Sunday, March 9, 2014

VP8ADE, Antartica's only ham radio beacon heard in Finland

Today, 9 March 2014 at 1900 UTC, I had the pleasure of hearing the VP8ADE beacon on 28284.9 kHz (nominally 28285 kHz). VP8ADE is the only amateur radio beacon in Antarctica. The distance between VP8ADE and OH6BG is over 16,000 km.

Hearing is believing, so here is the recording of VP8ADE at my QTH in Vaasa, Finland.

This is also the first time my Skimmer Server logs this beacon. The first spot was already at 1820 UTC:

OH6BG  28284.9  VP8ADE   5 dB  9 wpm   2014-03-09 18:58:00
OH6BG  28284.9  VP8ADE   6 dB  9 wpm   2014-03-09 18:38:00
OH6BG  28284.9  VP8ADE   9 dB  9 wpm   2014-03-09 18:20:00