Sporadic-E on 28 MHz - Sat 11th May 2019

Saturday the 11th of May 2019 was a pretty modest day for Sporadic-E on 28 MHz or at least it was from here on the south coast of Ireland.

The opening tended to be confined to a reasonably small area as it moved around. It never really opened to the south from here and the vast majority of signals from to the east were in the region of 1500 to 2000 kms.

These are the FT8 signals heard on 28 MHz on Saturday the 11th of May 2019...

Notes...

1) A92GE in Bahrain was heard at 07:37 UTC but didn't get uploaded to the PSK Reporter website.

2) Relatively small numbers of double hop today in Romania, Turkey, Lebanon, Cyprus and Russia.

3) The main opening was to the east and the strongest of the signals were from there.

4) There was very little Sporadic-E to the south from here for most of the day.

5) Looking at PSK Reporter, the was an opening from South America to mostly Scotland and across to Denmark. It looks as if the signals went over my head here and landed further north.

Nothing was heard from South America here all day.

Beacons..... These are the beacons heard on Sat 11th of May...
EI7GL 28279.0 DB0UM/B 19:56 11 May IO51TUJO73CE  Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28298.1 SK7GH/B 18:54 11 May IO51TUJO77BF Sweden
EI7GL 28279.0 DB0UM/B 13:54 11 May IO51TUJO73CE Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28251.1 ED4YAK/B 10:02 11 May  IO51TUIN80FK Spain
EI7GL 28285.0 DB0MFI/B 10:01 11 May IO51TUJN58HW Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28257.8 DK0TEN/B 09:31 11 May IO51TUJN47NT Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28205.0 DL0IGI/B 09:29 11 May IO51TUJN57MT Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28188.0 OE3XAC/B 09:28 11 May IO51TUJN78SB Austria

Outside of that, I head some strong DL stations calling CQ contest on cw.

In total, I uploaded 369 reports from 241 stations in 33 countries to the PSK Reporter website.

These are the stations heard on FT8 on 28 MHz (2000kms plus in bold)...

Sporadic-E on 28 MHz - Fri 10th May 2019

The amount of Sporadic-E on Friday the 10th of May 2019 was a lot lower than previous days with the main opening being south to Spain. Even though it might seem from the map below that there was a widespread opening, that really wasn't the case.

The 28 MHz band was open from about 08:30 to about 16:00 UTC but the signals were weak for most of that time.

Notes...

1) Brazil.... There was a late opening to Brazil with two stations heard between 19:32 UTC and 20:07 UTC. Local sunset here was 20:13 UTC.
193200 -10 -0.0 1716 ~  VE3LTG PY2LCD -17
194330 -15 -0.1 1795 ~  VE3XN PY2LCD +02
194400 -16 -0.1 1795 ~  VE3XN PY2LCD +02
194400 -13 -0.3 2104 ~  CQ PU5MFI GG36
200130 -15 -0.1 1969 ~  VA3VU PY2LCD GG66
200700 -13 -0.4 2104 ~  CQ PU5MFI GG36

2) Europe... These are the stations heard ...

Some of the double hop Sporadic-E signals from Ukraine and Russia were a bit unusual in that there was no no major activity from the one hop area / half way point at the time.

It might look from the map as if there was an opening to England and the Netherlands but that wasn't the case. That's the thing with FT8, it shows all the very weak signals buried in the noise.

The main opening was to Spain and this is reflected in the number of beacons I heard...
EI7GL 28169.3 ZB2TEN/B 11:27 10 May IO51TUIM76HD Gibraltar
EI7GL 28253.3 ED5YAU/B 10:34 10 May IO51TUIM98WM Spain
EI7GL 28251.1 ED4YAK/B 10:05 10 May IO51TUIN80FK Spain

In total, I uploaded 247 FT8 reports from 152 stations in 23 countries to the PSK Reporter website. Without FT8, the band is essentially dead.

These are the stations heard on FT8 (2000kms plus on bold)

Low Band VHF Log-Periodic Aerials from Antenna Products Corporation

Thanks to some info from Rob PE9PE, I came across this commercial antenna website in the USA ... https://antennaproducts.com/

Part of their wide range of products includes log-periodic directional antennas for the low VHF band of about 30 to 80 MHz.

The general principle of a log-periodic antenna is that they give a modest amount of gain over a very wide bandwidth as opposed to a typical Yagi which has more gain but only a narrower bandwidth.

While these commercial products are perhaps outside the budget of the typical radio amateur or scanner enthusiast, they do give some idea on the performance to expect from this type of antenna.

Some models...

