3200km opening on 144 MHz in Australia - 15th Dec 2020

 

During an extensive Sporadic-E opening in Australia on the 15th of December 2020, WSPR signals from John VK2IJM and David VK2DVM in Sydney were heard by Peter VK6KXW near Perth in Western Australia.

Timestamp UTC   Call MHz SNR Drift Grid Pwr Reporter RGrid km az Mode
2020-12-15 10:36 VK2DVM 144.490519 -25 0 QF56og 10 VK6KXW OF87jr 3199 263 2 
2020-12-15 10:16 VK2IJM 144.490507 -8 0 QF56ni 10 VK6KXW OF87jr 3192 263 2

The path was in the region of 3200 kms which is way beyond the usual 2300km or so one hop distance from Sporadic-E. It seems likely that on this occasion, the most likely propagation mode was double hop Sporadic-E which is very rare at 144 MHz.

It looks as if just one WSPR transmission from each of the VK2 stations was decoded at 10:16 and 10:36 UTC. This was about an hour after sunset in Sydney which is 11 hours ahead of UTC.

It's also worth pointing out that the reports from the WSPRnet website say that the VK2 stations were running just 10 watts.

Tropo?... As the path cross the Great Australian Bight, it's always worth checking to see if that was a factor.

The forecast was for some weak tropo across the Bight but nothing special and it doesn't seem to extend inland.

VK6CPU in Perth was also heard by VK5AYD in Adelaide at around the same time over a distance of 2149 kms which was likely to be via Sporadic-E.

Timestamp UTC Call MHz    SNR Drift Grid Pwr Reporter RGrid km  az Mode
2020-12-15 10:56 VK6CPU 144.490510 -24  3   OF78wb 5  VK5AYD  PF97ja 2149 99  2 

It would seem as if double hop Sporadic-E was the most likely mode of propagation.

Update: Just to clarify that when I say double hop Sporadic-E, I am referring to two areas of ionisation that are capable of supporting 144 MHz propagation. The signal may well be chordal i.e. Ground to cloud to cloud to ground ... as opposed to reflecting off the ground at some mid way point.

Links...

1) More info about long distance openings on 144 MHz can be seen on my 144 Page... https://ei7gl.blogspot.com/p/144-mhz.html

WSPR balloon on 20m over the Arctic - 10th June 2020

On the morning of the 10th of June, I left the radio monitoring the WSPR frequency on 20m to see if I would hear anything special. I noted two signals...

Australia... The first was the signal from VK3MO and VK3QN in Australia, always interesting because of the distance. I'm not 100% sure though if they were short path as shown on the map or long path. Might be something worth checking another time.

The one that really caught my eye was the VE3KCL callsign with the strange locator. I assumed at first a decoding error but no, it turns out to be a very small WSPR transmitter hung underneath a helium balloon over the Arctic Ocean!

As of the evening of the 10th of June, it was at an altitude of 10,000 metres, in constant sunlight, has a temperature of minus 6 deg C and is travelling at 18 knots.

It sends out a WSPR signals on 20m with a power output of 10 milliwatts. It was launched on the 16th of May 2020 and has is now starting its third circumnavigation of the planet.

More info here... http://qrp-labs.com/flights/u4b9.html

There are some of the WSPR decodes that I got which shows the locator square changing...

Timestamp Call MHz SNR Drift Grid Pwr Reporter RGrid km az
 2020-06-10 20:58  VE3KCL  14.097177  -30  0 MR20 0.01 EI7GL IO51tu  4047 266 
 2020-06-10 20:38  VE3KCL  14.097178  -29  0 MR10 0.01 EI7GL IO51tu  4011 264 
 2020-06-10 19:48  VE3KCL  14.097178  -25  0 MR11 0.01 EI7GL IO51tu  4024 262 
 2020-06-10 18:38  VE3KCL  14.097184  -25  0 MR01 0.01 EI7GL IO51tu  3992 260

In addition to the QSPR signal, it is also sending out a QRSS signal in the form of a balloon!

The image I got a grab of isn't great but you can make out the circle in the waterfall.

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.

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!

Snapshot of WSPR activity - Sun 7th July 2019

As an experiment, I made a recording of the activity levels for each of the HF bands on the WSPRnet website on Sunday the 7th of July 2019. I took two measurements to get a better sample... one at 09:00 UTC and one at 19:00 UTC.

