Posts Tagged ‘WSPR’
Amateur Radio …. sort of
April 30th, 2017 | 
Author: I had a class this morning that meets one Saturday a month. It started last September and ends next month, and it runs from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM. You can see that that's a good chunk of the day. So it was SOTABEAMS WSPRLite to the rescue! It's kind of like a Ronco counter top oven - "set it and forget it". So I hooked up my WSPRLite to my W3EDP, set it up for 200 milliWatts on 20 Meters and let it go to town!
I figured that I'd let it run, see how the W3EDP gets out and still do the things I had to do today.
This WSPRLite is so cool! It's a software defined WSPR beacon in a package about half the size of an Altoids tin. It's powered by the USB port of your computer. You pick the band and power output and hook it up to your antenna. You wait until 2 seconds past any even minute and you press the little black button on the right to kick things off. The beacon transmits for 110 seconds and then waits for the next opportunity when the frequency is clear. I set it so that it would randomly transmit about 20% of the time; and you can let it run for up to three days if you want.
In the meantime, yesterday, while checking my e-mail, I saw that Joe Everhart N2CX co-founder of the NJQRP Club was going to be activating Edison State Park for Parks on the Air. It's designator is KFF-1615 and it's all of about 15 minutes from my house. So I e-mailed Joe back with my cell phone number and told him to text me when he got there; and I would come out and meet him.
After class I came home and broke out the lawnmower and got the front yard done. As I was walking to the backyard, I felt my pocket buzz. I whipped out my phone and read a text that Joe was on site and setting up. I dropped the lawnmower like a hot potato and high tailed it to the park. After all, what QRPer in his right mind would miss the opportunity to talk with a QRP Legend, right? When I got there, I saw Joe had finished setting up and was operating from his car.
It was getting out all right! Into the midwest USA and into Europe on 200 milliWatts! The W3EDP seems to be doing OK!
It turned out to be a good day, after all. I got to attend my class, got my chores done and got to hob-nob with a QRP giant - while giving my wire antenna a check out at the same time!
And here I thought the day would be a bust, Amateur Radio-wise!
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
Comparing two antennas with WSPR
 |
| Ultimate 3S with 5-band relay module in front, variable LM2596 power supply (with voltmeter) for the power amplifier behind left, a variable LM2596 supply set for 5 Volts for the Ultimate 3S in the middle, and the antenna switch to the right in the back. |
WSPR – The system for Weak Signal Propagation Reporter makes it easy to compare antennas if your transmitter can easily switch antennas. The system shown here can send on antenna 1 for almost two minutes and then switch immediately to antenna 2 for the next transmission.
The Ultimate 3S already has software that supports that and application note 3 from QRPLabs (Controlling additional relays using the Ultimate3S “Aux”) describes how. I built mine following that note and the experience from EA1CDV.
The circuit is controlled from pin D7 and consists of a transistor, a relay, a resistor and an electrolytic capacitor. In addition I have two LEDs that indicate which antenna which is in use. In the first picture the green LED in the back right under the BNC antenna connector shows that antenna 1 is connected.
In the next picture, the whole layout is shown a little better. In this case LED 2 is lit, the faint yellow one. It sits right under the additional SMA antenna connector in the top left-hand corner that I had to fit.
I have used this setup for a few days now on 7, 10, 14, and 18 MHz with some crossed doublet antennas (somewhat like this setup, but not in the same location). I change the frequency between antennas, e.g. 50 Hz below the center frequency of the band for antenna 1 and 50 Hz above for antenna 2 in order to simplify discrimination between the transmissions.
The short 13 m antenna transmits best East-West, and the longer 26 m antenna North-South. The directivity is in general confirmed by the WSPR reports I see. Sometimes the difference can be more than 10 dB in SNR, but more often it is closer to 5 dB. But it also happens that only one of the transmissions is detected. This should make for some interesting analysis in the coming months.
The post “Comparing two antennas with WSPR” first appeared on the LA3ZA Radio & Electronics Blog.
Comparing two antennas with WSPR
|
| Ultimate 3S with 5-band relay module in front, variable LM2596 power supply (with voltmeter) for the power amplifier behind left, a variable LM2596 supply set for 5 Volts for the Ultimate 3S in the middle, and the antenna switch to the right in the back. |
WSPR – The system for Weak Signal Propagation Reporter makes it easy to compare antennas if your transmitter can instantly switch antennas. The system shown here can send on antenna 1 for almost two minutes and then switch immediately to antenna 2 for the next transmission.
The Ultimate 3S already has software that supports that and application note 3 from QRPLabs (Controlling additional relays using the Ultimate3S “Aux”) describes how. I built mine following that note and the experience from EA1CDV.
The circuit is controlled from pin D7 and consists of a transistor, a relay, a resistor and an electrolytic capacitor. In addition I have two LEDs that indicate which antenna which is in use. In the first picture the green LED in the back right under the BNC antenna connector shows that antenna 1 is connected.
In the next picture, the whole layout is shown a little better. In this case LED 2 is lit, the faint yellow one. It sits right under the additional SMA antenna connector in the top left-hand corner that I had to fit.