Model : TLP-20 (pictured above)
Range : 20 MHz - 1000 MHz
Boom Length : 5.1m
Gain : Approx 2 to 6dBd
Link : https://antennaproducts.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/TLP-20-1.pdf

Model : LP-102
Range : 30 MHz - 88 MHz
Boom Length : 4.5m
Gain : Approx 5.4 dBd
Link : https://antennaproducts.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/LP-102.pdf

Model : TLP-28 
Range : 28 MHz - 100 MHz
Boom Length : 4.1m
Gain : Approx 3dBd
Link : https://antennaproducts.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/TLP-28100225.pdf

The website of the company is https://antennaproducts.com/

Opening to the Indian Ocean on 28 MHz - Thurs 10th May 2019

Another interesting day on 28 MHz with lots of DX heard on the band. Besides the Sporadic-E opening to Europe, there were signals from Brazil, Africa, Israel and Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean.

The band was pretty much open from about 08:00 to 19:00 UTC.

These are the FT8 signals heard on 28 MHz on Thursday the 9th of May 2019...

Notes...

1) The most remarkable signal of the day was probably that of FR1GZ on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean. Looking at the heard list on PSK Reporter, he was received throughout Europe and I was the furthest away at 10,170 kms. I heard him at 12:06 UTC.

2) Nice opening to West Africa... S01WS in the Western Sahara, 5T5PA in Mauritania, 9G5AR in Ghana and TR8CA in Gabon.

3) In the late afternoon, there was an opening to Brazil although it seemed very localised.

4) The opening to Europe wasn't as extensive as previous days. The main areas that were open were Italy in the morning and Spain / Portugal in the afternoon.

The yellow line shows my limit for one hop Sporadic-E. Note that lack of double hop to the East.

Also practically nothing Poland or the centre of Germany which is packed with active stations. Lots of stations in the Netherlands were heard but they were weak. It really didn't open to PA.

The good conditions to Italy and Spain is reflected in the beacons that I heard...

EI7GL 28169.3 ZB2TEN/B 16:19 09 May IO51TUIM76HD Gibraltar
EI7GL 28253.3 ED5YAU/B 13:10 09 May IO51TUIM98WN Spain
EI7GL 28255.8 C30P/B 10:26 09 May IO51TUJN02SM Andorra
EI7GL 28241.6 F5ZUU/B 10:24 09 May IO51TUJN24IL France
EI7GL 28177.7 IW1AVR/B 09:52 09 May IO51TUJN44BN Italy
EI7GL 28227.4 IW3FZQ/B 09:44 09 May IO51TUJN55VF Italy
EI7GL 28257.8 DK0TEN/B 09:23 09 May IO51TUJN47NT Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28240.0 IZ8RVA/B 09:16 09 May IO51TUJN70LI Italy 
EI7GL 28218.0 IQ5MS/B 09:09 09 May IO51TUJN54AA Italy
EI7GL 28285.0 DB0MFI/B 08:45 09 May IO51TUJN58HW Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28205.0 DL0IGI/B 08:43 09 May IO51TUJN57MT Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28188.0 OE3XAC/B 08:42 09 May IO51TUJN78SB Austria

The Solar Flux was at 75 today which is up a bit on the usual. That may have helped the F2 propagation at lower latitudes with the Sporadic-E then coupling into it.

FT8 V CW... As an experiment, I listened to some of the FT8 signals and made a note of how loud they sounded.
-20dB on FT8... Essentially inaudible.
-14dB on FT... Just about know there is a signal there. I don't think I could copy cw at that level.
-6dB to -8dB on FT... This to me is about the same level as a weak cw signal.

In total, I uploaded 366 FT8 reports from 337 stations in 33 countries on 28 MHz to the PSK Reporter website today.

These are the stations heard. 2000kms plus in bold.

Sporadic-E opening on 28 MHz - Wed 8th May 2019

Wednesday the 8th of May 2019 was another busy day on 28 MHz with a pretty widespread Sporadic-E opening to Europe. There were also a few interesting double hop Sporadic-E signals with a very short suprise opening in the evening to the west.

The band was open pretty much all the time from about 08:00 to 17:00 UTC.

This is a map of the FT8 signals heard on Wednesday the 8th of May...

Notes...

1) At 10:43 UTC, I heard just one weak transmission from A41ZZ in Oman, a distance of just over 6,000 kms. He seems to have been heard by quite a number of stations in the UK.
104345 -23  1.5 1404 ~  HG8IT A41ZZ -10

2) This is a map of the closer stations heard in Europe....

The yellow line shows the limit of one hop Sporadic-E for me. As can be seen, there were a number of stations that were double hop. The one in Turkey was a bit unusual in that I don't hear too many of them.

