WSPR — Weak Signal Propagation Reporter¶
WSPR (pronounced "whisper") uses highly compressed digital transmissions at roughly 200 mW to probe HF propagation paths. Stations transmit a 2-minute beacon containing callsign, grid square, and power level. Receiving stations decode these beacons and report the measured SNR to wsprnet.org.
Because WSPR uses such low power, a decoded spot means the path is open at the propagation floor — not just open for high-power voice, but open enough to carry a minimum-power digital signal. This makes it the most sensitive propagation measurement in the dataset.
12.87B spots. 18 years. One of the largest amateur radio propagation datasets of its kind.
Dataset Statistics¶
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
Total Rows (wspr.bronze) |
12.87B |
| Date Range | 2008-03-11 to 2026-10-19 |
| Daily Spot Rate (recent) | ~7M spots/day |
| Unique Transmitter Callsigns | 4.7M |
| Unique Receiver Callsigns | 103,599 |
| Unique Grid Pairs | 8.3M |
| Bands Covered | 160m–10m (10 HF bands) |
Band Breakdown¶
| Band | ADIF ID | Spots | Pct of Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 160m | 102 | 214.4M | 1.67% |
| 80m | 103 | 959.2M | 7.45% |
| 60m | 104 | 145.0M | 1.13% |
| 40m | 105 | 4.09B | 31.79% |
| 30m | 106 | 2.14B | 16.67% |
| 20m | 107 | 3.53B | 27.43% |
| 17m | 108 | 500.0M | 3.89% |
| 15m | 109 | 482.8M | 3.75% |
| 12m | 110 | 143.8M | 1.12% |
| 10m | 111 | 375.2M | 2.92% |
Band IDs are ADIF standard. Band assignment uses frequency-to-band lookup
(single source of truth in bands.GetBand()). Fixed as of v2.1.0 re-ingest
(2026-02-03) — all rows carry correct ADIF IDs.
Data Quality Notes¶
- SNR range in raw data: -99 to +60 dB. Real WSPR is typically -30 to +20 dB.
- Ground-wave spots (< 500 km) are present in bronze but filtered from signatures to focus on ionospheric skip.
- Balloon/telemetry callsigns removed: 1,443 entries identified in
wspr.balloon_callsigns_v2, covering ~950K spots (0.009% of bronze). - 93.6M rows promoted to
wspr.signatures_v2_terrestrialafter quality filtering and solar joining.