ShackDeck
Sign in Download Free Now

What to listen to · Amateur radio

WSPR on 30 metres: 10138.7 kHz around the clock

The 30 m WSPR frequency never sleeps: by day it behaves like 20 m, by night like 40 m, and milliwatt beacons from all over the world leave their two-minute traces on 10138.7 kHz at any hour.

Frequency10138.7 kHz
ModeWSPR

What you hear

The same hair-thin two-minute lines in a 200 Hz window as on 20 m, described in the main article, only here the decodes do not stop at night. 30 m is a CW and digital band with no voice and no contests, and its WSPR window at 10140.1 to 10140.3 kHz is one of the busiest on shortwave.

Who transmits and why

The same propagation watchers and milliwatt experimenters, many of whom pick 30 m precisely because a single band covers the whole day: a beacon left running on 10138.7 kHz reports regional reach at noon and intercontinental reach at 03:00 UTC without anyone touching it. Power limits on this band are low in many countries, which suits a mode built for fractions of a watt.

When and where to listen

Any hour; the picture simply changes with the sun. Daytime decodes come from a few hundred to a couple of thousand kilometres, night-time ones from other continents, and the sunrise and sunset hours bring the longest paths. Any receiver in a quiet location works. The dial is 10138.7 kHz in USB, and the decoder listens 1400 to 1600 Hz above it.

In ShackDeck

Station catalogue → Amateur radio → WSPR 30 m. The program picks a public receiver covering 10138.7 kHz, sets the WSPR mode with its narrow passband and decodes every two minutes into the On air list and the map; no receiver, antenna or account of your own is needed.

More stations

WSPR on 40 metres: 7038.6 kHz, evening propagation in two-minute slices

7038.6 kHz · WSPR

WSPR on 40 m shows the band waking up: neighbours at noon, the whole continent after sunset, other continents in the small hours. Milliwatt beacons on 7038.6 kHz draw the picture every two minutes.

RTTY on 20 metres: 14083 kHz, radioteletype at 45 baud

14083 kHz · RTTY

The oldest digital mode still on the air: two tones 170 Hz apart carrying five-bit teleprinter code at 45 baud. On 20 m RTTY lives between 14080 and 14099 kHz, quiet on weekdays and packed on contest weekends.

FT8 on 60 metres: 5357 kHz, the narrow shared band

5357 kHz · FT8

60 m is the newest and narrowest amateur band, fifteen kilohertz shared with other services and limited to a few watts in many countries. FT8 on 5357 kHz is where most of its activity gathers.

JS8Call on 20 metres: 14078 kHz, keyboard chat built on FT8

14078 kHz · USB

JS8 takes the FT8 signal and uses it for free text: conversations, heartbeats, relayed messages. On 14078 kHz, just above the FT8 crowd, a quieter network of stations types to each other through the noise.

Pan American Broadcasting on 5960 kHz: weekend religious programmes via Issoudun

5960 kHz · AM

An American airtime broker's English religious programmes for Europe on 5960 kHz, Saturdays and Sundays from 19:00 UTC via the 250 kW transmitter at Issoudun, France. An easy weekend signal in the 49 metre band.

DWD weather fax from Pinneberg: weather charts on 7880 kHz

7878.1 kHz · WEFAX

Surface analyses, forecasts and sea-state charts for the North Atlantic and Europe, drawn line by line by the German weather service's fax transmitter near Hamburg. The program decodes the picture in ten minutes.