28 MHz gets quieter as the Solar Flux drops - 11th Dec 2020

 

In the last few days, I noticed a noticeable drop in the level of activity on 28 MHz as the Solar Flux drops. There is still evidence of F2 propagation as can be seen from the opening to the USA and Israel as shown in the map above but this is in marked contrast to say the 26th of November 2020 when I was hearing lots of stations from the United States.

Back in December 2019, the sunspot cycle was at its minimum when the solar flux was down around 70. In October of 2020, solar cycle 25 really woke up when the solar flux began to rise reaching a peak of 116 on the 29th of November 2020.

After that, there was a gradual decline and it was back down to 83 on the 11th of December 2020. Hence the drop in radio conditions on the HF bands including 28 MHz. 

The ARRL 10-metre contest is on this weekend and conditions for it are likely to be modest at best but not as good as it would have been two weeks earlier.

It'll be interesting to see what the flux is like around say the equinox in March 2021. We'll be a few more months into the new cycle and the sun might hopefully be a bit more active.

Sun starts to sizzle as solar flux hits 100

After a long solar minimum slumber, the sun has really begun to wake up in the last few weeks. On the 24th of November 2020, the solar flux hit 100 for the first time in about three years. The last time the solar flux was over 100 was back on the 10th of September 2017.

The photo above shows some of the sunspots on the solar disk including region 2786 which has a dark core which is slight larger than planet Earth.

The chart below shows the dramatic change in the solar flux in the last 12-months...

The biggest change in the conditions on the HF bands is that the higher bands like 10-metres are now opening. At the end of 2019 at the sunspot minimum, there were some hints of propagation but mostly on north-south paths. Fast forward to the 26th of November 2020, you can see that there was a nice opening to the USA on the 28 MHz band.

It's been a long time since I heard signals from Texas on 28 MHz via F2 propagation.

RSGB PSC 28 MHz Propagation Study - Nov 2020

 

In this months RADCOM magazine from the Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB), there was an interesting news article about a new propagation study on the 10-metre amateur radio band. 

The RSGB Propagation Studies Committee are interested in looking at the modes of propagation responsible for signals in the 150km to 800km range.

For example, the map below shows some of the FT8 signals I heard on the 28 MHz band on the 17th of November 2020.

The signals from the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark (1000 kms plus) are easily explained as they were via Sporadic-E propagation. As the skip distance gets shorter however, it gets harder for the signal to return from the Sporadic-E layer.

Tropospheric propagation also happens at 28 MHz but it's a lot weaker than on the higher VHF bands. On the map above, the two stations about 100kms to the north of me and the station on the west coast of Wales who was about 200kms distant are probably via tropo.

The question then arises as to what is the propagation mode for the signals from England and Scotland in the 400km to 700km range? On the day, it seemed to be too close for Sporadic-E and too far for tropo.

This wasn't unique to just this particular day. It happens pretty much most of the time. Over the Summer months for example, I seem to hear G0OYQ near Hull (579 kms) on FT8 on 28 MHz practically every day.

Are these signals due to meteor scatter? Sp-E backscatter? Aircraft scatter? Tropo? The RSGB study hopes to address this.

The news article from RadCom is shown below...

* * * * *

RSGB's Propagation Studies Committee (PSC) has launched a new study to look at the mechanism behind long-distance inter-UK 10m propagation.

The study came about after PSC chairman Steve Nichols, G0KYA noticed that he was often seeing inter-UK 10m contacts on FT8 occurring between stations that were more than 100 miles apart.

"Normally you would expect 10 metres to give contacts out to about 30-50 miles at best," Steve said, "But these contacts, which are often fleeting, were over distances of about 150 miles. I also that they often appeared in the early mornings, but disappeared as the day progressed. We've had to wait for the Sporadic-E season to end to exclude Es as a possible propagation mode."

Steve said that the likely propagation mode was tropospheric, although aircraft scatter or ionospheric scattering can't be ruled out. Either way, it warrants closer examination.

To take part in the study, just log any UK stations heard via FT8 on 10 metres in excess of 100 miles, making a note of date, time, received SNR and the location of both you and the distant station. Please also include details of your antenna and any beam heading if applicable. Steve can then compare this with weather patterns and barometric information at the time.