The single-hop Sporadic-E to Europe was pretty widespread. Lots of signals from Spain today. At times, I was hearing Spain and Poland at the same time. At other times, I was only hearing specific areas. The map represents all the stations heard over the course of the day.

3) There was a suprise opening in the evening when I heard these four signals...
190000 -13  0.1  924 ~  CQ VP2ETE FK88
190030 -12  0.1  924 ~  EA8TH VP2ETE +05
190130 -13  0.1  924 ~  CQ VP2ETE FK88
190215 -12 -0.0 2270 ~  CQ ZP9CTS GG22

Just four transmissions in the space of two minutes... VP2ETE in Anguilla and ZP9CTS in Paraguay.

The signals were heard at about 19:01 UTC while my sunset was at 19:09 UTC... coincidence???

What was interesting was just who heard these two stations. The map below shows how hit and miss it was...

On the left are the stations that heard VP2ETE... Canary Islands, one on Portugal, three in Germany and me. On the right are the stations that heard ZP9CTS.

Beacons...These were the beacons that were heard today...
EI7GL 28285.0 DB0MFI/B 14:54 08 May IO51TUJN58HW Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28265.1 DF0ANN/B 14:52 08 May IO51TUJN59PL Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28188.0 OE3XAC/B 14:48 08 May IO51TUJN78SB Austria
EI7GL 28205.0 DL0IGI/B 14:08 08 May IO51TUJN57MT Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28257.7 DK0TEN/B 14:07 08 May IO51TUJN47NT Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28279.0 DB0UM/B 12:16 08 May IO51TUJO73CE Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28227.4 IW3FZQ/B 10:21 08 May IO51TUJN55VF Italy
EI7GL 28255.8 C30P/B 10:20 08 May IO51TUJN02SM Andorra 
EI7GL 28251.1 ED4YAK/B 09:45 08 May IO51TUIN80FK Spain

There was another short opening to NE Spain in the late evening and C30P/B was heard again at 21:38.

As for other signals, I heard RP74K on cw at some stage and gave him a call. I got ES?? back and then he disappeared in QSB.

Looking ahead, how long before the first multi-hop opening to the USA???

In total, I uploaded 459 reports from 429 stations in 40 countries today to the PSK Reporter website.

These are the stations heard. 2000kms plus in bold...

IARU adopt IRTS band plans for 40 MHz and 60 MHz

In April of 2018, the Irish regulator Comreg gave Irish radio amateurs access to most of the low VHF spectrum from 30 to 49 MHz.

In May of 2018, the Irish Radio Transmitters Society (IRTS) published a provisional draft for two bands at 40 MHz and 60 MHz.

In July of 2018 after a period of consultation, the IRTS published a formal band plan for the new bands.

In February of 2019, the IRTS announced that they would be presenting a paper proposing that the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU - Region 1) adopt the new 40 MHz and 60 MHz bands.

On the 5th of May 2019, the IARU published the minutes of the meeting in April. See newsletter HERE.

With respect to the new 8-metre and 5-metre bands, it says the following...

5.3 40 MHz / 60 MHz (C5_02):

Background:
• IRTS (Ireland) has now access to those two bands.
• There are also beacons in other countries

 Proposal:
• Incorporate the proposed 40 MHz and 60 MHz Bandplan in the VHF Handbook

Recommendation: 
VIE19_C5_Rec_05: To add the 40 MHz and the 60 MHz Bandplan in the VHF Handbook in a separate dedicated section.
17 in favour, 1 Abstention (RSGB)

While it is a small step, it does give the new 40 MHz and 60 MHz bands formal status within the IARU. It will hopefully raise the awareness of the bands with other national societies who may well in turn try to get small allocations.

Sporadic-E opening to Russia on 28 MHz - Tues 7th May 2019

On the two previous days of the 5th and 6th of May, the 28 MHz band was quiet in the morning and opened up in the late afternoon. In contrast, Tuesday the 7th of May 2019 was pretty much the opposite with the main opening in the morning and quiet in the afternoon.

It's probably proves the point that no two days of Sporadic-E on 28 MHz are the same.

The main opening started in the morning at 08:00 UTC. By 12:30 UTC, signals were starting to get weak and it pretty much closed around 14:30 UTC.

There was a very weak opening in the evening to South America.

This is a map of the FT8 signals heard on 28 MHz on the 7th of May 2019...

Notes...

1) Just one lone signal from South Africa with ZS6S being heard around 10:00 to 10:30 UTC.

2) Very little from Spain today.

3) What was exceptional today however was the amount of double hop Sporadic-E and especially to Russia.

The yellow line shows my limit for one hop Sporadic-E. All those signals to the east in Russia and Ukraine are double hop Sporadic-E. The most interesting ones are those to the east of Moscow. It's more unusual to hear those double hop signals from that far north than say Cyprus or Israel to the south-east.

