Category: WSPR

Building a QRP Labs OCXO

The top of the completed OCXO

I’ve not posted much this year because I’ve not been doing much new stuff. I’m still messing around with the very low power modes and enjoying that a lot. I’m transmitting WSPR and QRSS all the time and tend to leave the transmitter running on one band/mode for a month or so at a time. […]

I’m not dead!

I know I’ve not updated this blog for some months but don’t panic, I’m not actually dead! Although I’ve not done much operating this year, I have still been playing radio.  I’ve been melting a lot of solder building WSPR and QRSS transmitters and there’s normally some RF being transmitted on an HF band somewhere […]

A week of very low power 10m WSPR

Last Sunday I tweaked my Ultimate 2 transmitter to give me some power out on 10m and I managed to persuade it to run about 80-100mW.  I’m going to experiment with a higher voltage for perhaps a little more power but in the meantime I decided to run it for a week. As I’m using […]

A World First – Experiments on the 60m (5 MHz) band with QRSS

Eight ten minute frames stacked together showing G6NHU received on 60m QRSS at W4HBK - 7288 km

The 60m band is fairly new amateur radio allocation, first introduced in 2002 but only to a few countries such as the United Kingdom, Finland, Denmark, the USA, Ireland, Iceland and Norway.  I had an experimental Notice of Variation for 5 MHz on my licence a few years ago and I renewed it when we […]

Running WSPR and QRSS [almost] at the same time

Last month I mentioned that I’d bought a new kit, the “Ultimate 2” transmitter from Hans Summers.  I hooked it up with a GPS module and it almost worked perfectly.  There were a couple of issues with 2.01 of the firmware and I assisted with beta testing the 2.02 firmware.  While testing it, I made […]

One hour of 40m WSPR on a Saturday evening

This is especially satisfying for a couple of reasons.  It’s the first time I’ve reached VK using the Ultimate 2 kit and a simple wire aerial.  I’ve managed it on 20m using the Hexbeam but not with my random length doublet and smartuner.  Secondly, it’s amazing that any signals were received at all because it’s […]

Two hours of 20m WSPR on a Sunday evening

Power output: Somewhere between 150mW and 200mW. Coax: 30m RG213 Aerial: Broadband Hexbeam at 35ft AGL beaming pointing west Best DX: KB9AMG at 6,378 km (3,963 miles) at 31,890 km/Watt

One hour of 30m WSPR on a Sunday afternoon

Power output: Somewhere between 150mW and 200mW. Coax: 20m RG213 ATU: SGC Smartuner 8m 450 ohm open feeder Approx 65ft doublet, sloping E-W, 30ft AGL at the east end, 20ft at the west end Best DX: OE6WSF at 1,185 km (736 miles) at 5,925 km/Watt  

Running WSPR (and QRSS) at 200mW

I’ve written a fair bit about WSPR in the past and posted reports of where my signal has been heard using just five watts output.  I’ve also written about QRSS including details of the transmitters I’ve built and shown reports of where I’ve been captured. A few weeks ago I heard about a new QRSS kit […]

Operating QRP. Seriously, me running QRP!

As far as I was aware, this weekend was going to be pretty much contest free and I planned to do some work on my aerials.  I received some new spacers for the Hexbeam and although I fitted the 15m ones before the BARTG RTTY bash, I didn’t have time to do the other bands.  This weekend […]