WSPR chatter

Last edited: 10.7.2018

Inspired by fellow ham, WSPR enthusiast and blogger PE4BAS, I've decided to compile my own personal WSPR DXCC list also, i.e. a list of DXCC countries where my 200 mW WSPR signals were spotted. I started WSPRing (on and off, not continuously) with my QRP Labs U3S in the late winter of 2017, and so far have reached a total of 63 countries with it. My WSPR DXCC list can be found here, and can be accessed at all times from the "Pages" section in the bar to the right.

For each month I download the complete WSPR database CSV file from wsprnet.org and import it in Excel to analyze my WSPR spots. The CSV files are too large to be used directly in Excel though, so I first break them up with the use of a little program called CSV Splitter from Polderij IT which can be downloaded for free. If you need some help with this I'll be glad to help out.

So what else is out there on the WSPR front and HOT to report on?

Well, the Canada C3 icebreaker expedition ship Polar Prince after a succesful circumnavigation of North America has returned in its home port of Lunenburg in Nova Scotia on Canada's east coast. During the voyage from Canada's east to west coast via the Arctic, the ship could be tracked by its onboard HF WSPR beacon with the callsign CG3EXP. Later on, after the C3 expedition had successfully ended, the ship's WSPR beacon continued transmitting with the callsign VE0EXP, and the ship could be followed on its voyage back home, down the Pacific Ocean, through the Panama Canal, and up the Atlantic Ocean.
I've done several blog entries about the C3 expedition, the Polar Prince, and its WSPR beacon, and you might be interested in reading them; just follow the "Canada C3 Expedition" link under "Tags" in the bar to the right.
I've been able to catch the WSPR beacon of the Polar Prince on the 40m band on many occasions, from its voyage up Canada's east coast as well as for a large part of its leg through the Arctic. During the leg through the western part of the Arctic and down Canada's west coast I was unable to receive the 200 mW beacon, as were most of the other European WSPR monitoring stations.
But I had set my goal to catching the Polar Prince at least one more time, on its way back while doing the Panama Canal transit from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean! And I succeeded!
With my homebrew magnetic loop on 40m I catched the Polar Prince while it was west of Middle America, while it was waiting to enter the Panama Canal, and inside the canal itself! I caught the Polar Prince in grid locator FJ09dc in the early UTC morning of December 28th, 2017. This grid put the Polar Prince inside the Panama Canal close to the city of Gamboa. Below you'll find a photo of the canal at Gamboa. Gamboa originally was built to house the Canal Zone personnel and their families during Canal construction.
The Polar Prince WSPR beacon since the start of the C3 Expedition in June of 2017 has been on the air uninterrupted! Well almost, as during a port visit of the ship in Halifax early on in the C3 expedition, a visitor had been fiddling with the buttons of the QRP Labs U3S WSPR beacon and failed to return the U3S to its correct settings. This was soon resolved though. Another interruption occurred on the ship's return home. On January 4th, 2018 the Polar Prince suddenly dissapeared from the WSPR radar. The ship was crossing a severe storm in the Bermuda Triangle (!) when the signal got lost. Antenna damage was the suspected culprit. Later it seemed the U3S had fallen of its shelf, resulting in the power chord being unplugged and the VE0EXP beacon going off the air! But, as mentioned before, the VE0EXP beacon transmissions resumed, and can still be heard from the ship's homeport in Lunenburg, and hopefully we might be able to track again on the WSPR HF subbands the icebreaker on one of its next voyages.

Grid locator FJ09dc

The town of Gamboa and the Panama Canal (source)

PA7MDJ hearing VE0EXP Polar Prince during its Panama Canal transit

In the early morning of April 6th,2018 on the 30m band I finally also managed for the first time to be spotted by GM0HCQ/MM aboard the Royal Research Ship James Clark Ross in the South Atlantic. Last summer I was already spotted by the James Clark Ross on its Arctic voyage (read about it in the blog entry here). This time the James Clark Ross was located in the South Atlantic very close to the island of St. Helena. It's currently returning home to England from its tour of duty in the Antarctic. I had hoped to be spotted by GM0HCQ/MM earlier in the Antarctic season from Antarctic waters, or more recently from the highly fascinating and utterly remote Tristan da Cunha Island, but that unfortunately seemed to be out of reach for my 200 mW WSPR beacon and mag loop setup.