160m, 80m & 60m... Even though the levels on 160m and 60m are reasonably low, the wide coverage area for these bands would probably make up for this somewhat. Even on 160m, someone running 5 watts into a decent antenna may cover half of Euope.

40m, 30m, & 20m... This seems to be where most of the WSPR activity is concentrated. Lots of people transmitting and lots of people listening.

17m, 15m, 12m & 10m... On these bands, the propagation skip zones become increasingly larger especially at the higher frequencies. My own opinion is that the activity level needs to be somewhere close to 100 to make WSPR useful.

Going on this basis, the activity levels on 17m and 10m are marginal. From a European perspective, there are two issues...
a) Many of the other stations are in other continents may be well out of range.
b) A high percentage of the users are receive only.

This leaves relatively few stations to listen to.

And if 17m and 10m are marginal then 15m and 12m are very poor indeed. The number of users on 12m was 13 and 18 and again, these are spread out over different continents and some are receive only. If there are so few stations on 15m and 12m then it begs the question if WSPR on those bands is useful at all?

VHF... On the VHF bands, the number of WSPR users recorded was very low.... an average of 26 on 6m, 3 on 4m, 18 on 2m, 4 on 70 cms and 5 on 23 cms. Those activity levels are so low that it makes WSPR pretty useless unless someone is interested in monitoring the path to a particular individual.

EI3RCW - The Irish WSPR Receive Station

Some of the WSPR stations heard by EI3RCW on 80m

Regular users of the WSPR system may have noticed the call sign EI3RCW pops up on a lot of coverage maps. Located in the Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) campus, the station uses a Funcube dongle and a Wimo 40m long wire antenna to monitor the various HF bands.

When the call sign was allocated a few years back, WIT was known as the Regional College Waterford, hence the EI3RCW call.

Funcube dongle monitoring WSPR transmissions from 80m to 10m

Long wire antenna installed at the college campus

The EI3RCW WSPR station was set up by Eoghan EI5HBB and he has it configured to hop between the various bands on a schedule throughout the day. The software used to monitor the WSPR transmissions is WSJT-X.

The screen shot below some of the WSPR stations heard on 7 MHz including the Swedish Polar Research Vessel ODEN which EI3RCW is helping to track as it makes its way from Sweden to Greenland.

Some of the WSPR stations heard by EI3RCW on 40m

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.

The Problem of Two WSPR Frequencies on 80m

Considering that there is pretty much no chance of any 28 MHz propagation at night, I decided to set the radio on the 80m WSPR frequency for the last two nights.

On the evening of Tuesday 26th March 2019, I set the radio to 3.59260 MHz which is the frequency that I had written down in my own notes and the one I had used in the past. It seemed to work fine and I heard plenty of stations that evening and the following morning on 80m.

On the evening of Wednesday the 27th of March, I went to tune the radio to 80m again but this time, I noticed that the frequency on the WSJT-X programme was different, it was 3.56860 MHz.

I used the new frequency and this is what I heard overnight on 80m on the night of the 27th - 28th of March 2019...

Signals heard on 80m WSPR - night of 27th to 28th March 2019

Closer view of European stations

So it would seem that there are two WSPR frequencies on 80m and both are in use.

After doing a bit of research, it looks as if there was some issue with stations in Japan being able to use the old frequency of 3.59260 MHz. As a result, it was decided to change to a new frequency of 3.56860 MHz.

The problem is that not everyone has changed and the net result for the moment is that WSPR users on 80m are split over two frequencies which is a bit of a mess.

I would guess that over time, the new frequency of 3.56860 MHz will gradually replace the old one but it might take a while.

Addendum :
Which is most used? ...Old or New Frequency?

As an experiment, I listened to the two WSPR frequencies on Wednesday the 27th of March from 20:00 to 22:UTC to see which one had the most activity.

This was well after sunset and to get a fairer idea of activity, I listened to the new frequency for 30 minutes at 20:00 and 21:00. I listened to the old frequency for about 30 mins from 20:30 and 21:30.

The result was that I heard 113 WSPR transmissions on the new frequency and 99 on the old one. I'm sure if I listened again on another evening then I may get a sightly different result. That works out at 53% to 47%.

It's probably fair to say that the WSPR activity on 80m is pretty much split pretty evenly between the old and new frequencies at the moment.

Signals on 28 Mhz...Sat 19th Nov 2016

With the Solar Flux index down at 78, there isn't much in the way of F2 propagation at the moment. However, there was some Sporadic-E today.

In the morning, I heard the beacon on the Faroe Islands which is always interesting as it's to the North.