PSKReporter.info and DXMaps.com can also be used to track contacts online. "We'd like to encourage new amateurs to take part as the reporting isn't too onerous, but the information you supply could be invaluable," Steve said. Steve can be contacted via email to psc DOT chairman AT rsgb DOT org DOT uk

Source: RadCom Nov 2020 Page 7

Opening to Australia on 28 MHz - Sat 14th Nov 2020

 

As can be seen from the map above, there was a pretty good opening on 28 MHz on Saturday the 14th of November 2020. Even though I have heard the north and west of Australia earlier this week, what really stood out on the 14th was the opening to the south-east of Australia. That is the furthest part of the continent away from me and the signals have to travel roughly 17,500 kms.

In total, I heard seven Australian stations on FT8 on 28 MHz...

VK3BE 10m FT8 17540 km 09:36:14
VK2BGL 10m FT8 17482 km 09:16:44
VK3EW 10m FT8 17464 km 09:49:29
VK3FZ 10m FT8 17437 km 10:32:29
VK2LAW 10m FT8 17434 km 09:23:14
VK2NSS 10m FT8 17419 km 10:01:44
VK2JAS 10m FT8 17419 km 10:09:44

The map also shows that there was some Sporadic-E to central Europe as well as some F2 propagation to eastern Europe and Russia.

The other signals of interest for me were the three from Newfoundland.

VO1NE 10m FT8 3362 km 14:44:44
VO1AW 10m FT8 3238 km 12:44:44
VO1CH 10m FT8 3164 km 12:54:29

I'd be pretty confident that these were via F2 propagation as the distance to the west to Newfoundland is about the same as the other F2 signals from the east.

The solar flux on the 14th of November was 82 which is slowly reducing having reached a recent peak of 94 on the 6th of November.

28 MHz wakes up as the sunspots return - Nov 2020

 After reading reports of recent activity on 28 MHz, I started listening again on FT8 on the 10-metre band to see what conditions were like.

As the PSK Reporter map above shows, there was plenty of activity on the band on Friday the 6th of November 2020.

While there was some evidence of Sporadic-E activity around Western Europe, there was plenty of evidence of F2 propagation from Russia and SE Europe. Outside of some North-South propagation to Africa and South America, it was interesting to see openings to Indonesia and Australia.

There's always something special for me about hearing Australia on 28 MHz. It's no big deal on the other HF bands but for the path to be open at 28 MHz then something must be happening.

The Sunspots Return... The improvement in conditions on 28 MHz is due to the sunspots returning and the solar flux getting up into the low 90's. The chart below from NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) in the USA shows the number of sunspots from 2009 to 2020 and projected out to the next peak of the solar cycle projected to be in 2025-2026.

It shows a peak back in 2014 and the minimum of the sunspot cycle in December of 2019. It also shows an increase in the sunspot number.

The chart below shows the minimum period in more detail.

The Purple line shows the smoothed sunspot number with the minimum clearly shown at the end of 2019. The Black line shows the smoother sunspot number for each month.

What is significant here is the average sunspot number for October 2020. The last time it was that high was back in October 2017, three years ago.

As we come out of the sunspot minimum, there will be peaks and dips but the overall projection is still upwards. As the solar flux increases, the higher HF bands will spring into life especially on North-South paths.

It will be interesting to see when will we get regular openings to the USA on 28 MHz from NW Europe? It will probably start with openings to Florida but it's the F2 openings to Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Maine that I'd be really interested to see.

Link...

1) Solar Cycle Progressions - NOAA

Bogus FT8 spots from DS3SHI on 28 MHz

Nearly anyone in Europe transmitting on FT8 on 28 MHz in 2020 will have been spotted by DS3SHI who is supposed to be in South Korea. This is the FT8 coverage for a station in the UK on 10-metres on the 18th of August 2020.

The first impression is that the UK station is being heard by other stations around Europe and by DS3SHI in South Korea. However, that is not the case and the DS3SHI spots are bogus.

A search on Google will show that other stations have been caught out by this and they believed that their FT8 signal on 28 MHz was reaching South Korea.

So where is this bogus DS3SHI station???

There was a very good Sporadic-E opening in Europe on the 29th of April 2020 and I made a record of the FT8 reception map for DS3SHI on 28 MHz. 

