Radio Propagation
WSPR and FT8 are incredible modes for plotting radio propagation.
Today I'm receiving 10mW WSPR beacon transmissions on 14 MHz from amateur balloon SP6MPL in mid-Atlantic and at 13,680m altitude. My receiver is an Airspy HF+ Discovery with the basic Youloop antenna at 2m above ground.
Also on the map is Polish station SQ3XZ on 21 MHz running only 1mW! Offscreen, I'm also receiving VK3QN near Melbourne running 5W. WSPR is a low-power data mode which takes 2 minutes to send a message, usually consisting of just a callsign, locator and power level information.
I'm currently decoding all WSPR and FT8 bands using two instances of WSJT-X v3, using the HF+ for WSPR and a Yaesu FT857D for FT8, feeding data to https://wspr.aprsinfo.com/ for WSPR and https://shorturl.at/ENYjH (PSK Reporter) for FT8. All HF bands are scanned several times per hour.
For offline mapping I'm using Hamclock and Grid Tracker.
