2024 10m QRSS Challenge: - IZ1KXQ beacon in Italy - 14th May

As part of a challenge for 2024, I've decided to see how many QRSS signals I could capture on the 28 MHz band during the year. On the 14th of May, I got a screengrab of the QRSS signal 'SP' which was sent by the IZKXQ/B beacon in the north of Italy.

Usually, nearly all of the QRSS signals on the 10m band are on 28.1246 MHz and the audio of the signals is about 400-500Hz below the WSPR signals. In this case, the IZ1KXQ beacon was on 28.3215 MHz.

In the image above, the fuzzy part of the signal is when it was sending the callsign of the beacon in normal morse code. The QRSS 'SP' part is sent after this.

The beacon runs 0.1-watts or 100-milliwatts into an inverted V-dipole antenna.

The map above shows the path and the distance was about 1600kms. The signal was almost certainly via Sporadic-E and it's pretty much the ideal distance for that mode of propagation.

In summary... That brings the QRSS tally so far for 2024 up to 21-callsigns & 10 DXCC.

1) 8th Jan 2024: VE1VDM - DXCC #1
2) 10th Jan 2024: VA1VM
3) 15th Jan 2024: G0MBA - DXCC #2
4) 15th Jan 2024: G0PKT
5) 15th Jan 2024: AE0V - DXCC #3
6) 16th Jan 2024: RD4HU - DXCC #4
7) 16th Jan 2024: W1BW
8) 17th Jan 2024: OH5KUY - DXCC #5
9) 18th Jan 2024: TF3HZ - DXCC #6
10) 6th Feb 2024: VA3RYV
11) 16th Feb 2024: IK2JET - DXCC #7
12) 16th Feb 2024: N8NJ
13) 21st Feb 2024: PY3FF - DXCC #8
14) 26th Feb 2024: VE6NGK
15) 27th Feb 2024: NM5ER
16) 28th Feb 2024: VK4BAP - DXCC #9
17) 2nd Mar 2024: WA1EDJ
18) 5th Mar 2024: FR1GZ/B - DXCC #10
19) 30th Apr 2024: IK1WVQ
20) 8th May 2024: IW0HK/B
21) 14th May 2024: IZ1KXQ/B

Italian QRSS signals heard on 28 MHz - 11th May 2020

Conditions on 28 MHz on Monday the 11th of May 2020 were very good with some very strong FT8 and SSB signals heard on the band.

While the skip distance didn't get short enough for me to hear some of the UK QRSS stations (<600kms), I did hear two Italian QRSS beacons on 28.3216 MHz CW at about 22:00 UTC. See photo.

From the information that I have, I3GNQ/B runs 200mW into a vertical and uses the QRSS code 'GB'. IZ1KXQ/B runs 100mW into an inverted-V and uses the QRSS code 'SP'. As the image shows, there are about 143 Hz apart.

From what I can tell, these are the only two Italian QRSS signals on the 10m band.

I3GNQ beacon - 200 milliwatts (2N1711 transistor) into a 5/8 vertical antenna

Close up of the I3GNQ beacon

Thanks to Jack I3GNQ for the photo.

I3GNQ also mentions that this low power beacon will be turned off in July of 2020 as the property where the beacon is located has been sold.

Links...

1) QRSS Knights on Groups dot io

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.