A 40m WSPR weekend

40m from 7am-7pm local time

With the Solar cycle heading on a downward trend I have been reading how 40, 80 and 160m may be the bands of choice for QSO's. Since my MFJ 1788 will only venture down to 40m and at the best of times I have found it to preform like a wet noodle on this band. I decided this weekend to give WSPR a go on 40m using 1 watt to see what results I got. My 1 watt signal was picked up throughout Canada and the U.S. There was a one off to Spain but the consensus from WSRP.net was on 40m my DX was going to be North America. There was one odd report which repeated itself over and over, it was from WY1R saying he was hearing me on 6m?? Not to sure what that was all about. I also was checking with PSK reporter looking at WSPR mode and funny thing was there was never any hits for my call?

40m from 7am-1am local time

100mW's of raw power!!

The other evening I was having a cup of tea and checking out my new QST that just arrived and found myself very interested in a piece written by Steve Ford in his column Eclectic Technology. The title caught my eye "When a signal is barely a WSPR" Steve looked at how the Raspberry Pi could be used for WSPR transmissions. Seeing I have the Raspberry Pi3 this sparked my interest. It was pointed out that all you need to turn your Pi into a WSPR transmitter is a board from TAPR called QRPi.  The board is offered at a very reasonable price of 29.00 U.S and it's set for 20m at 100mW. Before I got to excited about this little project  I wanted to see if using 100mW's would net me any results. I have seen other hams in the past net great results with far less than 100mW's and WSPR is known for it's great decode at very low power........BUT.......I do have a challenging setup here. On Friday late afternoon I gave WSPR a go on 20m at 100mW and was I impressed with the results. I was received by DK6UG for a distance of 39383 miles per watt and also ON7KO for a distance of 37285 miles per watt. I was amazed that my setup was able to produce those results! Now another question I wanted to consider is at 100mW how much of that actual power makes it to my antenna? To do this I referred to a coax calculator I punched in the type of coax (RG8X) the SWR (1.4:1) the length (30 feet)  the frequency (14) and finally the power (100mW) The calculated amount I was informed was 92mW of raw power! So this bumped my miles per watt to 42810 for DK6UG and 4053 for ON7KO! It's not timo look more into the TAPR project!!

Using WSPR for some band analysis

My wet noodle on 40m WSPR on Dec 30 2200 UTC

30m results at 2100 UTC Dec 30th

 

 

Over the holidays I was able to get some time to activate WSPR (at 5 watts) using WSJT-X version 1.6 the latest version which now includes WSPR. I wanted to investigate band activity with relation to UTC time from my QTH using my MFJ 1788 loop from the balcony. I started WSPRing on Dec 30th on bands I thought to be the "good" bands such as 15, 17 and 20m. From the UTC times of 1600 to 2200 I netted zero results on these bands!!  It could had been due to poor propagation on these bands as I had very poor results. 30m was my best band of all the test bands for that day. I did confirm that my MFJ loop is just a wet noodle on 40m as I was only spotted by two very local stations on a band that seemed very busy.

17m from  1500-1550 UTC Dec 31

I was on again on Dec 31 testing to see how the propagation gods were treating me that day. It turned out that my faith in 17m and 20m was uplifted a bit with some decent results. and once again 30m seemed to be consistent. It would seem from my limited testing that 30m is the band for me to go to on evenings when I get in from work. Also 20m but it may be more hit and miss. During the day on weekends 17 and 20m seem to be a charm. But then again there is always propagation that plays into the numbers and then just good old luck. I try not to just play these numbers games all the time. In the past (as I am sure most reading this post also have had it happen) there has been times when a band should be shut down and I make an amazing contact against all the odds.

20m from 1600-1700 UTC Dec 31

WSPRing on 30M

30m WSPRing

On Sunday I found some time to get on the radio and I found there was not to much happening on the bands. I had some other things I could do while on the PC so I started up WSPR just to see how the bands were doing. I gave 30m a go starting around 3pm local time and really there were no spots of my signal. At around 5pm local things began to pickup and I was being heard across the pond. I was using 5 watts and I understand that is very high for WSPR but I wanted to see how the loop antenna would do with that type of power. I would like to use WSPR to see when each of the bands peaks in my area and this would mean a few weekends of WSPRing from morning to evening to see if I can pickup a pattern for good propagation from my location. Just as a side note I'm not sure where W0AY is located.....seems to be out in the ocean?? I did look his call up on QRZ.COM and found his home QTH to be in Montana so not to sure why he is out in the ocean.........maybe M/M?? I did email Laurence to see if in fact he was M/M or if WSPR was just a bite confused last evening.  

Finally some WSPRing with the Alexloop.

