Short Skip opening on 28 MHz - Sun 9th June 2019

Sunday the 9th of June 2019 was one of those days when 28 MHz could be called 'wide open'. There were very strong European stations on the band with openings as well to the Middle East as well as the USA.

The really unusual thing for me was the short skip.

For example, I heard these four beacons via Sporadic-E....

PI7ETE/B with its 300 milliwatt output power is an unusual one but not that rare. Likewise ON0RY/B with 5 watts to a vertical half-wave is unusual but at roughly 900 kms is reasonably regular.

It's when the skip shortens to 500 kms and I can actually hear GB3RAL/B that I know things are special. What was really unusual was that the skip went as short as 350 kms and I heard GW7HDS/B in Wales on 3 watts.

I have heard Wales via Sporadic-E before on 10 metres but it is really rare. It's one thing to decode some FT8 signal buried in the noise but when you can actually hear a decent sounding cw signal then things must be good.

As for the rest of the day, this is a map of the stations heard on 28 MHz...

There are some interesting ones in there. YI3WHR in Iraq and several others from the Middle East.
A ZD7 on St Helena in the South Atlantic. There were two openings to North America... one in the afternoon and one very late in the evening.

This is the European map in more detail...

Danish 40 MHz beacon heard in Ireland - Sun 9th June 2019

There was a good Sporadic-E opening on Sunday the 9th of June 2019 with both Phil EI9KP and myself managing to hear the OZ7IGY 40 MHz beacon in Denmark.

The distance from the beacon is about 1345 kms for Phil and 1390 kms for me.

The screenshot above is from the DXMaps website which has a special page for 40 MHz reports.

Considering the low level of activity on the 40 MHz band, this page is normally blank so it was unusual today to see two traces on it!

These are some of the spots from the DX-Cluster...

EI7GL-@ 40071.0 OZ7IGY 11:37 09 Jun PI4 -19 dB Q=44 es Denmark
EI7GL-@ 40071.0 OZ7IGY 11:26 09 Jun PI4 -14 dB Q=64 es Denmark
EI9KP 40071.0 OZ7IGY 10:53 09 Jun IO54MB ES JO55WM S9 PI4 +20dB Denmark
EI7GL-@ 40071.0 OZ7IGY 10:31 09 Jun PI4 -8 dB Q=100 (es) Denmark
EI7GL 40071.0 OZ7IGY/B 10:21 09 Jun IO51TU ES JO55WM 8m bcn Denmark
EI9KP-@ 40071.0 OZ7IGY 10:08 09 Jun PI4 20 dB Q=100 1345 km es Denmark

The PI4 in the cluster spot refers to the PI4 software which decodes the OZ7IGY signal which alternates between giving out its ID in morse and in PI4.

The amazing thing about the PI4 software is that it can hear the signal buried in the noise. When I uploaded my last spot, it was -19dB and I couldn't actually hear the signal but the PI4 software was able to dig it out of the noise.

More information about this beacon and the PI4 software can be found on the OZ7IGY website.

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...

Late opening to North America on 28 MHz - Fri 7th June 2019

After a pretty dismal start, Friday the 7th of June 2019 turned out in the end to be an interesting day for propagation on 28 MHz.

The morning was poor with just weak Sporadic-E signals being heard on the band. The afternoon was even worse with long periods of nothing but static. The late evening was different though with an opening to North America.

The map below shows the FT8 signals heard....

Notes...

1) Europe...The map shows a few stations around Europe but these were really weak. It was the kind of day where if you turned on the radio, you would say that the 28 MHz band was closed. The FT8 signals were so weak that I didn't even bother scanning for beacons.

The only exception was in the late evening when an FT8 signal from Spain sounded loud. A quick scan revealed the beacon in Gibraltar...

EI7GL 28169.3 ZB2TEN/B 22:20 07 Jun IO51TU ES IM76HD Gibraltar

2) North America... The signals from North America were really weak as well and it was a suprise to see that the band had opened up to the USA when the day seemed so quiet for the most part.

A few things were unusual. I was hearing US stations at about 23:30 UTC which is about 30 minutes after midnight local time.

For many of the distant US signals, I was the only person in Europe hearing them. For example, these are the stations that heard K5TLJ in Arkansas...

The reasons for this are probably social and geographical. Social in that most people in Europe had probably turned off their radios by the late evening. Geographical in that I am probably the most westerly station listening on 28 MHz in NW Europe.