Notice how there are so many European stations and there is nothing in China, South Korea or Japan? Another tell-tale sign that this station was not in South Korea and was located in Europe.

If we take a closer look at the map for Europe then you'll notice a large cluster in the east of Germany.

I've added in Yellow shading slowing the 'skip' zone which is largely free of stations with a doughnut of stations beyond that. From this, we can deduce that DS3SHI is in the southern part of east Germany.

So we can zoom in a bit further and you can see the concentration of stations. The centre of this concentration is somewhere west of the city of Chemnitz.

Over the Summer months, I have checked the FT8 map on 28 MHz for DS3SHI and I kept a record of the stations that were heard at 0dB or stronger. The approximate location of these are shown below with the three highest signal levels shown as well.

The whole area seems to be quite hilly so it may be possible to be close to DS3SHI but be quite weak if there was a hill in the way. However, it seems likely that this DS3SHI station is located near the small city of Zwickau.

As for why? Why is someone in Germany using a callsign (DS3SHI) and locator (PM48si) for South Korea? Is it someone using an online SDR receiver? Is DS3SHI even a real call sign? 

The FT8 spots on 28 MHz that this person generates serve no useful purpose and just misleads people. As far as I can tell, this person is only listening on 28 MHz and is not transmitting.

Hopefully if people search Google for the DS3SHI call sign in future, they will find this blog post and discover that the FT8 reports from DS3SHI are bogus.

Update - 25th Aug 2020: Just after this post appeared, it was verified that the spots from DS3SHI were coming from an IP address in Germany. All spots from DS3DHI have now been blocked from the PSK Reporter site.

Illegal Fishing Buoy on the 28 MHz WSPR Frequency

Back in June of 2018, I had a post up about how I had noticed an illegal fishing buoy on the FT8 frequency of 28.074 MHz. Today, I noticed one on the WSPR frequency of 28.1246 MHz.

Truth be told, these things are all over the bottom of the 10-metre band and it's not hard to stumble across them.

The image above shows the fishing buoy on the waterfall display of the WSJT-X programme. It turns on as a carrier which rapidly drifts upwards, settles down and finally gives an ID in morse. The whole transmission lasts for about 10 seconds.

I was listening one day on 28.200 MHz for the International Beacon Project cluster of beacons and sure enough, there was one there as well.

From what I understand, they are used to mark the position of fishing nets at sea and are almost impossible to police or regulate.

QRSS reception reports on 28 MHz - Fri 29th May 2020

Friday the 29th of May 2020 was an extraordinary day with widespread Sporadic-E across Europe. While the various VHF bands up to 144 MHz were open, I spent some time listening for QRSS signals (very slow visual morse code) on 28 MHz.

To put the European stations heard in context, first see the map with distances below...

a) First Grab... The short skip on 28 MHz started early and I heard the usual stations near London, roughly 650kms.

M0BMN is a lot further west and as he is just 430kms away, I had trouble getting a good trace of his QRSS signal.

b) Doppler... This is another screen grab later on. Note the double trace on some of the signals.

Pay special note to the signal from G0FTD. On the left, it's weak but clear. On the right, there are two distinct signals from him. The upper trace is steady and is almost as if that signal is coming from a stationary Sporadic-E cloud. The lower trace starts to diverge more over time as if it that signal was coming from something moving at speed and creating doppler shift.

I suspect it was coming from a Sporadic-E cloud that was in motion and half-ways through the second trace, it either reached a point or ionization level that it no longer supported propagation.

The other theory might be that it was aircraft scatter although I still prefer the moving Sp-E cloud theory.

c) Iceland... There was also some good Sporadic-E conditions to the north and I got a screen grab from TF3HZ in Iceland for the first. time.

I also noted a signal up higher in the band but I'm unsure who it is? The amount of Frequency Shift Keying (FSK) seems to be lower than the rest.

(Update: The mystery signal is LB3AH in Oslo, Norway).

d) TF3HZ & M0GBZ clashing... In this screen grab, note the signal from TF3HZ. At first, he is in the clear and on his own. Then the short skip to the east improves and I note that TF3HZ in Iceland and M0GBZ near London are actually on the same frequency.

On a band where there are just 10 or so Hertz between stations, it's easy to end up on the same frequency as someone else especially if they are from a different area.