Also heard but not uploaded to the PSK Reporter site was 4L6QL in Georgia (shown as a pink dot on the map) and RP74K in Russia.

4) Three signals were heard from Israel... 4X1PF, 4Z64EURO and 4X64O. The last two didn't get uploaded to PSK Reporter because of the longer call signs.

5) Another interesting signal was A61FJ in the United Arab Emirates at 6073 kms. It was possibly triple hop Sporadic-E although it may have been one hop Sp-E plus one F2 hop.

6) Two unusual signals from the Slovak Republic didn't get uploaded either were OM2019IIHF and OM83IHWC.

7) Two very weak signals from South America were heard around 20:00 UTC... ZP9CTS in Paraguay and LU9DO in Argentina.

Beacons... These were the beacons heard today
EI7GL 28205.0 DL0IGI/B 11:31 07 May IO51TUJN57MT Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28227.4 IW3FZQ/B 10:49 07 May IO51TUJN55VF Italy
EI7GL 28188.0 OE3XAC/B 10:47 07 May IO51TUJN78SB Austria

As we head towards mid-May, things should start to get more interesting as the number of multi-hop openings increase. Some of the openings should also get more intense allowing the higher bands like 50 and 70 MHz to open more and the skip distances on 28 MHz to shorten.

For the 7th of May in total, 341 reports from 286 stations in 36 countries was uploaded to the PSK Reporter website.

Stations heard list below (2000kms plus in bold)

Late opening on 28 MHz - Mon 6th May 2019

Monday the 6th of May 2019 was in many ways similar to the previous day in that the 28 MHz band was quiet for most of the day and only really opened up in the late afternoon.

The main Sporadic-E opening started at about 15:30 UTC and what was unusual was that it didn't close until about 23:00 UTC.

The main opening was to the south towards Spain with most of the strong signals from there.

These are the FT8 signals heard on Monday the 6th of May 2019...

Notes...
1) The band opened to South America again although I heard a lot less traffic than on the 5th of May.

2) I noticed that some of the stations in the UK had double hop Sp-E down to the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa. There were no signals here though.

3) This is the map of Europe in more detail...

It shows the areas where the main openings were... to Spain / Portugal and to N.Italy/S.Germany.

The yellow line shows my one hop Sporadic-E limit. I heard just three stations that were double hop.

Beacons...While FT8 hears signals that are buried in the noise, hearing the beacons on cw is another matter. If you start hearing there then you know conditions are reasonable.

These are the beacons heard and they more or less concur with the areas heard on FT8...

EI7GL 28188.0 OE3XAC/B 19:27 06 May IO51TUJN78SB Austria 
EI7GL 28205.0 DL0IGI/B 19:25 06 May IO51TUJN57MT Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28265.1 DF0ANN/B 19:22 06 May IO51TUJN59PL Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28210.7 DB0FKS/B 18:51 06 May IO51TUJN49IT Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28207.1 ON0RY/B 18:44 06 May IO51TUJO20CK Belgium
EI7GL 28257.7 DK0TEN/B 18:41 06 May IO51TUJN47NT Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28255.8 C30P/B 17:52 06 May IO51TUJN02SM Andorra 
EI7GL 28253.3 ED5YAU/B 15:53 06 May IO51TUIM98WN Spain 
EI7GL 28251.1 ED4YAK/B 15:46 06 May IO51TUIN80FK Spain
EI7GL 28169.3 ZB2TEN/B 15:44 06 May IO51TUIM76HD Gibraltar

The ED4YAK/B beacon near Madrid is one of the most consistent here and I heard it near the start of the opening and it was there for a lot of the evening. I also heard it at 23:05 UTC which was just after midnight local Summer time.

The one of interest in there for me is ON0RY/B in Belgium. This is reasonably close at about 1000kms which shows that the skip distance is getting shorter.

Caribbean... The most interesting part of the opening was probably the opening to the Caribbean. North-South propagation is the norm on 28 MHz when the solar flux is low but it's when the signals start going East-West that it gets interesting.

These are the FT8 signals from that region with Venezuela, Guadaloupe, Puerto Rico and Haiti heard....

NP4TX 10m FT8 3888 miles 22:20:29
YV4DYJ 10m FT8 7056 km 22:00:00
HH2AA 10m FT8 6624 km 21:56:44
FG4ST 10m FT8 6105 km 20:40:14
YV5MBI 10m FT8 7023 km 20:39:29

North-South Divide... It was interesting to see how the signals from HH2AA in Haiti seemed to have a northerly cut off. None of the stations in the north of the UK seemed to hear him.