GM0HCQ/MM hearing PA7MDJ

GM0HCQ/MM hearing PA7MDJ at 0130 UTC. I was right on the edge there with -30 dB. This is a period of 24 hours; in that period I was the only PA-land station heard; not bad for a homebrew indoor magnetic loop!

The James Clark Ross in Antarctic waters (source)

James Clark Ross Radio Officer Mike Gloistein GM0HCQ keeps an online daily log on his website on http://www.gm0hcq.com/index.htm. The April 6 St. Helena update can be found there also (including photos).

The photo below is taken from the GM0HCQ daily update of April 6th and shows St. Helena appearing ahead of the JCR.

In other news, a new kid on the block is DJ0HO/MM (no qrz.com registration) which the last couple of weeks has been making spots on the HF WSPR bands from the area near the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica. I haven't been able to find any information for this WSPR monitoring station other than that the callsign belongs to a Dr. Walter Jörg Hofmann which seems to be the owner / skipper of a sailing yacht. So most likely DJ0HO/MM is located on this yacht. It's quite late in the season for a sailing yacht to be in Antarctic waters (remember, it's autumn there right now, and the Austral winter starts on June 21st), and I wonder if  Dr. Walter Jörg Hoffman is planning on doing an Antarctic winter over. I haven't been spotted yet aboard the yacht, and although it's going to be difficult or maybe even impossible, in the true ham spirit I won't give up and will keep on trying

Addendum
DJ0HO/MM is the German icebreaker and polar research vesssel Polarstern. For more information see my blog entry here.


See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Canal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamboa,_Panama

Canada C3 Expedition update nr. 2

While the Canada C3 Expedition came to a succesful end back in October, the WSPR beacon aboard the expedition ship "Polar Prince" continues to be active. The CG3EXP callsign licence expired and the beacon now can be caught on the HF WSPR sub bands with the new callsign VE0EXP.
The coming period the Polar Prince will be returning from the Canadian West Coast to its home port on the Canadian East Coast on a long home voyage via the Panama Canal. And radio amateurs, like on its voyage along Canada's three coasts last summer, will also be able to track the ship on its home voyage by monitoring for its VE0EXP WSPR beacon. The WSPR beacon continues to transmit on its usual time and band schedule. As of writing this, the Polar Prince currently is in grid CM78 off the coast of California. More info can be found on the CG3EXP qrz.com page.

From CG3EXP trustee Barrie Crampton VE3BSB and the CG3EXP team, as a token of appreciation, and as recognition of my help in publicizing the C3 Expedition, I received the beautiful C3 Expedition certificate, and it's which much pride that I present it here on the PA7MDJ blog. My thanks and compliments go out to Barrie Crampton and the others of the CG3EXP team for the wonderful project, and for making the ham community part of the epic voyage of the Canada C3 Expedition.

More about the Canada C3 Expedition and my monitoring sessions for its WSPR beacon in my blog entries of  October 29th and June 5th.

Canada C3 Expedition update

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On June 5th I wrote a blog post about the Canada C3 Expedition. Yesterday in Victoria, British Columbia, the epic 150-day expedition came to an end. The expedition ship "Polar Prince" had sailed 23,000 km from Canada's east to west coast via the infamous Northwest Passage in the Arctic.
For the complete duration of the Canada C3 voyage the Polar Prince could be tracked by radio amateurs by monitoring for the ship's WSPR beacon with callsign CG3EXP. At PA7MDJ over the summer many CG3EXP listening sessions were done. During the first legs of the voyage, the 200 mW CG3EXP WSPR beacons on 40m could be received relatively easily, and most nights around midnight UTC I could count on the CG3EXP callsign to show up in the decode window of my WSPR program at least a couple of times.
As expected, whilst the Polar Prince got more northerly and westerly spots became more seldom. Spots already became scarce when the ship had reached the northern part of Newfoundland. From this point on during listening sessions if I could get one or two spots I was lucky.
Nevertheless I managed to receive the CG3EXP beacons from various locations in the Arctic. The northern and westernmost location of the Polar Prince I managed to receive a WSPR beacon from was Pond Inlet, Nunavut at approximately 73ºN 78ºW in grid locator FQ02xq. And I'm still amazed! Receiving a 200 mW signal on 40m from this far into the Canadian Arctic with just a simple wire antenna! The fact that the antenna of the CG3EXP beacon was located aboard a ship surrounded by salt water must have been of huge benefit.

