This is the second time this has happened in the six weeks or so I've been running WSPR receive-only from home, using a small magnetic loop antenna parked next to my ocean-facing window. See attached screen-shot picture.

V53ARC is a WSPR transmit station just outside Windhoek, Namibia, apparently putting out only one watt. Windhoek is 19,439 km (12,078.8 miles) from Honolulu and just a couple hundred miles closer than Honolulu's antipode in neighboring Botswana.

Mostly, using a small poorly situated antenna in a steel-reinforced concrete building, I catch only the neighbours: JA, KL, VK, ZL, W6 and W7. The only other remarkable reception has been a station in Afghanistan about a week ago. I listen only a few hours a week.

WSPR, obviously, is not normal amateur radio, because you're not really "working" anybody even if you transmit. It's more like propagation beacons, only with more beacons in more places and at much lower transmit power levels, and giving you the option of being a beacon yourself, if you choose to transmit.

The WSPR operating software (which you can download for free for Windows or Linux PCs ... there is no Mac version) has amazingly efficient error-correction built into it. The very weak signals typically are below the receiver's noise floor.

Both V53ARC catches were on 30 meters with 1 watt. T61AA, the Afghan, was a 10-watter on 40 meters. For WSPR, 10 watts is big-gun power. There are people doing it successfully with 500 mw. One guy, in Portland, Oregon, insists on using 100 watts. I am not sure why. Many operators let their stations transmit unattended day and night, which isn't legal in every country.

The setup: MFJ-1788 magnetic loop, FT-817ND, SignaLink USB interface, cheap netbook running Windows XP. 

The way WSPR works is you install the operating software on your Windows PC which you connect to your transceiver via any digital-modes interface. It runs automatically, tx/rx or rx-only as you prefer, and automatically reports each logging to the WSPR headquarters via the Internet. Anyone can log onto the WSPR headquarters site,http://wsprnet.org, from any Internet-connected computer, even a Mac, to see how you and everyone else is doing, or you can look at the logs on your Windows or Linux PC that's running the operating software. The picture is a screen shot from my Mac laptop. The site offers filterable logs and maps, among many other features. The site is a pretty good propagation resource whether you operate WSPR or not.

Here an extraction of the WSPR-Log:

Spot Database
Specify query parameters
Using spot archive (no automatic refresh). 13 spots:
     Timestamp         Call            MHz     SNR Drift Grid Pwr Reporter  RGrid     km    az
2010-02-24 19:14  V53ARC  10.140218  -25    0   JG87  1     NH7L   BL11eg  19439  257
2010-02-24 18:26  V53ARC  10.140226  -24    0   JG87  1     NH7L   BL11eg  19439  257
2010-02-24 17:38  V53ARC  10.140230  -22    0   JG87  1     NH7L   BL11eg  19439  257
2010-02-24 17:22  V53ARC  10.140231  -20    0   JG87  1     NH7L   BL11eg  19439  257
2010-02-23 18:30  V53ARC  10.140226  -22    0   JG87  1     NH7L   BL11eg  19439  257
2010-02-23 18:14  V53ARC  10.140227  -21    0   JG87  1     NH7L   BL11eg  19439  257
2010-02-23 17:26  V53ARC  10.140227  -19    0   JG87  1     NH7L   BL11eg  19439  257
2010-02-14 17:30  V53ARC  10.140221  -18    0   JG87  1     NH7L   BL11eg  19439  257
2010-02-13 18:14  V53ARC  10.140225  -20    0   JG87  1     NH7L   BL11eg  19439  257
2010-02-13 17:42  V53ARC  10.140224  -23    0   JG87  1     NH7L   BL11eg  19439  257
2010-02-13 17:26  V53ARC  10.140226  -18    0   JG87  1     NH7L   BL11eg  19439  257
2010-02-12 18:22  V53ARC  10.140213  -23    0   JG87  1     NH7L   BL11eg  19439  257
2009-11-28 17:20  V53ARC  10.140212  -22    1   JG87  1     NH7L   BL11eg  19439  257
Query time: 2.015 sec

You've got the most amazing one-watt HF signal on the planet!

73 and aloha.

Ernie NH7L