Stations hearing HH2AA on FT8 on 28 MHz - 6th May 2019

As for the mode of propagation to the Caribbean? One hop Sporadic-E to the west and then F2? Multi hop Sporadic-E?

I suspect Sp-E and then F2 but that's the thing about 28 MHz, there are times when you can't be certain.

The Solar Flux was down at 72 which is very low.

In total, I uploaded 304 FT8 reports from 188 stations in 30 countries to the PSK Reporter website.

These are the stations heard (2000kms plus in bold)...

Commercial Log-Periodic Antenna for 30 to 70 MHz

One of the challenges of listening to Low Band VHF signals is having an antenna that performs well on a wide range of frequencies. One solution is the Log-Periodic antenna.

This 7 element Log-Periodic from M2 Antenna Systems is very much a high product aimed at commercial, scientific and commercial agencies rather than the hobbyist and probably has a price to match. It does however give some insight into that is required to cover the whole spectrum from 30 to 70 MHz.

Some notes and observations...

1) Boom... The boom is 157 inches in length which is about 4 metres.

2) Gain... Even though the Log-Periodic has 7 elements, the gain is very modest at about 4dBd. Note that this is true gain in free space and is honest. They haven't inflated the figures by adding on ground gain to make the antenna look better.

3) Compromise... The modest gain is the price of having a wide band antenna. With a 7 element Yagi, all 7 elements are in use and the gain may be up around 10dbd. With a Log-Periodic, only about 2 to 3 of the 7 elements are active at any particular frequency in the 30-70 MHz range.

4) Phasing harness... Note the phasing harness above the boom which goes back and forth between elements. This is part of the additional complexity of a Log-Periodic as opposed to a Yagi with its parasitic elements.

5) Balun... This antenna has a 4 to 1 Balun at the front and this performs two functions...
a) This is to match a balanced antenna to an unbalanced coax feed
b) It also transforms the 200 Ohm feed impedance of the Log-Periodic down to about 50 Ohms.

More information on the antenna can be found at the following link...

1) 30-70LP7 on M2 Antenna Systems website

Big opening to South America on 28 MHz - Sun 5th May 2019

Sunday the 5th of May started off reasonably quiet with just a selection of weak signals from around Europe. At about 16:00 UTC, there was a good opening to South America which lasted until about 20:30 UTC.

This is a map of the FT8 signals heard on 28 MHz...

Notes...

1) My take off to the south-west isn't great as I have a hill in the way. If I can hear this many stations from South America then it must have been a really good opening.

2) TR8CA in the Gabon made an appearance on the band. There are probably lots of openings to Africa but the problem is that there are very few stations there to work.

3) Interesting to see some signals further west than the usual north-south paths. Four stations were heard in Puerto Rico as well as FG5GH/FWI on what I assume was Fortuna and Wallis Islands.

195715 -14  0.0  489 ~  AM70URE/9 <KP4JFR> 73
195915 -16 -0.0  489 ~  AM70URE/9 <KP4JRS> 73
195930 -16 -1.3 2415 ~  LU2JLS <FG5GH/FWI> R-05
200115 -10 -0.0  489 ~  AM70URE/9 <NP3YL> 73

4) Mode of propagation? I was hearing the south of Spain at the same time as South America so it was probably the usual one hop Sporadic-E to the south and then F2 to South America.

The Solar Flux index today was 72.

A total of 92 reports were uploaded to the PSK Reporter website from 68 stations in 25 countries.

This is a list of stations heard. 2000kms plus in bold.

Poor day on 28 MHz - Sat 4th May 2019

The conditions on 28 MHz on Saturday the 4th of May 2019 were pretty poor with mostly weak signals heard on the band. The map below shows what was heard but it bears little resemblance to what it actually sounded like.

It was one of those days where you could hear really weak signals buried in the noise and you wouldn't take much notice. You could then look at the screen after an hour and discover you had decoded a bunch of FT8 signals.

It was almost as if the band was just about open but not quite. I did a scan of the beacon band at one stage and heard ED4YAK/B near Madrid but it disappeared as soon as I heard it. That's the kind of day it was.

I could see that some of the stations in the UK managed to hear Brazil but there was nothing here.

I did a scan of the lower bands as well and 24 MHz, 21 MHz and 18 MHz all sounded pretty quiet. It's amazing hearing nothing on 18 MHz and then going just 4 MHz lower to 14 MHz and hearing Russian contest stations at 599+.

According to the PSK Reporter website, I uploaded 92 reports from 68 stations in 25 countries.

These are the FT8 signals heard on FT8 on Saturday the 4th of May 2019...
All single hop Sporadic-E. 2000km plus in bold.