I have used this setup for a few days now on 7, 10, 14, and 18 MHz with some crossed doublet antennas (somewhat like this setup, but not in the same location). I change the frequency between antennas, e.g. 50 Hz below the center frequency of the band for antenna 1 and 50 Hz above for antenna 2 in order to simplify discrimination between the transmissions.
The short 13 m antenna transmits best East-West, and the longer 26 m antenna North-South. The directivity is in general confirmed by the WSPR reports I see. Sometimes the difference can be more than 10 dB in SNR, but more often it is closer to 5 dB. But it also happens that only one of the transmissions is detected. This should make for some interesting analysis in the coming months.
The post “Comparing two antennas with WSPR” first appeared on the LA3ZA Radio & Electronics Blog.
A 40m WSPR weekend
 |
| 40m from 7am-7pm local time |
 |
| 40m from 7am-1am local time |
A 40m WSPR weekend
|
| 40m from 7am-7pm local time |
|
| 40m from 7am-1am local time |
ARRL 160 / 630m DX
 |
| courtesy: http://www.arrl.org/ |
This weekend's ARRL 160m CW was a ton of fun.
Conditions were unusually good, which always makes things more interesting.
I ended up with 412 contacts in 78 out of 83 ARRL sections. If I was attempting a WAS on Topband, I would have made it to 48, missing just Nebraska and Rhode Island. Oddly enough, RI was my 50th state when I completed my original 160m WAS, back in 1984, which was certificate #225.
That was done from my tiny 33' wide suburban lot, using the same antenna that I have now, a half-sloper. My radials were strung around all four edges of the property line and just lay on the ground or were stapled to the fenceposts. The power came from a pair of 6146's and was just a little less than I used in the contest this weekend as I entered in the Low Power (150W) category ... however, back then it took me several winters to finish my Topband WAS as there was a lot less activity than there is nowadays it seems. The only other sections missed during the contest were Puerto Rico, Newfoundland and North New York.
With a fairly dormant Sun and the 'almost-quiet' geomagnetic conditions of late, good propagation continued into the week ... in fact, Sunday night was the best I have ever observed on 630m!
Such stable conditions here on the west coast always favor the east-west and polar paths and Sunday proved that in spades. Overall, 53 different stations reported reception of my 630m signal, more than any previous overnight period.
The highlight however, was the reception of my signal in Europe, with five decodes from LA2XPA on Kalvoya Island off the southwest coast of Norway. Rolf has an exceptional location and nice beverage antennas so most of the heavy-lifting was being done on his end. However, without the co-operation of the propagation gods, none of this would be possible. To make things even better, John, VE7BDQ, also made it across to Norway as his small station continues to perform amazingly well. As I mentioned in an e-mail earlier today, his is the textbook example of what can be done on 630m with a small suburban backyard, some homebrewing skills and a small antenna system.
 |
| courtesy: http://wsprnet.org/drupal/wsprnet/map |
The WSPRnet map shown here illustrates just how many folks are tuning in every night to this part of the spectrum ... with many getting instantly hooked. Hopefully this great propagation is just a small taste of what lies ahead for us over the next several years of low solar activity.
ARRL 160 / 630m DX
|
| courtesy: http://www.arrl.org/ |
This weekend's ARRL 160m CW was a ton of fun.
Conditions were unusually good, which always makes things more interesting.
I ended up with 412 contacts in 78 out of 83 ARRL sections. If I was attempting a WAS on Topband, I would have made it to 48, missing just Nebraska and Rhode Island. Oddly enough, RI was my 50th state when I completed my original 160m WAS, back in 1984, which was certificate #225.
That was done from my tiny 33' wide suburban lot, using the same antenna that I have now, a half-sloper. My radials were strung around all four edges of the property line and just lay on the ground or were stapled to the fenceposts. The power came from a pair of 6146's and was just a little less than I used in the contest this weekend as I entered in the Low Power (150W) category ... however, back then it took me several winters to finish my Topband WAS as there was a lot less activity than there is nowadays it seems. The only other sections missed during the contest were Puerto Rico, Newfoundland and North New York.
With a fairly dormant Sun and the 'almost-quiet' geomagnetic conditions of late, good propagation continued into the week ... in fact, Sunday night was the best I have ever observed on 630m!
Such stable conditions here on the west coast always favor the east-west and polar paths and Sunday proved that in spades. Overall, 53 different stations reported reception of my 630m signal, more than any previous overnight period.
The highlight however, was the reception of my signal in Europe, with five decodes from LA2XPA on Kalvoya Island off the southwest coast of Norway. Rolf has an exceptional location and nice beverage antennas so most of the heavy-lifting was being done on his end. However, without the co-operation of the propagation gods, none of this would be possible. To make things even better, John, VE7BDQ, also made it across to Norway as his small station continues to perform amazingly well. As I mentioned in an e-mail earlier today, his is the textbook example of what can be done on 630m with a small suburban backyard, some homebrewing skills and a small antenna system.
|
| courtesy: http://wsprnet.org/drupal/wsprnet/map |
The WSPRnet map shown here illustrates just how many folks are tuning in every night to this part of the spectrum ... with many getting instantly hooked. Hopefully this great propagation is just a small taste of what lies ahead for us over the next several years of low solar activity.