Stations heard on FT8.... USA stations in Bold

Video : High performance 70cms transverter by G4DDK

This video from the 2018 RSGB Convention shows Sam Jewell G4DDK describing his high performance 432 MHz transverter.



Description : G4DDK will be describes a 70cm transverter that can be built from scratch, with the support of a professional PCB, or from a kit. Sam describes the latest upgrades that mean that the receive converter side of the transverter has exceptional strong signal performance together with high sensitivity. The transmit converter side features high spectral purity and the ability to frequency lock the transverter for high stability makes it perfect for both digital and analogue operation.

Note that his website states that this transverter is no longer available. The video was only put up on the RSGB YouTube site on the 6th of June 2019 which is well after when the presentation was made.

G4DDK's website

Good conditions on 28 MHz - Thurs 6th June 2019

Thursday the 6th of June 2019 was pretty good in terms of Sporadic-E conditions on 28 MHz with plenty of strong signals on the band.

The map below shows the stations heard...

What was notable were the strong signals from Germany and the north of Italy.

This is reflected in the beacons heard....
EI7GL 28218.0 IQ5MS/B 15:48 06 Jun IO51TU ES JN54AB Italy
EI7GL 28322.7 F1VJT/B 12:31 06 Jun IO51TU ES JN33CI France
EI7GL 28321.7 I3GNQ/B 12:28 06 Jun IO51TU ES JN55VJ Italy
EI7GL 28241.7 F5ZUU/B 12:21 06 Jun IO51TU ES JN24IL France
EI7GL 28227.1 IW3FZQ/B 12:20 06 Jun IO51TU ES JN55VF Italy
EI7GL 28188.0 OE3XAC/B 12:18 06 Jun IO51TU ES JN78SB Austria
EI7GL 28301.8 PI7ETE/B 08:11 06 Jun IO51TU ES JO22QD Netherlands
EI7GL 28298.1 SK7GH/B 08:09 06 Jun IO51TU ES JO77BF Sweden
EI7GL 28285.0 DB0MFI/B 08:08 06 Jun IO51TU ES JN58HW Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28279.0 DB0UM/B 08:07 06 Jun IO51TU ES JO73CE Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28277.4 DM0AAB/B 08:06 06 Jun IO51TU ES JO54GH Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28271.0 OZ7IGY/B 08:05 06 Jun IO51TU ES JO55WM Denmark
EI7GL 28265.1 DF0ANN/B 08:04 06 Jun IO51TU ES JN59PL Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28253.2 ED5YAU/B 07:58 06 Jun IO51TU ES IM98WN Spain 
EI7GL 28245.3 DB0TEN/B 07:55 06 Jun IO51TU ES JO42UV Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28169.3 ZB2TEN/B 07:51 06 Jun IO51TU ES IM76HD Gibraltar

The interesting ones in there are the really low power beacons like I3GNQ on 200 milliwatts.

The most unusual one was PI7ETE/B in the Netherlands on 300 milliwatts and interesting because it was only about 1000 kms, a sign of short skip.

I also heard the chirpy beacon on 28.219 MHz but it was very weak.

Overall, a pretty good day but I wouldn't say it was as good or as 'wide open' as some other days.

These are the stations heard on FT8....

Conditions on 28 MHz - Wed 5th June 2019

After a poor few days, conditions on 28 MHz are beginning to pick up again. Wednesday the 5th of June 2019 was certainly better than previous days with plenty of signals from Europe although many were weak.

The one unusual signal was that of N9WQP in Indiana in the United States. I checked out who else was hearing N9WQP and this was the map for 28 MHz...

RSGB Cricket World Cup Radio Marathon 2019

The RSGB are currently holding a Radio Marathon in association with the 2019 Cricket World Cup Championships which are being held in England and Wales. There are numerous GB19 stations now on the bands until the 14th of July 2019.

Award details below....

Special stations in England and Wales will represent the 11 venues and 10 participating countries of the Cricket World Cup. In addition England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man will have a number of Cricket HQ stations.

Awards will be available for numbers of QSOs with the activating special stations. A QSO with a special callsign will be valid for awards on three different modes: CW, Phone and Digital; this will apply on each band: 160m, 80m, 40m, 30m (not SSB), 20m, 17m, 15m, 12m & 10m. The maximum number of qualifying QSOs, for award purposes, with each special callsign will be 26; that is 8 SSB, 9 CW and 9 Digital.

All QSOs must be made between 30 May 2019 and 14 July 2019 inclusive.