A shot of the loop with the "T" fitting

I have been looking for a way to place the Alexloop  in the horizontal position as from my playing with the loop it seems to work better for me on the balcony in the omnidirectional horizontal position. Yesterday I was able to pick up a 1 inch "T" fitting mainly used for piecing together plastic pipe. I was able to feed the loops center support through the "T" fitting and place it nicely on the tripod. With just a little electrical tape to hold it in place it worked great. 
I finally set things up to get  WSPR up and going, so yesterday during the day and then into the evening I was WSPRing to see how my signal was getting out from the condo. Up to this point I have only used the Reverse Beacon Network or RBN which involved CW at 5 watts. I was not thrilled with the results and was really wanting to give WSPR a go. During the day I tried 10m and 20m I started out with 1 watt and in terms of WSPR that is some pretty high power. The antenna once again was the Alexloop in the horizontal position, at first attempt on both bands the Alexloop was indoors. It was not surprise that there were no spots at all it was time to move the loop out onto the balcony. Once setup I went back to 10m and it was about 2pm local time with no results again. I then jumped over to 20m and it was just U.S stations and very few I might add that received my signal. It was time to pack it in for the afternoon and some chores had to be done and I would get back on in the evening hours.
At 7 pm local time I was up and WSPRing on 40m and with great hopes as the band sounded good and I was decoding some WSPR DX such as EA3NEI. I once again was only heard in the U.S and this time I used up to 5 watts!! Maybe it was that conditions were poor out this way as they have been over the past week. Over the weekend if I get time I am going to give WSPR a go once again and see how it works out.

20m WSPRing

 Click on each image to enlarge

I have changed the shots to try to make them larger as some readers were wanting to see more details. The original pictures were done with Windows Print screen key. Not a very good option if one wants to see detail....lesson learned.These are not the greatest but the best I can do with the original prints.


Well I'm off work today and tomorrow I was off last week with a very bad cold and sinus infection but went back to early and am off again. Now I'm on med's and things seem to be turning around. Oh one thing the doctor asked me to try was a Neti Pot. In a nut shell you flush out your nose with water, it goes in one nostril and flows out the other!! I have heard of this and my son actually does it but there is just something funny about running water all the way through your nose up and into the sinus cavities and out. You just have to be careful and not use tap water and only the solution that is advised to use..........any way what does this have to do with WSRPing.......NOTHING.......I again have set up my Elecraft K3 for WSPR and it works better than ever. I set it up on 20m this afternoon to see how my 5 watts could venture out and about. I was very surprised that my signal made it over into Europe. A fellow blogger Paul PC4T in the Netherlands has hoped to have a WSPR signal meeting....up to this point it has been a no go. But this time around I did make it into the Netherlands to PA0SLT and PA3EDR as well as Italy, Switzerland, Finland and France.

WSPR up and running

No contacts heard or made but it's working

Good afternoon from the shack of VE3WDM, it's a long weekend up this way with Monday being a holiday! I have been seeing lots of posts about Dayton and a huge amount of tweets. It would seem that most if not all major manufactures have some new goodies they are premiering at Dayton. For those of you who read this blog and are sending use the news of Dayton.......KEEP IT UP!! So what's new around here.....well I have updated my VE3WDM K2 build blog with a new page. This is my second Elecraft K2 I have built and I wanted to blog about it. I want to highlight the build as well try to make this blog a good resource  for ham radio kit builders. This K2 build is taking longer with taking pictures and blogging about it but I am having a hoot. Today I decided to get WSPR going once again in the shack, well I must admit that at first it was to TRY to get WSPR going again. I did have WSPR installed and running with my K3 in the past and for some reason (as I have found many digi modes do) the rig would not come out of transmit. No matter what I did I could not  repair this odd event. Today I decided to remove the WSPR program from my PC and start fresh. I am happy to say that all is working well agian. A fellow blogger Bas had mentioned to me while I was comparing my attic dipole to my new Alexloop antenna that WSPR would be a very good way to compare the two. At this point this evening I am just making sure WSPR is functioning as it should and so far all looks well. My next step will be to put the attic dipole up against the Alexloop.

The bands are dead but can a WSPR defibrillator get results

20m WSPR results

As most of you know the conditions on HF over the last week have been dismal at the best of times. Over the weekend I found 20m to be flat and 40m was just more or less local stuff. So Monday I thought it was time to give WSPR a go again. I set the output to 1 watt and gave 40, 30 and 20m's  a go. I was surprised that 20m was alive on WSPR. It was odd that I was unable to hear any CW on 20m's but using WSPR at one watt I was heard overseas.  My fan dipole in the attic is not really setup for 30m's but with the tuner in the K3 I

30m's was local only

am able to fool the rig to see a flat match. The SWR on the other side of the K3's tuner for 30m's is about 9:1 (according to my LP100A) so with one watt from the K3 and a 9:1 match what type of power is getting up to the antenna. With the help of this calculator I can enter my feed line type, power input, frequency and SWR this will get me a rough idea of the power at the antenna. So at 1 watt with an SWR of 9:1 using 30ft of  LMR-400 on 30m's the output at the antenna is around 892mW's of  raw power!! That raw power got me local responses on WSPR.  As for 40m's with one watt........it was more or less dead.

40m's was dead

Resting and radio........