(Update: The mystery signal at the top is probably an image of G0FTD. The mystery signal at 620 Hz is LB3AH in Norway)

As this second grab shows, they were clashing for quite a while as the conditions were excellent.

e) M0GBZ in the clear again... In this grab, you can see how on the left, TF3HZ in Iceland and M0GBZ to the north of London are still clashing. I then lose the path to Iceland and the signal from M0GBZ becomes clear again.

f) Trans-Atlantic... VE1VDM... All of the QRSS signals from Europe are via one-hop Sporadic-E. To cross the Atlantic, the signal needs several Sporadic-E hops.

As I'm on the north-west edge of Europe, I'm within two Sporadic-E hops of Vernon, VE1VDM in Nova Scotia in Canada.

I first noticed VE1VDM's signal on WSPR on 28.1246 MHz and he transmits a QRSS signal as well just below it. He sends the letters VDM and the weak signal is shown below...

Vernon also transmits a QRSS signal on 28.0008 MHz where the European stations are...

And that mysterious signal again?!?

During another grab, there was a brief opening to G6NHU near London and I could see that VE1VDM was almost on the same frequency.

Towards the bottom of the screen, there is a very faint record of the signal from OK1FCX in the Czech Republic. He sends a signal that has three levels so it can be easy to identify even if the signal is too weak to decode.

In conclusion... Another good day for QRSS signals on 28 MHz and it's interesting to note the way signals change over time. As noted in a previous post, I believe QRSS is the only mode where you can actually see the propagation changing visually.

At this stage, I'm running out of new stations to catch! I think I have seen most of the European stations at this stage.

Links...
1) Report from MW1CFN for 28 MHz QRSS signals heard in NW Wales on the same day.

WSPR problems at 28 MHz...

WSPR - Weak Signal Propagation Reporter. I have been monitoring the WSPR frequency on 28 MHz recently as the conditions have been really good and there are now a good number of stations mostly from the northern half of Europe transmitting on the band.

There are a few important issues that you must be aware of when you transmit a signal on WSPR.

1. Timing... Regardless of the band, your time on your PC must be spot on. I've seen examples where people are transmitting tens of seconds too late!  This is an example of people just letting their WSPR transmitters on without checking if it is working ok.

WSPR transmission outside the two minute window marked by the Green lines

2. Frequency... On the lower bands like say 80m or 40m, transmitters drift a lot less. On 10m, the frequency accuracy and drift becomes a bigger issue.

This is an example from the WSJT-X waterfall of someone way off frequency....

This WSPR frequency on 10 metres is 28.1246 MHz and the band is just 200 Hz wide i.e. audio frequencies of 1400 to 1600 Hz.

As you can see from the screenshot above, someone was about 230 Hz too low and no-one is ever going to decode them.

3) Drift... For the two minute WSPR transmission, the signal shouldn't drift by more than 4 Hz.

This image above shows the frequency of the WSPR signals plotted against time. The signals in the top half of the image show normal WSPR signals which are two minutes in duration. As can be seen, they are nice and straight.

In the lower part of the image, there is an example of a drifting WSPR signal. Over the two minutes, it drifts in the region of 15 Hz, way too much to be ever decoded.

If you're on WSPR on 28 MHz and you're not being heard then look at your time, frequency and drift.

First trans-Atlantic QRSS signal of 2020 on 28 MHz - Mon 25th May 2020

Monday 25th May 2020. For a change, I left the radio on the WSPR frequency of 28.1246 MHz this morning to see what could I hear. At the time, there seemed to be some unusual propagation in that I was hearing Iceland to the north-west.

Then I got two decodes of the WSPR signal from Vernon, VE1VDM in Nova Scotia, Canada!

Timestamp          Call MHz SNR Drift Grid Pwr Reporter RGrid km az
 2020-05-25 11:30 VE1VDM 28.126118  -24 -2 FN85ij 2 EI7GL  IO51tu  4001 59 
 2020-05-25 11:20 VE1VDM 28.126118 -22 -1 FN85ij 2 EI7GL  IO51tu 4001 59 

While 28.0008 MHz is the usual QRSS frequency on 10 metres, some stations transmit right next to the WSPR frequency of 28.1246 MHz so that receive stations can listen for both WSPR and QRSS signals without changing frequency.