EI7GL-@ 28282.5 OK0EG/B 10:38 19 Nov JO70weIO51tu Czech Republic
EI7GL-@ 28237.4 LA5TEN/B 10:32 19 Nov JO59jpIO51tu Norway
EI7GL-@ 28235.0 OY6BEC/B 10:26 19 Nov IP62oaIO51tu Faroe Islands

I also left the rig on the WSPR frequency for a few hours and heard the following.....

It was one of the days where the casual observer might say the band was dead but there were weak signals there all the same. As you can see from the list, some of these were running less than 1 watt.

Interesting Sporadic-E conditions for this time of year. It also suggests that the new 10m vertical antenna is working just fine.

Conditions on 28 MHz...Tues 23rd Oct 2012

Another good day on the 10 metre band with the solar flux at 144. The photo above shows the 57 WSPR stations heard on 28 MHz between the time the band opened at 7:34 UTC and closed at 19:56 UTC.

Points to note....
1) Lots of spots from Australia including Tasmania :o)
2) I heard a station in Japan for the first time on WSPR on 10m! Note the Northerly path. Japan on 10m was pretty common at the peak of the last solar cycle back in 2001. Those northerly paths are still proving difficult at the moment with the flux at 144.
3) Absence of signals from Africa and South America has more to do with a lack of stations using WSPR rather than a lack of propagation.
4) The band opened to the NW coast of the US which again is a Northerly path and a good sign. It was open to the same area the previous day as well.
5) Backscatter.......every day now, I am hearing stations in the UK. A while back, I was wondering if the mode of propagation was tropo, aircraft scatter or Sporadic-E? Now I'd be almost certain that it's F2 backscatter. It seems to be remarkably consistent day after day. If the band is open then the backscatter is present. The thing is that WSPR is hearing signals that are normally buried in the noise.

These are the stations in the UK heard on the 23rd of Oct via backscatter. Most are using 5 watts. G4ILO had 2 watts into an attic dipole...

Timestamp Call MHz SNR Drift Grid Pwr Reporter RGrid km az
 2012-10-23 16:24 G4HZW 28.126086 -25 0 IO83uh 2 EI7GL IO51tu 442 251 
 2012-10-23 13:32 G3JKF 28.126153 -23 1 JO00bs 5 EI7GL IO51tu 603 285 
 2012-10-23 11:12 G4ILO 28.126172 -23 0 IO84hp 2 EI7GL IO51tu 455 229 
 2012-10-23 10:32 G4FDD 28.126065 -20 0 IO93kx 5 EI7GL IO51tu 540 247 
 2012-10-23 10:32 M5DND 28.126142 -19 1 IO82ll 5 EI7GL IO51tu 370 261 
 2012-10-23 10:30 MW0BYS 28.126099 -23 0 IO71mr 5 EI7GL IO51tu 235 275 
 2012-10-23 09:52 GW7PEO 28.126167 -18 0 IO83gh 5 EI7GL IO51tu 370 246 
 2012-10-23 09:14 G8JNJ/A 28.126049 -20 0 IO90hx 5 EI7GL IO51tu 495 284 

Some of the WSPR stations heard using less than one watt...

Timestamp Call MHz SNR Drift Grid Pwr Reporter RGrid km az
 2012-10-23 14:58 K9AN 28.126185  -20   0   EN50wc   0.5 EI7GL IO51tu 5982 49 
 2012-10-23 14:40 VE3EWW  28.126095   -9   0   FN03gv 0.2 EI7GL IO51tu 5160 54 
 2012-10-23 14:38 N4AU 28.126151  -9   0   EM62vp 0.05 EI7GL IO51tu 6420 46 
 2012-10-23 14:16 W8AC 28.126186   -14   0  EN91jm   0.05 EI7GL IO51tu 5434 52 
 2012-10-23 13:22 K3DCW   28.126110   -7   0   FM18qt 0.5 EI7GL IO51tu 5319 51 
 2012-10-23 10:36 OK2SAM   28.126145   -19   0 JN99du 0.5 EI7GL IO51tu 1874 287 
 2012-10-23 10:18 LB9YE 28.126055  -16   0   JP54pu 0.5 EI7GL IO51tu 1829 227 
 2012-10-23 08:34 VK2GEL   28.126146   -25   0 QF56oc 0.5 EI7GL IO51tu 17434 327 

50 MHz.......I also noted that there was an opening from the UK and Ireland to South Africa according to the DX cluster. No sign yet of any F2 East/West conditions.

