-E but not unknown. The ones in Bulgaria, Turkey and Russia are too long for one hop Sporadic and were probably multi-hop.

Outside of Europe, I heard these....

Like yesterday, I suspect that some Sporadic-E was helping out for the first hop to get down to lower latitudes where F2 propagation was possible. Still though, some interesting signals were heard. The one is Angola was a UW5EJX maritime mobile off the African coast.

In the 12 or so hours from 11:00 UTC to 22:00 UTC, I heard 104 different stations spread across 31 countries.

After just one day listening on the mode, I am very impressed at what I heard with a simple vertical antenna.

Links...
1) WSJT-X software suite
2) PSK reporter

French Guyana worked on 28 MHz...

Tues 8th May 2018... The Sporadic-E season is now well under way with plenty of signals being heard on the 10 metre band. On Tuesday the 8th of May, the band was open to part of Europe like Germany, Poland, Austria, Czech Republic, North Italy and Spain. As Sporadic-E signals go, it was nothing out of the ordinary with most around the 1200 to 2000km distance.

FY5KE... In the evening (16:45 UTC), there was an opening to South America which was interesting. I heard a station in Brazil on SSB and I worked FY5KE in French Guyana on CW with the first call.

Perhaps not the rarest of calls but interesting all the same. It's great to have the 10 metre vertical working properly again after repairing it last weekend.

The distance was 6600 kms which was pretty good. Almost certainly, the first hop from Ireland was via Sporadic-E out into the North Atlantic...maybe 1500kms or so... and the rest of the roughly 4000 kms was via other multiple hops.

Even though the Solar Flux is down around 70, F2 layer propagation might be possible from more southern latitudes like Spain, hence the need for the first Sp-E hop from Ireland.

Fishing buoy... I also came across a fishing buoy beacon on 28.420 MHz. This one was giving out a 5 second carrier followed by the letter 'D' (I think as it was very weak) and then would stay silent for 2m 25s. As far as I know, these are used to mark the location of fishing nets. Even though they are illegal, they seem to be pretty common and I would guess that this one was probably operating somewhere out in the Atlantic? The fact I heard it around the same time as the opening to South America would suggest this to be the case.