WSPR on Two Metres 144 MHz

WSPR on 144MHz has been something that I've played with over the past few days.  Running twenty Watts and a 9 element beam produced the results in the image below.  Although I can't say these distances are DX they pretty good considering the flat tropospheric conditions at the time and the low power.

Listed in distance unique spots only

 The map

If you've spotted me thank you very much.

73

G8TTI

The progress of radio

If I think back to when I first became interested in radio, a  thirteen year old trying to pick up the off shore pop pirates of the sixties, a short run of wire poked into a small tranny radio crackling and popping was about all you could expect. That was over 48 years ago but I remember those days very clearly.

 There was something magical about it, despite the crackling signals, the static, the night time interference. The radio provided the pop music we were after, the weak signals just adding to the romance of it all.
I lived over a hundred miles from the nearest 10kW pop pirate, a cheap transistor radio struggled.
Well it was all a long time ago, things have moved on somewhat.  The pirates went a long time ago.  Medium wave seems so old hat I can't believe anyone listens there today.  FM, DAB, crystal clear reception are the norm and expected.  Internet radio, never a crackle or a pop heard! and thousands of stations to choose from all with no static, no idea of the medium involved just lovely clear interference free music, or whatever you want.

  So what's this got to do with amateur radio?  Not very much but I'm left wondering how we can ever hope people, young people in particular will ever discover the thrill and excitement of radio. They will never have the need to poke a wire into the tranny radio, never hear how the signal changes as night falls, never wonder how they could improve reception, longer aerial, different radio......  Never, in doing, happen across amateur radio.  There's the problem how do people discover this hobby? I know, I know, CB has brought many to amateur radio but do young people use or even know what CB is ? Why would you when you've a mobile phone in your pocket? 
This is a big problem for the hobby, let's hope that something new comes along so people will discover amateur radio in the same way that the pop pirates of the sixties and CB of the early eighties were a boost to the hobby in the UK. It's really hard to think what it might be. Any ideas?

First attempts with WSJT-X, 14MHz and 28MHz

I don't venture onto HF very often but recently I've been reading about WSJT-X and as I've played with WSJT JT65 on VHF it seemed it might be fun to have a go.

My HF setup is a homebrew SDR transceiver which runs just 16watts or so and a 14MHz 1/4 wave ground plane.  With a very long run of coax to the ground plane I doubt if more than half of the 16 Watts reach the feed point. So QRP (more than 5 Watts, so some would say not QRP) and a compromised antenna from what I'd read will fit WSJT-X well.

No trouble setting things up, usual fiddling with the CAT settings though. Found that I needed to set Power-SDR to ID as a TS2000 for some reason.

My first outing was on twenty, managed a few Europeans without much trouble but it was disappointing to discover most couldn't be bothered with the recommended procedure and after exchanging calls were soon sending 73. Still doesn't matter.

The screen, WSJT-X left PowerSDR right

Working further a field was a little harder but a couple of North American contacts were soon logged. One even going through all the transmit periods and sending short station details: 5W DP 73.

Despite the success I found that many stations that were good signal strength either didn't want to work me or couldn't hear me. So I was left wondering sometimes just what power these station were using.

The DX station

A trip to Ten Mertes one lunch time produced this contact, the second most distant I've ever made! Didn't know where CA was!

And the card to prove it!

I'd like to try WSJT-X on Two but not sure where to look for activity but perhaps there isn't any.

RTL dongle HDSDR and an IC706

I hadn’t realized just how easy it is to use an RTL dongle with HDSDR to provide a panadaptor until I happened upon an article on RTL-SDR.com showing just that.

As I've already tapped into the IF of my old IC706 I thought I'd give it a go. Actually I found the HDSDR website more useful that the RTL-SDR site in explaining how this is done. It's straight forward. You do need to download Omni-rig for the CAT control of your rig.

HERE'S A VIDEO.

Not sure it works as well as Powersdr-if and my homebrew sdr.

HERE'S A VIDEO OF THAT

 Find out more here

 http://g8tti.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/how-i-tapped-into-first-if-and.html

Marconi Two Metre Contest

I've left it to late in life to ever be a CW man but when there's activity in the CW segment of Two I do like to listen. So the Marconi Contest this year was one such opportunity and it happened that it coincided with some good tropo. Here's a couple of screen shots.

CW signals on Two during the Marconi contest 2015

Here's the best I heard


OM3W JN99CH

Distance between IO81WM & JN99CH is 1456.61 km

Here's the Hepburn map for the 8/11/2015

The tropo forecast map from http://www.dxinfocentre.com/

 

Receiving distant beacon OH2VHF by meteor scatter

Left the radio running last night and into the morning just to see if I could copy a signal from the distant Finnish beacon OH2VHF on 144.443 MHz. Much to my surprise I had success and received this short burst. Although not a complete callsign the letters OH2V are pretty clear. I'll try again tonight and maybe I'll receive the complete call. 

The letters OH2V can been seen

 The dash in the V is broken but "di di di dah" can be heard clearly.

Distance between IO81WM & KP20BB is 1877.73 km

About My Scrapbook

About My Srappbook

Here are some notes about the homebrewed equipment that I have made and used over the years. It has all been constructed using the well known KISS approach, Keep It Simple and Stupid. No bells and whistles here, essential features only. I make no great claims for any of it, (some pictures click to enlarge, if you do you will see why I make no claims) other than to say that building it and using it on the air has given me the opportunity to occasionally work some DX, and no small degree of amazement that it has worked at all!radio I hope that in a small way, this website might encourage more home construction, something that can only be good for the hobby of Amateur Radio. After all, if I can do it, so can you, and very likely with better results!