Awards will be: 
a. Bronze – 50 QSOs 
b. Silver – 125 QSOs 
c. Gold – 250 QSOs 
d. Platinum – 500 QSOs
e. Worked all Cricket Grounds – at least one QSO with each of the eleven GB19 cricket ground callsigns
f. Worked all Teams – at least one QSO with each of the ten GB19 team callsigns
g. SSB Half-Century – 50 QSOs on SSB; SSB Century – 100 QSOs on SSB
h. Datamodes Half-Century – 50 QSOs on digital modes; Datamodes Century – 100 QSOs on digital modes
i. CW Half-Century – 50 QSOs on CW; CW Century – 100 QSOs on CW

More info on the RSGB website and on this one... https://cricket2019.hamlogs.net/

100th Anniversary of RCA Coastal Station in the USA

Back on the 23rd of May 2019, I came across this special event station on CW on 14 MHz... WA1WCC/100RC

Not the easiest call sign to send or read considering the length! :)

The station was marking the 100th anniversary of the RCA takeover of the Maritime Coast Station at Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

In November 1919, RCA acquired the assets of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America, which then ceased doing business in the US. 

At the outset, RCA consisted of only five radio stations, in various stages of completion, and Chatham was one of them. Chatham would later become RCA's flagship coastal station WCC, known as "Marine Radio Central".

WA1WCC is commemorating the founding of RCA in a year-long celebration.

Watch for WA1WCC / 100RCA on the bands during 2019. 

From what I can see on the DX Cluster, all activity is on CW. More information on their website and QRZ page...
https://www.wccara.com/
https://www.qrz.com/db/wa1wcc

Conditions on 28 MHz - Tues 4th June 2019

Tuesday the 4th of June 2019 was marginally better than the previous day on 28 MHz but the pickings were still slim.

The map below shows the signals heard on FT8 on 28 MHz and again, most were buried in the noise.

There is one odd coloured dot on the map from IZ3JJD in the north-east of Italy. For some reason, PSK Reporter didn't record him as a 28 MHz contact, in fact it recorded no band data. I have never seen that before.

Poor conditions on 28 MHz - Mon 3rd June 2019

Monday the 3rd of June 2019 was pretty dire on 28 MHz with just weak signals on the band. The 'opening' in the morning was really weak and just a few signals were actually above the noise. In the afternoon, the band was really quiet.

The map actually makes it look a lot better than it actually was. The majority of those dots are from stations buried in the noise.

Junkers F-13 Award

The Junkers F-13 was the first all-metal passenger aircraft and its first flight was on the 25th of June 1919.

To commemorate the 100th anniversary, there have been ten German stations on air since the 1st of January 2019 using the DF13 callsign.

There is an award for making 10 contacts and I have been working them since the 19th of May on cw...

The activity period finishes on the 30th of June 2019...

Award details below...

Delta Loop antenna for 40 MHz

Phil EI9KP has very kindly sent on details of the Delta Loop antenna that he built for the new 40 MHz / 8-metre band.

The Delta Loop is a very popular antenna on the HF bands and can be used with success at the lower VHF bands as well.

The dimensions of the Delta Loop for 40 MHz are shown below...

Some key points...

Opening to South America on 28 MHz... Sun 2nd June 2019

I wasn't around for a lot of Sunday the 2nd of June 2019 but I did have the radio on monitoring the FT8 frequency on 28 MHz.

When I was around, the band was very quiet early in the morning and in the afternoon. There was a late opening to the Caribbean but I didn't hear the signals here.

The signals heard on FT8 on 28 MHz are shown below...

Conditions on 28 MHz - Sat 1st June 2019

Saturday the 1st of June 2019 was reasonably quiet on 28 MHz with lots of weak FT8 signals on the band. It seems as if each day at the moment is quieter than the previous one.

The map below shows what was heard. It would be pretty good for say the 1st of April but this was the 1st of June at what is supposed to be the peak of the Sporadic-E season.

As expected, not that many beacons were recorded...
EI7GL 28279.0 DB0UM/B 12:05 01 Jun IO51TU ES JO73CE Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28237.5 LA5TEN/B 10:19 01 Jun IO51TU ES JO59JP Norway
EI7GL 28292.2 SK0CT/B 09:48 01 Jun IO51TU ES JO89XK Sweden
EI7GL 28205.0 DL0IGI/B 09:45 01 Jun IO51TU ES JN57MT Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28188.0 OE3XAC/B 09:44 01 Jun IO51TU ES JN78SB Austria

Conditions on 28 MHz - Fri 31st May 2019

Conditions on 28 MHz on Friday the 31st of May 2019 were certainly down on previous days. It was one of those days where there a lot of very weak signals but the band actually sounded pretty quiet for a lot of the time.

