At last I have been spotted on Reverse Beacon Network!
I have been trying to get spotted on Reverse Beacon Network for quite some time! RBN is an internet based network of dedicated wide band receivers globally, which can decode CW signals in real time. They generate “spots” containing frequency, signal strength, CW speed, signal to noise ratio etc and display it on a map as well. It is the reverse of listening to a beacon to check propagation. You can call CQ while connected to RBN to see which of the global network of receivers are receiving your signal. This is a great tool to assess propagation as well as to know the performance of your radio and antenna.
On the RBN main page, there is option to select between 630 m, 160 m, 80 m, 60 m, 40 m, 30 m, 20 m, 17 m, 15 m, 12 m, 10 m, 6 m, 4 m and 2 m amateur radio bands. I could not see 70 cm and above on the main page. While spotter location is displayed in red colour, spotted location is displayed in blue colour. RBN website is hosted by DXWatch.com by PY1NB and there is option to search for any number of years, with a display of up to 100 rows. The site has been in existence for over 15 years now. In addition to CW, RTTY, PSK31 and PSK61 will also be picked up by reverse beacon network. Advanced search is possible with options for DXCC entity, International Telecommunication Union (ITU) zone, CQ zone and continent, both for the spotter and the spotted station callsign.
I have been trying to get spotted by RBN ever since I got my CW paddles last year. But I would not get spotted even after multiple attempts. Initially I thought that it is because of my poor style of sending CW with a long gap of decades after my last regular CW DX activity. Later when I learned how to type in and send CW in my FT-710 radio using the onscreen keyboard, I tried sending those automated CQ calls and still I was not getting spotted. Finally I dropped the idea of getting spotted on RBN and stopped searching spots on RBN.
Couple of days back my old friend VU2FWW re-kindled my interest in RBN by mentioning that he is getting spotted on RBN. This time I started calling CQ on multiple bands with my CW paddles, manually. Today evening I thought of checking RBN to see if at all I have been spotted. To my pleasant surprise, I found that I have been spotted 7 times on RBN. The two spots, one on 40m and another on 20m at 20 wpm would have been sent by my FT-710 as I have not reached that speed for manual sending yet. But I was quite happy to see the next five spots, four on 40m and one on 15m at 10 wpm over the last two days were definitely sent manually. This gives me a lot of motivation to try CW exclusively in 2025! Please look out for me at the lower end of 40, 20, 15 and 10m bands, all the CW lovers out there.
If I get my loaded coil dipole antenna for 80m working well, you might hear me on that band as well.