It just so happened that I had the SpectrumLab audio analyzer programme running as I often use it to check the frequency of beacons on 28 MHz. When I looked, I could see the QRSS signal (very slow morse) from VE1VDM but it was slightly drawn out as I was using the 'QRSS 1' option. I switched to QRSS 3 and the screen grab is shown above.

I suspect the signal from Vernon may have been at its best when I was hearing the WSPR signals. I'd guess that the QRSS signal used to generate the plot shown above is certainly not stronger than the -22dB or -24dB WSPR signal.

VE1VDM was using a QRP Labs U3S and 5 watt PA combo sending 4 watts into a full size Windom hung as an inverted V at about 30' AGL at apex, I was using a vertical half-wave for 28 MHz about 4 metres above ground level.

Mode of Propagation???... How did this QRSS signal cross the North Atlantic?

A few days ago, VE1VDM had been heard on WSPR in Luxembourg and Germany, a distance of about 5000 kms. This was most probably triple hop Sporadic-E... i.e. 1700kms x 3 hops. The second hop signal that day was probably landing somewhere in the ocean about 600kms to the west of Ireland.

For the trans-Atlantic opening today, I think I was hearing VE1VDM via double hop Sporadic-E i.e. 2 x 2000km hops. It's likely that the signal may have reached only Ireland and the western part of the UK as that's close to the limit for two hops on 28 MHz.

For more information on QRSS activities, there is an active group HERE

QRSS Signals from the UK on 28 MHz - Tues 19th May 2020

QRSS is a mode where a morse code signal is sent very slowly so that it can seen on a screen rather than heard by ear. This allows signals that can be up 20dB below the noise level to be seen.

While it might seem outdated by some of the more modern digital modes like WSPR or FT8, what is really interesting about QRSS is that you can visually see the propagation moving around.

On Tuesday the 19th of May 2020, there was really intense Sporadic-E on 28 MHz with a very short skip opening from Ireland to the UK. This allowed me to hear the QRSS signals from stations near London as shown on the map below....

The key points here before we look at the QRSS plots are...

a) G6NHU, G0MBA & G0PKT are all very close to each other and about 650 kms from my location.

b) G0FTD is about as far but is 50 kms to the south of the cluster of three.

c) M0GBZ is along the same path as the group of three but is about 90 kms closer at 560 kms.

d) The shorter the distance then the smaller the Sporadic-E footprint tends to get.

As shown above, it tends to be long and narrow and this will be shown in the QRSS examples below.

***

Screen grab 1.....

In this image above, you can see all of the signals. G0FTD has two transmitters and is the weakest.

***

Screen grab 2...

In this image, the Sporadic-E footprint moves north and even though G0FTD is just 50 kms from the more northern stations, he moves outside the footprint.

The cluster of three remain remain the same while M0GBZ disappears as the skip lengthens for a while before coming back.

* * *

Screen grab 3...

In this plot, the Sporadic-E skip distance increases and M0GBZ disappears. G0FTD disappears for about two minutes before the footprint moves south again.

On the right hand side, all of the QRSS signals are there but they now become quite fuzzy which may indicate multipath. Perhaps the Sporadic-E has broken up into several clouds rather than maybe the single one before.

In conclusion..... This was the my first reception this year of the UK QRSS stations on 28 MHz and as you can see from what's written above, the plots show a lot.

From what I now, the QRSS mode is the only one where you can actually see on a screen how the propagation is moving around in real time.

Listen on 28.0008 MHz on CW for these stations running just a few hundred milliwatts.

276km Reception of Beacon in Wales on 28 MHz

During a Sporadic-E opening on the 20th of May 2020, I came across GW7HDS/B beacon in the south of Wales on 28.2215 MHz.

This is a very unusual beacon for me as it is 276 kms away and would normally be too far away for tropo and too close for Sporadic-E. When I heard it first, I thought it must have been some exceptionally short Sporadic-E.

I noticed however that the signal was pretty constant. After a few hours, it was still there and didn't behave like Sporadic-E.

By accident, I also noticed that the BBC Radio 4 signal on 104.9 MHz from Haverfordwest on the west coast of Wales was a big signal here. Even though it is some 140 kms distant, I was able to listen to it using just my mobile phone and the headset lead as an antenna.

