Radio Propagation
Radio propagation on TerraPulse is organized into two WSPR dexes. Thousands of amateur stations transmit tiny beacons and log every one they hear; whether a signal makes it from one continent to another depends on the state of the ionosphere. That turns the whole sky into a planet-scale sensor — and every reception report is a real, measured contact. No estimates, no forecasts.
The dexes
| Dex | Holds | Records |
|---|---|---|
wspr_event_window | Curated windows of weak-signal reports around an event of interest | windows |
wspr_spot_census | Periodic censuses of the global spot volume | census |
Because WSPR produces a continuous torrent of reception reports, these dexes carry the data as event windows and a rolling spot census rather than one slot per contact — the natural units for studying how propagation shifts.
Provenance
Both dexes trace to WSPRnet, the weak-signal reporting network where amateur radio operators upload every beacon they decode. Each report is a measured fact: this station heard that station, on this band, at this time, at this signal level. Nothing is modeled — the ionosphere’s state is read off the reports themselves.
What’s in a record
Each reception report inside a window or census carries:
- Time — the moment of the decode, UTC
- Transmitter and receiver — call signs and grid locators for both ends
- Path — the great-circle distance and bearing between them
- Band and frequency — the HF band the contact was made on
- Signal strength — the reported signal-to-noise ratio, in dB