CT1IUA on the beach

Good afternoon fellow bloggers, went to see the Chiropractor and Physiotherapist today regarding my back troubles. The news was...... come back and see us and in the mean time REST!!! Well for me it is very hard to sit still and Julie can attest to that. One way to make sure I sit still and rest is to softly hobble into the radio room. I started out the day on WSPR I was transmitting 1 watt on 20 meters. The big reception report for me was from FR5DN on Reunion Island. At 1 watt that made it 9463 miles per watt for my attic dipole. I also tried some CW on 30m and 17m. Now my DX-33 dipole is not resonant for either of these bands but the K3 does

An afternoon of frustration.........

Finally some snow for Christmas......

Well it's Tuesday and it's the last day off for me before going back to work. The day has been spent in a very leisurely fashion. The only outing today was early morning to the Chiropractor and that was it. The weather has turned to snow here for the first time this winter snow is staying on the ground. I thought it would be a great day to spend at the radio as the Christmas season for me has been very busy with "stuff" ohter than radio. I tuned the K3 to 14.060 and found K9EEI calling CQ. So at 500mW's I answered his CQ, Carl was 599 here with his 5 watts and I was 569 into Illinois. At the end of our pleasant QSO we exchanged emails as well. Now during the QSO for some reason my keyer was acting up. What I mean by this is it would send radium dot's one after the other without me keying the keyer. The keyer that I have is the Begali contour which is Iambic

QRPp WSPRing

How to pass the time while WSPRing

Leading up to last weekend the sunspots were at an all time high along with the solar flux......it seemed that the radio god's were smiling on us again!! I turned on the K3 on the weekend and it was kinda a  down, it seemed that 20 meters may not had been as hot as I hoped it to be. I then turned to WSPR and thought I would give that a go on 20 meters as well. I wanted to put this solar hot spot to the test.....so instead of setting the K3 on the standard  3 watts output I dropped it down to 500mw's. I gave it a go and was surprised at the good

Dipole at 500mw's

results. Now I had always wondered when using that low power and my SWR after the K3's internal turner on 20 meters is about 2.3 what the

You can count on WSPR

10 meters

It's a long weekend out this way so after a nice long walk thought I would see what is happening on the bands........NOTHING......I turned on PowerSDR just to get a broader scope of the bands and again....NOTHING.......I did double check to see if I was on the dummy load I have done that before!! So it was off to WSPR to see how the signal was doing. The bands were not as dead as I thought WSPR proved that otherwise. 20 meters was alive and well with WSPR signals and for the attic antenna things did not work out to bad. It was then time to live on the edge and head down to 10 meters and see what was happening down there. According the the WSPR map signals were bouncing around short distances in Europe but not much happening in North America.  Then it was off to 15 meters and there seemed to be nothing happening for anyone no matter where you were. Well this help pass some time and keep me out of trouble!

15 meters

20 meters

Vertical vs Dipole on 20 meters WSPR

It was now time to try 20 meters and see how my High Sierra sidekick did against my attic 20 meter dipole. I did the comparison on an overcast Sunday afternoon. The solar conditions were SFI =108 A=20 K=3 solar wind was up around 575 and sunspots 66. The solar wind was high but both antennas are being compared during the same conditions. Now as you can tell by the pictures in the links above the vertical antenna is not in an ideal location but then

Vertical vs Dipole on 30 meters WSPR

For the first time in about 9 months I put  my High Sierra Sidekick antenna out on it's mount in the backyard for the QRP-ARIC contest . As time would have it the XYL and I were out most of the day on Saturday purchasing items that we need  for our trip to Europe in May. So there was not much time for the contest at all so I thought I would try a little experiment. I wanted to compare how the Sidekick mounted in the backyard by the

Something went wrong.......but what

LP-100 displaying the bad news

On Sunday before I fired up the K3 on 30 meters to try the new attic dipole on the air with WSPR. I double checked the SWR with my MFJ analyzer and it was 1.4  . I was very surprised to see the SWR went from the 1.4 yesterday to 2.4 when I tried to transmit with my K3!!!! I went up to the attic (AGAIN) to have a look at the antenna just to make sure something did not happen  over night. It looked very good so I then I hooked up the antenna analyzer to the antenna and low and behold the SWR was now 2.4. I checked the coax with an ohm meter and all was good. I then removed the balun out of the picture and it was still 2.4 SWR. I then ran a short piece of

WSPR and the Elecraft K3

 After weeks of some frustrating times on Saturday I finally got on WSPR with my K3. I only have access to 20 and 40 meters but soon will have a dipole in the attic for 30 meters. The RTTY contest this weekend made the bands a very crowded place. I first wanted to thank all those from the Elecraft reflector for their advice and help....KB7ST,G3ZOD,M0DDT,K0AWU,ZL1PWD,W6NIA,N3ZP and  those who emailed me as well from the WSPR website.  I still have some ruffled edges to work out. For now my output power is 5 watts or 37dbm. I will be dropping it to 1 watts or less.
Here is my setup with the Elecraft K3 with the KXV3A