Later in the evening, the GW7HDS beacon had gone and coincidentally, so had the signal on 104.9 MHz.

I often hear stations on the west coast of Wales on 10m on FT8 but it's hard to read any meaning into signals that are there in bursts and are infrequent. Are they tropo? Aircraft scatter? Back scatter?

Tropo conditions on the higher VHF bands like 2-metres and 70-cms are pretty common but not so much on the lower bands like 10-metres. Was it a tropo signal on 28 MHz? Possibly but I still suspect it might have been backscatter for Sporadic-E.

With the beacon frequency stored safely in a memory channel on the radio, I'll have to look out for it again in the future.

WSPR signals on 28 MHz - Tues 19th May 2020

Every day, I monitor the FT8 frequency on 28 MHz and feed the spots up to the PSKReporter website. I don't have any real interest in making loads of contacts but I use the FT8 reports to follow the propagation and watch for unusual conditions.

On Tues 19th May 2020, I could see that the Sporadic-E skip was going short so I left the FT8 signals and concentrated on QRSS and WSPR signals instead. The map above shows the WSPR stations heard on 28 MHz over the space of maybe two hours.

What is interesting here are the signals from the UK with a skip distance as short as 400 kms on 28 MHz, a really intense opening. I also heard the GB3XMB beacon on CW which ties in with this.

What I find really amazing though are the stations running very low power on WSPR.

These are the stations I heard with less than 100 milliwatts....

Timestamp       Call MHz SNR Drift Grid Pwr Reporter RGrid km az # Spots
 2020-05-19 19:04 G4KPX 28.126173 -18 2 JO02dj  0.005  EI7GL IO51tu 594 268 2 
 2020-05-19 18:58 LA1G 28.126058 -27  0 JO49ub 0.02  EI7GL IO51tu 1387 243 2 
 2020-05-19 18:42 DL0PBS 28.125998 -16 0 JO33 0.05 EI7GL IO51tu 1048 266  11 
 2020-05-19 18:26 PD0KT  28.126187 -13 0 JO33le 0.01  EI7GL IO51tu 1046 268 28 
 2020-05-19 17:30 OZ1IPH  28.126102 -21 0 JO47xi 0.02  EI7GL IO51tu 1324 250  3 
 2020-05-19 17:26 PA2REH 28.126176 -15  0 JO22fe  0.05 EI7GL IO51tu 878 273  17 
 2020-05-19 17:26 OZ0RF 28.126042 -23 0 JO65fr 0.02  EI7GL IO51tu 1428 261 5 

As you can see, these range from 50 milliwatts all the way down to an amazing 5 milliwatts!

Japan & USA heard on 28 MHz - Fri 15th May 2020

Friday 15th May 2020. As we reach the middle of May, the multi-hop Sporadic-E paths on 28 MHz are really starting to open up.

Japan... The big suprise for me was the reception of JJ1RDX in Japan. I checked the spot and it's genuine. At 9,767 kms, this probably required in the region of 5 or 6 Sp-E hops to reach here.

USA... K9RX in South Carolina was heard at a distance of just over 6,000 kms. 

What is significant here is not so much the distance but the fact the opening was East-West. North-South openings are not so special as one hop to the south from N Europe and you're into an area where F2 and TEP is possible. It's the East-West openings that are special.

Sp-E... From just a European perspective, the opening to Europe wasn't great. Even though there are lots of dots on the map, the band was open for hours to just Spain and Portugal and no where else. I did several scans and heard just three CW beacons all day.

These are the FT8 stations heard over 2,500 kms...

Big opening on 28 MHz - Wed 29th Apr 2020

Wednesday 29th April 2020. As the map shows above, there was an extensive Sporadic-E opening on 28 MHz with 689 stations from 46 countries being heard on the band.

The unusual one was the short opening to North America. More later.

First off, here is the map for Europe...

Looking at the German 28 MHz beacons heard in 2019

During the months of April, May and June of 2019, 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 beacons in Germany.

The map above shows the distribution of 28 MHz beacons in Germany. Note that the DB0BER beacon near Berlin was off air during the period I was monitoring so it is not included in the data below.

The chart below shows the number of days in 2019 that I heard a German beacon on 28 MHz...