The map below shows the FT8 signals heard on 28 MHz....

The lone station in the USA was WW2DX in Maine which seems to be one of these super DX stations with multiple beams.

Spanish URE 70th Anniversary Award - April 1 to June 9, 2019

On April 1st 2019, the national society for radio amateurs in Spain (URE - Unión de Radioaficionados Españoles) celebrated its 70th anniversary. To commemorate this event, the URE,  is promoting an award scheme with 14 special event stations on the air from April 1 to June 9, 2019  using the special AM70 prefix.

I had read about this award scheme some weeks back but I didn't give it much attention. Then Jim, EI8GS was telling me about it on the local VHF net last Tuesday evening and how he was working them on SSB and FT8. After that. I could feel I was on a slippery slope :o)

I've been working the stations on CW on 80m, 40m, 30m and 20m over the last few days and the Gold award is shown above. It has been fun working them on the lower bands and checking through my logbook, I noticed that I haven't really used the bands below 28 MHz since April 2017 except for the occasional Irish contest.

It has also been interesting to see how the propagation path between Ireland and Spain (1000-1500kms) gets very difficult above 14 MHz. The Sporadic-E season should help out with the higher bands over the next few weeks.

The award website is https://70aniversario.ure.es/

Update :  1st June 2019
Finally managed to work AM70D on cw on 21 MHz for a clean sweep from 10m to 80m.

Update : 25th April 2019
Platinum award below...

Another opening to North America on 28 MHz... Thurs 30th May 2019

Thursday the 30th of May 2019 was a bit more subdued on 28 MHz with several quiet patches during the day. Despite that it did open to Indonesia (YB5QZ) and the USA.

The opening to the USA was around 12:00 UTC as opposed to the usual evening time. Six stations in total were heard...KC1FOX, N1BRL, N1API, W2MGF, N2LD and NF3R.

The main opening to Europe was pretty much to Germany and the Nordic countries. The signals from Italy and Spain weren't great.

This is reflected in the beacons heard...
EI7GL 28207.1 ON0RY/B 12:59 30 May IO51TU ES JO20CK Belgium
EI7GL 28210.7 DB0FKS/B 12:57 30 May IO51TU ES JN49IT Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28237.5 LA5TEN/B 12:53 30 May IO51TU ES JO59JP Norway
EI7GL 28285.0 DB0MFI/B 12:47 30 May IO51TU ES JN58HW Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28292.2 SK0CT/B 12:46 30 May IO51TU ES JO89XK Sweden
EI7GL 28205.0 DL0IGI/B 10:44 30 May IO51TU ES JN57MT Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28245.3 DB0TEN/B 10:42 30 May IO51TU ES JO42UV Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28298.1 SK7GH/B 10:39 30 May IO51TU ES JO77BF Sweden
EI7GL 28271.0 OZ7IGY/B 10:37 30 May IO51TU ES JO55WM Denmark
EI7GL 28279.0 DB0UM/B 08:32 30 May IO51TU ES JO73CE Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28277.4 DM0AAB/B 08:31 30 May IO51TU ES JO54GH Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28251.1 ED4YAK/B 08:29 30 May IO51TU ES IN80FK Spain
EI7GL 28218.0 IQ5MS/B 08:28 30 May IO51TU ES JN54AA Italy
EI7GL 28215.8 SR5TDM/B 08:22 30 May IO51TU ES KO01KX Poland

The unusual one in there was ON0RY/B in Belgium at about 1,000kms. Short skip can suggest that the maximum usual frequency is higher and indeed that seemed to have been the case. Phil EI9KP reports hearing the OZ7IGY beacon on 40.071 MHz at about the same time.

These are the stations heard on FT8 on 28 MHz....

Danish OZ7IGY 40 MHz beacon back on air... May 2019

Back in March of 2019, I had a post up about how OZ7IGY in Denmark was off-air for the foreseeable future.

Well now it is back on again!

On the 26th of May 2019, the keepers of the beacon network released the following...

"40 MHz on air and intermittent NMEA loss solved – 2019-05-26

The 40 MHz beacon is back into service.

OZ1BNN, OZ2M and OZ7IS"

The OZ7IGY beacon operates on 40.071 MHz.

Tip! The 10-metre version of the beacon operates on 28.271 MHz. If you can hear that at a good signal strength then there is a chance you might hear the 40 MHz one as well.

If you hear it then be sure to put it up on the DX Cluster to raise the profile and awareness of the new 8-metre band.