The Polar Prince at Bylot Island in the Canadian Arctic (photo from the Canada C3 Facebook page)

Below you can find the Canada C3 WSPR logbook (click to enlarge) that I kept during the summer. It does not contain all received beacons as it was more or less a logbook for all the different ship locations I managed to hear the WSPR beacons from. It includes locations like the previously mentioned Pond Inlet and other locations in the Arctic, and also L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, famous for being an archeological site with the remains of a Viking settlement dating to around the year 1000. It's the only certain site of a Viking settlement in North America and is widely accepted as evidence for pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact.

Canada C3 Expedition logbook. The original Excel logbook spreadsheet was provided by Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC) to keep a log and to send in at the end of the expedition. Each received unique 6 character grid locator gives points for a Canada C3 Award certificate (more information on the CG3EXP qrz.com page) . Unfortunately I didn't manage to obtain the required 150 points.

Electronic QSL card received for my reception of the CG3EXP WSPR beacon from Pond Inlet. Electronic QSL cards can be requested by e-mail (see CG3EXP qrz.com page for more information)

Pond Inlet, Nunavut (source)

CG3EXP in Pond Inlet heard by PA7MDJ

Canada C3 Expedition

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On June 1st, the icebreaker "Polar Prince" started on a 150-day journey from Canada's east to west coast via the infamous Arctic Northwest Passage. The expedition is named "Canada C3" and is one of the signature projects celebrating Canada's 150th birthday. The expedition is devided into 15 legs and will stop at a different location every day, including coastal towns and villages, indigenous communities, and nature parks.  And here's your chance to be part of this epic journey, by monitoring for the ship's WSPR beacon on 40, 30, or 20m!

The expedition ship in Prince Edward County, as posted on the C3 Facebook page on June 3rd. The Polar prince is a former Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker and was formerly known as the CCGS Sir Humphrey Gilbert.

Under the leadership of Barrie Crampton VE3BSB, a team of radio amateurs installed a 200 mW QRP Labs U3S WSPR transmitter in the icebreaker's radioroom. Barrie reports that "the antenna is a 46 ft end fed slopping at 62 degrees from the port rail above the bridge to the midship 50 ft tower". The callsign used is CG3EXP. The U3S for the complete duration of the expedition will continuously transmit WSPR beacons, and will allow WSPR monitoring stations to track the voyage.

The Polar Prince departed Toronto on June 1st for the first leg of the expedition to Montreal, and sailed across Lake Ontario to its first stopover at Picton, Prince Edward County. On June 3rd on 40m I already managed to receive some spots from the expedition ship in Prince Edward County, grid locator FN14ka. The RAC - Radio Amateurs of Canada website writes the following about the project:

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"Many of the locations to be visited by Canada C3 lie in areas where radio communication is difficult. Phenomena such as “arctic flutter” and disturbances from the aurora have traditionally been a problem in the north. Very few, if any, of these locations will have a WSPR beacon and are thus, until now, outside the worldwide WSPR network. The gathering of information on radio propagation simultaneously by several receiving stations will be of scientific interest – and it will also be fun. The WSPR network of stations meets this need comprising, as it does, a series of receiving sites and stations capable of reporting, in real time, the reception of, and location, of the beacons."

While this project is associated with the Canada C3 Expedition, results might provide “proof of concept” more generally for remote telemetry applications from Arctic regions. With the impending increase in non-commercial adventurers traversing the Northwest Passage, this low-cost technology might fill a need. Researchers following the Canada C3 “whisper” might wish to compare the experience to other ship-borne uses of WSPR as reported on several Internet sites."
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I'm looking forward to seeing how far into the journey my simple wire antenna is capable of receiving the CG3EXP WSPR beacon. What a fascinating project! Wishing the Canada C3 expedition Smooth Sailing!

Another photo of the Polar Prince, as found on the official Canada C3 site

Polar Prince WSPR beacon received at PA7MDJ

Polar Prince WSPR beacon received at PA7MDJ

Polar Prince WSPR beacon received at PA7MDJ

See also:

http://wp.rac.ca/a-whisper-for-canada-c3/
https://canadac3.ca/en/homepage/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCGS_Sir_Humphrey_Gilbert
https://www.qrp-labs.com/c3.html
https://groups.io/g/QRPLabs/topic/5142495