Mystery WSPR signal on 28 MHz....

Over the last week or so, I have at times seen an odd looking signal while using WSPR on 28 MHz. It starts off about 10 Hz too low in frequency and then drifts upwards for about 30 seconds and then stays reasonably steady for the remaining 90 seconds of the WSPR two minute time period.

When I first saw this signal, I wasn't getting any decodes but eventually, it came through.....it was GW7KNF in West Wales on backscatter. I have no idea as to why his signal drifts at the start but it is unique to his signal.

Normally, I think a signal needs to drift less than 4 Hz to be decoded. Considering that at least 20% of his signal exceeds this then perhaps you don't need to hear the full two minutes of the signal to decode it? Going on the above example, it looks about 90 seconds.

New Zealand heard on 28 MHz...Sat 20th Oct 2012

Loads of signals on WSPR on 28 MHz today.....

While it's nice to see the stations coming through from Australia and the West coast of the US, the one that really caught my attention was ZL3PX from New Zealand. Considering that it is at the opposite end of the globe as viewed from Ireland, it's reasonably rare on 28 MHz.


Timestamp Call MHz SNR Drift    Grid   Pwr Reporter RGrid km az
 2012-10-20 08:28 ZL3PX 28.126130  -20 1  RE66hm 5   EI7GL   IO51tu   19081 4 
 2012-10-20 08:16 ZL3PX 28.126130  -20 1  RE66hm 5   EI7GL   IO51tu   19081 4 
 2012-10-20 08:06 ZL3PX 28.126131  -21 0  RE66hm 5   EI7GL   IO51tu   19081 4 
 2012-10-20 07:48 ZL3PX 28.126132  -20 1  RE66hm 5   EI7GL   IO51tu   19081 4 
 2012-10-20 07:38 ZL3PX 28.126132  -23 0  RE66hm 5   EI7GL   IO51tu   19081 4 

But how did the signal get from New Zealand to Ireland? Short path over the North Pole? I have my doubt's. Long path over the South Pole? Or skewed path?

No decode on WSPR spots...

One of the main reasons I have this blog is to act as a scratchpad for myself. If something happens that I want to make a note of, then it's a handy place to keep a record of it and if it helps someone else fix a problem that they are having then so much the better.

On the morning of the 11th of October, I was receiving a station as shown above but I was getting no decodes. Looking at the database on the WSPR website and the spots from other stations, it seemed as if the station was EA8FF, someone who I have heard and decoded over the last few days.

I switched the rig to 30m and left it listening to the WSPR signals there for about 10 minutes. No decodes. So obviously, WSPR had stopped working.

Solution.......it turned out that the sound card in the PC seemed to have crashed or at least the micropart part of it. It was a simple case of rebooting the PC and everything worked fine again.

WSPR on 28 MHz...4th and 5th of Oct 2012

I left the rig listening to WSPR signals on 10 metres over the last two days and both were reasonably similar.  These were the individual stations heard on the 4th of October.....


2012-10-04 19:32 CX2ABP 28.126071 -27 0 GF15wc 10 EI7GL IO51tu 10705 27 
2012-10-04 19:24 EA8FF 28.126110 -9 0 IL18pc 2 EI7GL IO51tu 2730 12 
2012-10-04 18:32 N6OIL 28.126066 -28 0 DM14fl 0.2 EI7GL IO51tu 8212 37 
2012-10-04 17:44 KK4XO 28.126006 -20 1 EL96uf 5 EI7GL IO51tu 6527 43 
2012-10-04 14:48 UA6AAK 28.126084 -13 0 KN96dq 5 EI7GL IO51tu 3374 297 
2012-10-04 14:48 W3PM 28.126123 -10 0 EM64or 0.5 EI7GL IO51tu 6298 46 
2012-10-04 14:44 KE7A 28.126077 -17 0 EM12kx 5 EI7GL IO51tu 7109 43 
2012-10-04 13:30 HS1ZKM 28.126114 -22 -1 OK03gr 5 EI7GL IO51tu 10058 324 
2012-10-04 13:06 AI4ZN 28.126125 -19 -3 FM02 2 EI7GL IO51tu 5949 46 
2012-10-04 13:02 SV1FXO 28.126027 +1 0 KM17ux 5 EI7GL IO51tu 2925 312 
2012-10-04 11:16 OZ7IT 28.126142 -26 0 JO65df 5 EI7GL IO51tu 1410 263 
2012-10-04 09:06 VK5AKJ 28.126045 -23 1 QF02id 5 EI7GL IO51tu 17156 313 

The 5th of October was a little better for Australia with four stations making it through between 7:18 to 9:58 UTC. According to an online calculator, sunset in Sydney was at 08:02 UTC.