1) DL0IGI with its 50 watts into a vertical antenna was heard on 35 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 26 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) DB0MFI (9w GP), DK0TEN (10w GP) and DB0TEN (2w GP) were all about the same mark with 22, 21 and 20 days respectively. (Note - GP is a ground plane vertical antenna)

4) DF0ANN (5w dipole) and DM0AAB (10w GP) at 16 and 14 days were noticeably behind. Was it just pure chance or was there a reason?

5) DB0FKS was heard on just 8 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).

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

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

a) Was there a difference in the number of days heard between North and South Germany? The answer seems to be no.

b) Did distance matter? Maybe but the evidence isn't that strong. I seemed to hear beacons at 1,200kms as often as ones at 1,400kms.

The main factor determining what I heard from my location in Ireland seems to be just power and antenna performance of the beacons. 

German 28 MHz beacons... These are the current ones as of the end of 2019

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

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.

Oblong Loops for 28 MHz and 50 MHz

Peter, VK3YE recently posted a video on YouTube about some oblong loop antennas for 28 MHz and 50 MHz.

What attracted my attention to it was the simplicity of the antenna and it has some notable features...

1) Ease of Construction... As you can see from the diagram on the left, the 50 MHz version is only 1-metre wide and the 28 MHz version is 1.8-metres wide.

It's not hard to imagine using a horizontal non-conductive support that wide and then effectively hanging the whole structure from something like a PVC mast or even the branch of a tree.

2) Simple 50 Ohm feed point... Most loops in the shape of squares or triangles seem to have an impedance around 100 ohms and require some sort of matching device.

This oblong loop seems to have a lower impedance and is closer to 50 ohms. As a result, it can be fed directly with 50 Ohm coaxial cable. It would however be probably worth making a few loops in the coax at the feed point to make a choke balun.

3) Cost... The antenna can be made with bits of PVC pipe and some wire. It should be very cheap to make. 

If you want to get on say 50 MHz then this oblong antenna would be way better than some sort of commercial vertical covering 6m, 2m and 70cms. It should also be way better than some HF antenna like a G5RV or similar that it pressed into service. In terms of bang for buck, something like this is hard to beat. You'll need to get it up high though.

Have a look at VK3YE's video below and you'll get a better idea of what it's like.

Opening on 28 MHz to North America - Mon 11th Nov 2019

Monday the 11th of November 2019 was a pretty quiet day on 28 MHz for the most part. Other than a handful of European stations, the best DX to the south on FT8 was ZD7MY on St.Helena. The three exceptional signals however were WU1ITU, K0TPP and KC4QX in the USA.

On the lower bands like 18 MHz, 21 MHz or even 24 MHz, it's no big deal to hear an East-West signal outside of the Sporadic-E season. On 28 MHz and at the bottom of the sunspot cycle, it is.

When the solar flux is very low at the bottom of the sunspot cycle, propagation on 28 MHz via the F2 layer in the ionosphere is usually via North-South paths. As a result, hearing South Africa or South America from Europe on 28 MHz at the moment is nice but not exceptional. Hearing North America is unusual though.

I got just two FT8 decodes today from K0TPP in Missouri. He was 6,267 kms from here which is more than one F2 hop so perhaps there was some Sporadic-E helping to extend the path at one end or the other?

WU1ITU by contrast was much stronger and was at least +14dB here. That's a kind of level where a CW or SSB contact should be easily possible. It was a bit strange that these were the only two US stations that I heard.

KC4QX in Florida was heard much later at 18:43 UTC, about two hours after local sunset. Looking at the PSK Reporter website, it seems as if I was the only one in Europe in Europe to hear him.

Some of the my FT8 decodes are shown below. As you can see, WU1ITU was working Greece, France, Denmark and Spain.

103015 -15 -0.3  862 ~  CQ MM3NRX IO86
113300 -12 -0.5 1366 ~  CQ RA2FL KO04
121145 -12 -0.0  976 ~  CQ IZ2MHO JN45
151515 -11 -0.2  664 ~  WB2PYN K0TPP -03
151545 -10 -0.2  664 ~  WB2PYN K0TPP RR73

28 MHz opens up to the Indian Ocean - Thurs 7th Nov 2019

There was an interesting opening on Thursday the 7th of November 2019 with 3B8CW in Mauritius in the Indian Ocean being heard on FT8 on 28 MHz.

The distance was around 10,200 kms.