Big opening on 28 MHz - Fri 3rd May 2019

There was another big Sporadic-E opening on 28 MHz on Friday the 3rd of May with the MUF extending up as far as 50 MHz as well.

The band was pretty much open for a full ten hours from about 09:00 to 19:00 UTC.

The opening was especially good to the south with strong signals from Spain and Portugal. I heard a lot of traffic from South America as well which isn't the best direction from here due to a local hill.

The map below shows the closer signals in more detail. Some of the signals not uploaded to PSK Reporter are shown as extra pink dots.

Notes...
1) The single hop limit is shown by a Yellow dotted line. The signals to note here are the double hop ones to Western Sahara, Greece, Israel, Bulgaria and Ukraine. However on closer inspection, there aren't that many to the east.
2) There was single hop Sporadic-E into Germany but the number of stations for a country of that size was low.
3) While it was a widespread opening with different areas of Europe being heard at the same time, most of the signals were modest. The signals from the south however was especially strong.
4) I wasn't listening on the FT8 frequency all of the time. I did tune around a few times and I did work some of the Spanish AM70 stations on cw. However, the radio was probably on the FT8 frequency for at least 90% of the day so it's a good reflection on what was happening on the band.

Beacons...These are the beacons that I heard and they reflect the very good conditions to the south. The ED4YAK beacon near Madrid was noticeably the strongest of the lot.

EI7GL 28253.3 ED5YAU/B 18:24 03 May IO51TUIM98WN Spain
EI7GL 28215.7 SR5TDM/B 18:21 03 May IO51TUKO01KX Poland
EI7GL 28298.1 SK7GH/B 17:45 03 May IO51TUJO77BF Sweden
EI7GL 28241.7 F5ZUU/B 15:39 03 May IO51TUJN24IL France
EI7GL 28255.8 C30P/B 13:27 03 May IO51TUJN02SM Andorra
EI7GL 28251.1 ED4YAK/B 13:25 03 May IO51TUIN80FK Spain
EI7GL 28169.3 ZB2TEN/B 13:17 03 May IO51TUIM76HD Gibraltar

The band was also open much further south with 9J2BO in Zambia being heard on cw.
EI7GL 28025.1 9J2BO 13:22 03 May IO51TU<>KH44CP Zambia

The special event AM70 stations in Spain were really strong and I worked AM70O, AM70R, AM70P and AM70L on cw.

I heard someone on RTTY as well which seemed unusual, especially for 28 MHz.

One odd signal was an illegal fishing buoy on 28.029 MHz.

50 MHz... I did check 50 MHz at one stage and I heard a beacon in Portugal.
EI7GL 50035.6 CS5BALG/B 15:34 03 May IO51TUIM67AH Portugal

While I was there, I didn't hear any other signals except for the FT8 frequency.

According to the PSK Reporter website, I uploaded 456 reports for 28 MHz from 311 different stations in 41 different countries. A list is show below.

RSGB Presentation on VHF baluns by GM3SEK

At the 2018 RSGB Convention, Ian White GM3SEK gave a presentation on VHF baluns and that has now been put up on YouTube.

It is perhaps not the most exciting of subjects but it is required viewing for anyone with an interest in build their own VHF and UHF antennas.

There are some good nuggets of info in there including how to feed a beam properly and what pitfalls to avoid.

It's interesting to note that GM3SEK does not recommend the use of the Gamma match which is used in a huge number of antenna designs.

Video below...

These are Ian's websites...
http://www.ifwtech.co.uk/g3sek/
https://gm3sek.com/

Multi-Hop Sporadic-E on 28 MHz... Thurs 2nd May 2019

Thursday the 2nd of May was for the most part quiet on the 28 MHz band with the band only really opening up in the afternoon at about 15:30 UTC.

The footprint of the Sporadic-E seemed to be pretty small and it moved around. For example at one time, IS0KNG was the only station I was hearing on the band. The map below is an accumulation of all of these small footprints.

I also noticed on PSKReporter that there was a good bit of activity further east and I was just a bit too far west to hear it. Signals for the most part very weak and it was as if the band was just about open.

These are the FT8 signals heard on 28 MHz on Thursday the 3rd of May 2019.

The pink dots on their own are signals that I heard but didn't get uploaded to the PSKReporter website.

There are some interesting ones in there including multi-hop Sp-E to Cyprus, Bulgaria and Lebanon. UW5EJX/MM off the coast of Angola was also heard.