WSPR signals heard on 28 MHz...Friday 5th Oct 2012

There were some Sporadic-E signals around Europe again. EA8FF who is one F2 hop to the south (2730 kms) was the most consistent signal again and the band opened to the USA again.

These were the individual stations heard on the 5th of October...


2012-10-05 20:08 K7UEB 28.126063 -19 0 DN06tb 5 EI7GL IO51tu 7248 40 
2012-10-05 18:54 EA8FF 28.126110 -2 0 IL18pc 2 EI7GL IO51tu 2730 12 
2012-10-05 18:02 KC4LE 28.126093 -20 1 EM63nh 5 EI7GL IO51tu 6412 46 
2012-10-05 17:58 W3PM 28.126115 -24 0 EM64or 0.01 EI7GL IO51tu 6298 46 
2012-10-05 17:38 KK4XO 28.126008 -6 1 EL96uf 5 EI7GL IO51tu 6527 43 
2012-10-05 16:40 W9HLY 28.126018 -17 0 EN70mt 1 EI7GL IO51tu 5727 50 
2012-10-05 16:38 K9AN 28.126168 -10 0 EN50wc 0.5 EI7GL IO51tu 5982 49 
2012-10-05 16:06 4X1RF 28.126169 -24 0 KM72ls 2 EI7GL IO51tu 4063 315 
2012-10-05 13:52 OZ1PIF 28.126132 -24 0 JO65an 5 EI7GL IO51tu 1400 261 
2012-10-05 13:50 DB0ZDF 28.126085 -17 -1 JN49cx 5 EI7GL IO51tu 1178 287 
2012-10-05 13:48 GW7PEO 28.126189 -20 -1 IO83gh 5 EI7GL IO51tu 370 246 
2012-10-05 12:18 F6HCO 28.126107 -22 0 JN19bg 10 EI7GL IO51tu 794 295 
2012-10-05 10:30 SA6BSC 28.126121 -24 0 JO67ts 5 EI7GL IO51tu 1546 254 
2012-10-05 09:58 VK5AKJ 28.126092 -25 0 QF02id 2 EI7GL IO51tu 17156 313 
2012-10-05 09:34 VK2KRR 28.126133 -22 0 QF34mr 5 EI7GL IO51tu 17333 321 
2012-10-05 09:24 R3LW 28.126022 +10 0 KO54mq 5 EI7GL IO51tu 2605 279 
2012-10-05 07:20 VK2FLR 28.126074 +1 0 QF56od 10 EI7GL IO51tu 17430 327 
2012-10-05 07:18 VK2MEV 28.126152 -25 1 QF57ua 5 EI7GL IO51tu 17373 329 

Interesting enough, the last signal heard was K7UEB which is a club station at a university in Washington State in the north-east of the USA.

GW7PEO........The most unusual signal of the day is again, GW7PEO. I heard his signal three times on the 5th of October.

Timestamp Call MHz SNR Drift Grid Pwr Reporter RGrid km az
 2012-10-05 13:48 GW7PEO 28.126189 -20 -1 IO83gh 5 EI7GL IO51tu 370 246 
 2012-10-05 12:34 GW7PEO 28.126133 -23 -1 IO83gh 5 EI7GL IO51tu 370 246 
 2012-10-05 10:46 GW7PEO 28.126137 -24 -3 IO83gh 5 EI7GL IO51tu 370 246 
 2012-10-03 13:44 GW7PEO 28.126137 -21 -1 IO83gh 5 EI7GL IO51tu 370 246 
 2012-10-02 14:52 GW7PEO 28.126146 -24 0 IO83gh 5 EI7GL IO51tu 370 246 
 2012-10-02 14:30 GW7PEO 28.126146 -23 0 IO83gh 5 EI7GL IO51tu 370 246 

The question is how? I presume it is F2 backscatter as I often hear EA8FF at the same time (as can be seen from the bright trace in the WSPR display above) but why haven't I seen any other spots from other UK stations in the three days?

I sent Phil, GW7PEO an e-mail to enquire about his working conditions on 28 MHz and he very kindly replied. Power = 8 watts......which after compensating for coax losses gives about 5w at the antenna which is a multi-band vertical. Good low take off to the mountains to the south/south-west....i.e. in my direction.

