RBN — Reverse Beacon Network

The Reverse Beacon Network uses software-defined radio receivers running automated CW and RTTY decoders (skimmers) to report signals heard from transmitting stations. Unlike WSPR, RBN spots real operators making real contacts — a spot means a human operator sent a CQ or contest exchange that a skimmer decoded with sufficient signal strength to copy.

RBN SNR represents what an automated receiver heard, not what a human ear can copy. SNR values are in the 8–29 dB range for the bulk of spots, well above the WSPR floor. This makes RBN the middle layer: above minimum-power beacons, below the contest-grade SSB ceiling.

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Dataset Statistics

Metric	Value
Total Rows (rbn.bronze)	2.25B
Date Range	2009-02-21 to 2026-02-18
Daily Spot Rate (recent)	~2M spots/day
Unique Transmitter Callsigns	2.1M
Unique Receiver Callsigns (skimmers)	3,050
Unique Grid Pairs	960K
Modes	CW, RTTY, PSK31

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Band Breakdown

Band	Spots	Pct of Total
160m	98.7M	4.38%
80m	287.5M	12.76%
40m	669.9M	29.74%
30m	111.0M	4.93%
20m	684.9M	30.4%
17m	58.4M	2.59%
15m	207.5M	9.21%
12m	16.0M	0.71%
10m	107.0M	4.75%

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Mode Breakdown

Mode	Spots	Pct	Notes
CW	—	—	—
RTTY	—	—	—
PSK31	—	—	—
(empty)	—	—	2009–2010 era, RBN was CW-only; mode field unpopulated

Coming soon — requires RBN mode breakdown query.

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Geographic Coverage

Metric	Value
Unique Transmitter Grids	—
Unique Skimmer (Receiver) Grids	—
Unique Grid Pairs	—
Skimmer Count (active)	—

Coming soon — requires RBN geographic coverage query.

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Data Quality Notes

• Raw SNR range: up to 233 dB (skimmer AGC artifacts). rbn.signatures filters to -20 to 80 dB.
• 30M spots (2009–2010) have empty tx_mode — RBN was CW-only then. These spots are included in signatures as CW.
• 56.7M rows promoted to rbn.signatures after quality filtering and solar joining.
• DXpedition paths (rare, high-value paths) identified separately in rbn.dxpedition_paths and rbn.dxpedition_signatures.