161515 -20 -0.1 2484 ~  CQ UW5EJX/MM
162515 -16 -0.1  420 ~  IU2LVV EA6AU RRR
180530 -14 -0.2 2120 ~  F5CVI OD5ZF -18
182545 -13 -0.0  727 ~  7X2TT 5B4ALJ -07
191145 -16  0.0 1440 ~  SQ7BFC LZ1VDR -05
201115  -1  0.0 1102 ~  <...> LY3W KO14

Just two beacons were heard. LA5TEN near Oslo in Norway but it disappeared very quickly and the SK0CT beacon near Stockholm which was the first time I have heard it this year.

EI7GL 28292.6 SK0CT/B 16:34 02 May IO51TUJO89XK Sweden

FT8 signals heard on Thurs 2nd of May 2019. Stations over 2000kms in bold..

Quiet day on 28 MHz - Wed 1st May 2019

Conditions were very poor on 28 MHz on Wednesday the 1st of May 2019 with just one short opening to Spain in the late afternoon.

Signals heard on FT8 on 28 MHz...
EA4FSB 10m FT8 1445 km 18:00:15
EA3AXV 10m FT8 1389 km 17:00:59
EA7DGC 10m FT8 1643 km 16:50:44
EA7BZO 10m FT8 1682 km 16:29:59
EA7JWF 10m FT8 1580 km 16:28:29
EA5HRV 10m FT8 1505 km 16:26:59
IZ0EGA 10m FT8 1930 km 16:23:14
9A7JCY 10m FT8 1943 km 16:14:48
G0OYQ 10m FT8 579 km 12:04:59
F4HER 10m FT8 863 km 11:53:30

Other than the FT8 signals, I did hear three of the AM70 special event stations from Spain on CW. The strongest of these got up to about 539 which actually sounds pretty loud on a quiet band like 10 metres. No beacons were heard.

Update 21:00 UTC ......It's uncanny. As soon as I publish the post, the band opens up! :o))

Heard one FT8 station in Madrid and the ED4YAK beacon on CW.
EA4GXJ 10m FT8 1325 km 20:58:14
EI7GL 28251.1 ED4YAK/B 21:00 01 May IO51TUIN80FK Spain

Update 22:30 UTC ... Jim G3YLA is publishing Sporadic-E prediction maps on his website as of the 1st of May 2019.

On his website for the E's blog, he writes..."Zones where the contour pattern is changing most quickly, due to movement or development, are defined by coloured lines; red for decreasing and blue for increasing. These rapid contour changes are particularly good places to generate extra turbulence, since these are regions of rapid changes in the atmosphere. "

Going on what I heard today, the hot spot for the Sporadic-E seemed to be roughly south-west of Brittany in France. G3YLA has a Blue region near that point in his prediction for the 1st of May 2019.

Coincidence?

New FT4 protocol hits the airwaves

Back on the 23rd of April 2019, I had a post up about the new FT4 protocol from Joe Taylor & the WSJT team.. https://ei7gl.blogspot.com/2019/04/new-ft4-protocol-announced-for-digital.html

A new Beta version of the WSJT-X software was released on Monday the 29th of April and there seems to be a lot of interest in it already.

I took three snapshots of the activity levels on the 20m, 30m, 40m and 80m bands on the evening of the 30th of April and the morning and afternoon of the 1st of May. The results are shown in chart below...

As can be seen, there are already a substantial number of people using FT8 after just 48 hours. The main band is 20m followed by 40m.

The general release for FT4 will be in July of 2019.

Although it was designed for digital contesting, it will almost certainly be used outside of contests when it is finally released. As the FT4 transmissions are 6 seconds in length as compared to 15 seconds for FT8, it is likely to be used on busy bands where the FT8 frequency is crowded and the signals are strong...i.e. 20m & 40m.

Will FT4 replace FT8 in time? FT8 does have the advantage of being more sensitive but it's hard to imagine it not being used on say 50 MHz where FT4 is two and half times faster and people are trying to work as many stations are possible during the short openings.

The website for the software is http://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/k1jt/wsjtx.html

FT4 intro...

Late opening to EA8 on 28 MHz - Tues 30th Apr 2019

In contrast to the last few days, Tuesday the 30th of April was really quiet on 28 MHz for the most part. In fact, it had seemed pretty remarkable earlier in the day that so few FT8 signals had been heard.

By the late evening, I had pretty much given up hope of hearing anything and I wrote up a blog post with a map to say just how quiet it had been. Needless to say after getting the post ready, the band opened to the Canary Islands!

This is the updated map...

These are the stations uploaded to PSKReporter...
IK2IQC 10m FT8 1467 km 20:44:00
EA8DFQ 10m FT8 2705 km 20:34:29
G0EHG 10m FT8 446 km 19:34:46
2E0XXO 10m FT8 551 km 19:34:46
G3TKF 10m FT8 406 km 16:29:18
G0OYQ 10m FT8 579 km 12:04:00
DO1JTS 10m FT8 1080 km 09:35:33

The opening to the Canary Islands lasted from 20:04 to 20:36 UTC. I actually heard six EA8 stations but only one was uploaded to the PSKReporter website.