If the signal was direct via tropo then I'd expect to have seen more spots. Backscatter via F2 is probably the most likely explanation. It got me thinking though if it was at all possible that it might be from aircraft scatter? GW7PEO is very close to the flight path for planes going from Dublin/Belfast to London.

The problem with the aircraft scatter theory is that there will be a certain amount of doppler shift on the signal, even at 28 MHz. The maximum amount of drift allowed on a WSPR signal is about 4 Hz. If I understood the figures correctly with an online calculator, the maximum amount of doppler at 28 MHz from an aircraft doing about 800 kph is about 19 Hz. Unless of course if the plane was going at right angles to the direct path between the two stations in which case, the doppler shift would be a lot less.

F2 backscatter? Aircraft scatter? Tropo? Hard to tell with just 6 spots.

WSPR on 50 MHz...

Over the last 2 weeks or so, I have used WSPR on 50 MHz and I have heard several stations....mainly Western European countries and a bit of DX in the form of CN8LI in Morocco.

The screenshot above is from 50 Mhz today (23rd May 2011). No WSPR stations heard but you can see the lines above about 5Hz apart. At first, they might just look like some sort of computer interference but these are actually TV carriers. The band was open to Eastern Europe and the TV transmitter was probably located somewhere there. Looking at the DX-Cluster and listening down lower in the band, then it was certainly open to Poland and the Czech Republic at the time.

It also shows the limitations of WSPR on VHF.....band was open yet no WSPR stations heard. Outside of Western Europe and the USA, there is certainly a lack of activity from other areas.

WSPR Timing issues...

I left WSPR running overnight on 30 metres and when I checked it this morning, there seemed to be very few spots. The colour screen on top was showing several signals but I didn't seem to be decoding anything. I knew that timing is a big issue with WSPR so I checked the time on the PC and it seemed to be out maybe 2-3 seconds compared to the radio-controlled clock that I have in the shack.

I reset the time on the PC and hey presto, new spots appeared! So, I went checking...

These are some of my decodes before I reset the time. Notice the DT column...I had no idea what this was before but it stands for the 'Difference in Time' between you and the station you are hearing. As you can see above, most are roughly -2 seconds out.

As you can see above, when I checked early in the morning around 05:30 UTC, there were signals present but very few decodes except for F5GCD. Once I reset the time on the PC, loads of spots appeared and the 'DT' was less than 1 second.

I know that perhaps conditions improved around sunrise but to go from what looked like good signals in the colour window with no decodes to plenty of decodes after resetting the clock certainly suggests to me that timing was a factor.

It might also explain why sometimes I also see some signals on say 28 MHz but get no decodes.

As suggested in the WSPR forum, I downloaded Dimension4 and installed it.

For a PC running Windows 7, you have it run it as an administrator. Install Programme....In the Start Menu, right click on the programme logo...Select Compatibility...Under Privilege Level, tick the box 'Run this program as an administrator' ........click Apply....then OK

Run the programme and it should now keep your PC time updated.

Looking at the advice on the forum, they seem to suggest that signals need to be within 2-3 seconds. Hopefully, this will stop the problem.

WSPR...Rough guide to getting on the correct frequency

When it comes to using WSPR, 2 things are crucial......
1) The time on your PC must be accurate
2) You are on the correct frequency

The WSPR band is only 200 Hz wide and you really cannot depend on the frequency readout on your radio to make sure you are on the exact frequency.

One method I use.......and it's a bit 'rough' ;o).....is to stay in the middle of the pack...........
A) Figure out as best you can what frequency you should be on
B) Turn off the uploads to the WSPR website
C) Once you hear someone, see what frequency the WSPR programme on your PC says they are operating on and compare that to others on the WSPR website

As you can see from picture above, on the morning of the 14th of May 2011, 7 stations were hearing CN8LI in Morocco on 28 MHz. 6 of us around the 020 to 030 mark. So by adjusting my rig so that the spots are in this range, I'm probably pretty sure that I am close to the correct frequency.

You might notice that the spots from G8BKE are about 50 Hz higher than the rest of us...i.e. He is probably 50 Hz too low. As a result, he is probably not hearing  anyone who is transmitting in the top 25% of the WSPR band.

Considering that there is only one WSPR frequency per band, all you have to do is to note the frequency on your digital readout and use the same one in future.