FT8 on 28 MHz... Tues 15th May 2018

There were plenty of FT8 signals on the 10 metre band on Tuesday the 15th of May 2018 although noticeably fewer than previous days.

This is what was heard from about 8am till about 7pm....

That pretty much represents what could have been heard anyway as the band was hardly open at 8am and it closed in the late afternoon. Other than some signals from South America, the only DX as such was a station in Western Sahara.

I think the spot from Liberia was bogus one as the callsign looked wrong. Almost as if something wasn't decoded properly.

There were fewer European stations as well with nothing coming from Scandinavia.

Overall, I heard 187 stations in 28 countries on Tues 15th of May.

I'll continue until I have a weeks worth of data and review it then.

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.

Presentation on the FT8 digital mode by EI5KO

At the recent IRTS AGM in Galway, Keith Wallace EI5KO made a presentation on the new FT8 digital mode which seems to be hugely popular at the moment. Following the AGM, Keith uploaded the slides to the IRTS Facebook page.

The problem with Facebook though is that anything more than a few days old is usually not seen anymore and of course, not everyone uses that platform.

I recently downloaded the Powerpoint slides and I found them to be a useful introduction to the mode. With Keith's permission, I have now put these up on Google Docs so that anyone can view them.

The link is HERE

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

Talk by K1JT on the latest digital weak signal modes

I came across this very interesting talk by Joe Taylor K1JT on the latest weak signal digital modes and it can be seen below. It's over an hour long and it gives a good overview of the status of the various weak signal modes in use at the moment (March 2018) on HF and VHF.



Unless you are actively using these modes, it can be hard to keep up with all the changes so I found the video very useful.

One of the interesting slides used in the talk is shown below...

The data for this chart is from all the logs updated to the CLUBLOG website in 2017. It shows how the new FT8 mode has really exploded since it was released and how it has replaced the older JT65 and JT9 modes.

It's also interesting to see how CW is still doing reasonably well and is ahead of phone! Not sure why the second half of the year is lower than the first half though?