201015   9 -0.2 1274 ~  CQ AM870PT
201930  -4  0.2 1276 ~  CQ EA8DFQ IL28
201945   9  0.0 1019 ~  <...> EA8SG
202015  -3  0.0 2520 ~  <...> EA8SR IL18
202015 -22  0.2 2461 ~  <...> EA8TH IL18
203515 -14  0.0 1013 ~  EA8DER R-07

As for the mode of propagation? Multi hop Sp-E? F2? The path from Ireland to the Canary Islands was close to sunset so I wonder if that was a factor?

Examples of signals heard at 34 to 36 MHz

Thanks to Rob PE9PE for sending on the link to this video which shows what a short wave listener in Italy heard from 34 MHz to 36 MHz.



This part of the low VHF spectrum is used by many government agencies and utilities. Examples given in the comments on the video were DDE = France Highway Service and Turkish Jandarma (Military Police and Country Police).

Sporadic-E on 28 MHz - Mon 29th Apr 2019

There was a pretty modest opening on 28 MHz on Monday the 29th of April as can be seen from the map below. The main opening was from 10:30 to 14:00 UTC.

The strongest signals were from North Italy and South Germany and as can be seen from the map, there was a concentration of lines in that direction.

I did notice later that GI4SNA in Northern Ireland and GM4WJA in Scotland managed to hear South America but there was nothing heard here.

These were the beacons heard...
EI7GL 28257.8 DK0TEN/B 12:25 29 Apr IO51TUJN47NT Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28285.0 DB0MFI/B 11:32 29 Apr IO51TUJN58HW Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28205.0 DL0IGI/B 11:29 29 Apr IO51TUJN57MT Fed. Rep. of Germany
EI7GL 28227.4 IW3FZQ/B 11:28 29 Apr IO51TUJN55VF Italy 
EI7GL 28241.7 F5ZUU/B 11:13 29 Apr IO51TUJN24IL France

The French beacon F5ZUU/B runs 5 watts to a quarter wave ground plane antenna. They have a nice website where people can leave reception reports and an automatic eqsl is then generated. Website... http://f5zuu.free.fr/

This is a list of FT8 stations heard on 28 MHz on the 29th of April 2019...

Example of Band 1 TV Tropo Signals at 66 MHz...

Someone left a comment on the blog about the early days of TV back in the 1960's and trying to receive signals from Wales in Ireland. Rather than just leave it as a comment, I turned it into a blog post as it shows the possibility of tropo propagation on the low VHF band around 60 MHz.

Band 1 TV
The first TV broadcasts in the UK used the 405 line system on Band 1 - 45 to 66 MHz. The last of these transmitters were turned off in January of 1985 in the UK.

This is an excerpt from Wikipedia about the 405-line service in Ireland to give the post some context...

Ireland
Ireland's use of the 405-line system began in 1961, with the launch of Telefís Éireann, but only extended to two main transmitters and their five relays, serving the east and north of the country. This was because many people in these areas already had 405-line sets for receiving UK broadcasts from Wales or Northern Ireland. Telefís Éireann's primary standard was 625-line; it began using this in the summer of 1962, more than two years before the UK had any 625-line channels.

The last 405-line relays, in County Donegal, were turned off in 1982; the main transmitters had been shut down in 1978 to free up frequencies for RTÉ 2.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/405-line_television_system

Thanks to Desmond Walsh for providing some details about his experience of receiving TV transmissions at 66 MHz from a transmitter in Wales, a distance of roughly 300 kms.

"When I was much younger I lived in southeast Co Tipperary and was eager to get BBC TV from Wales ( before TE came on the air)

There were two possible channels , 4 and 5 (in the old 405 line +modulation with AM sound 3.5 MHz lower , from memory ) Channel 5 from Wenvoe (100KW) had a much higher erp than Haverfordwest Channel 4 (0.044KW).

So I obtained a 4 element yagi for ch5 (63 to 68 MHz ?) and braved going on the roof of the 2 storey house to erect it on the chimney. Definitely would not do it now !

Reception of course varied with different signal strengths but gave about 50% reception , up to a week at a time of tropospheric signals when high pressure was around.

An annoying QRM happened at times when the French 819 line system blotted out Wenvoe but that is tropospheric reception for you!.

Channel 8 HTV (St Hilary 100KW CH7?? Band 3) came later but suffered from overlap with RTE Ch F , Mt Leinster.

These cross-channel signals were stronger in the Waterford city area , 15 miles downstream of the River Suir.

Desmond Walsh"