QRO optical beacon for over-the-horizon tests

12W red LEDs for optical beaconing

This afternoon I ordered 3 off 12W red LEDs, called a Phlatlight PT54, from the USA. These were originally designed for use in projectors and are VERY bright indeed (425 lumens at 8.1A!).  My plan is to use one of these in my new 481THz optical CW/QRSS beacon for over the horizon non line-of-sight (NLOS) tests this winter.  If you are interested, look up item 170884888890 on eBay. The datasheet for the Phlatlight LED is available at http://www.mouser.com/catalog/specsheets/pt54phlatlight.pdf .

My original beacon circuit is shown below and was a good signal over the horizon 3.6km from home when using Spectran to show the received signal, which was not even visible to the naked eye or audible in a headset. I am hoping that a very similar circuit will work for the Phlatlight LED beacon.

The QRO beacon should be much stronger, so I am expecting to be able to achieve much greater NLOS ranges, especially as my receiver is capable of considerably greater sensitivity with more work and using better PIN photodiodes with a more optimal 3dB sensitivity angle. The main issue is a thermal one: although the device is mounted on quite a good heatsink, I need to find out how hot this gets when sending CW or QRSS and derate it accordingly. I am hoping that around 4-5A should be possible which should allow some 20dB more output.

Autumn Projects Update

About 6 weeks ago I listed a number of projects that I wanted to do this autumn. Here is a progress report.

1. Finish the 472kHz transverter and write this up. DONE
2. Simple 28MHz QRP WSPR transceiver to use with a netbook. DONE (but the TX only beacon is boxed)
3. Stand alone 137kHz receiver (for use with PC).
4. Semi-permanent E-field probe antenna and on-line 137kHz/472kHz grabbers
5. More non line-of-sight light beam experiments (get better distances). 12W Phlatlight LEDs and more sensitive SRF213 detectors ordered
6. Semi-permanent 481THz QRSS beacon for NLOS light beam tests.
7. Alternative HF antennas - maybe re-erect my Par Electronics 40/20/10 end-fed.
8. Further earth-mode (ground conduction) experiments - tests at around 30 and 73kHz as well as more tests at VLF aiming to improve best though ground DX (currently 6km with 5W). More permanent earth-mode "antenna" erected.
9. Experiment with horizontal loop antenna on TX at VLF (maximising coupling into ground).
10. Build some better LF/MF test gear such as resistive SWR bridge, 50W dummy load and a noise bridge.

So, the next project is probably going to be (3) a stand-alone 137kHz receiver combined with some E-field probe development. What I am hoping to do is make a 137kHz RX that can be run from home uploading to an on-line grabber and that can also be used in the car with a roof mounted E-field probe antenna. This will allow me to do some fairly accurate field strength measurements with various TX antennas. With a bit of care I should be able to make this work on various bands from 8.97kHz through to 500kHz.  What I am hoping to be able to do is have a car-mounted receiver with PC that can be used for "drive around" tests although this will depend a lot on the LF noise in the car when the engine is running. I may have to limit tests to static ones with the car electrics not running.

Operating 10m QRP SSB

Today I took a break from designing and building innovative new stuff to enjoy 10m SSB whilst it is good. For some days now the band has been opening up to the USA and I've been getting good WSPR reports with WISPY on a regular basis with 200mW.

So, today it was out with the FT817 and 5W pep QRP to see what I could manage. QSOs in the log inside an hour included 5B4ES, TB5ZND, CN2LO/P and KG2KJ. No great DX but solid QSOs on sideband with just the halo antenna. I must admit, the speech processor really does help enormously.

The current G3XBM shack layout

The current G3XBM operating station

This is the current G3XBM operating position. The new additions are the 472/500kHz 10W transverter and the little WISPY 10m WSPR TX beacon, which has been boxed today. These are the two boxes to the left of the FT817. I've also increased WISPY's output power to about 250mW and have been getting loads and loads of WSPR USA spots this afternoon, including some from the west coast (W7).  I do my design and building elsewhere in the house. This is not ideal, but it does make for an uncluttered operating environment.

The vast majority of my equipment is home built and much of it home designed. Not shown in the picture are the Sixbox (6m AM), the Fredbox (2m AM), Chirpy (10m CW) plus any of the VLF kit. The last time I bought a new transceiver was about 10 years ago.

500kHz WSPR over 5 days

The attached table shows the different stations that have reported my 500kHz WSPR in the last 5 days. In summary, 19 different stations in 8 different countries with best DX OH1LSQ (1736km) and last night LB9YE (1489km). My most recent calculation of my ERP is around 80-120mW. Who says 500kHz QRP into a very small antenna with a useless (?) indoor ground system doesn't work then? I can't wait for 472-479kHz to be released in the UK.

A 500kHz WSPR screenshot from Finland

Paul-Henrik, OH1LSQ has kindly send me his screenshot showing my WSPR signal as received in Finland. It shows a visible, if weak, trace on the screen.

The weak trace seen by OH1LSQ on 500kHz this evening

Conditions on LF appear to be excellent this evening and this is supported by the propagation forecast for this evening from G4ILO's website (see below) and on the RHS for the current conditions.

New weak signal modes for LF/MF

On the LF-reflector this evening comes news that Joe Taylor K1JT is thinking about the development of some new software for weak signal work on the lower bands. Although Joe has not yet had much chance to start coding development of the new modes, they should lead to even lower useable signal levels. JT8-2 is a couple of dB more sensitive than WSPR but JT8-30 (will take 30 mins to send a message) is likely to be around 12-14dB better. Modulation is a form of 8-FSK.

Mode   T/R   TxT    df    tsym   BW    S/N*
       (m)   (s)   (Hz)    (s)  (Hz)   (dB)
-----------------------------------------------
JT8-1    1    52  1.577   0.63  12.6  -26.9
JT8-2    2   112  0.732   1.37   5.9  -30.2
JT8-5    5   292  0.281   3.56   2.2  -34.4
JT8-10  10   592  0.139   7.22   1.1  -37.5
JT8-30  30  1792  0.046  21.85   0.4  -42.3
-----------------------------------------------
* Noise power measured in a 2500 Hz bandwidth.

How quickly K1JT can do the necessary coding will depend on his work load - he is a Nobel Prize winning physicist - but we are looking forward to the first release of this software in the coming months.

Just to put a measure on this, 12 dB weaker signals (using JT8-30) would mean considerably greater range could be achieved for a given ERP, or the power level of the TX could be 16 times lower for a given range (with WSPR), all things being equal.

500kHz REAL DX with the new transverter

DX reports on 500kHz WSPR this evening using the new 10W transverter

My new 500kHz transverter has "done the business" with reception this evening of my WSPR signal (for the third autumn running) by OH1LSQ at a distance of 1736km. What I find incredible is that this is with low milliwatts ERP from an antenna that is tiny: the outer of the 6m vertical coax (the feed to my 10m halo) tuned against a ground formed by my central heating system copper and brought to resonance with a tapped coil on a ferrite rod sitting on the shack desktop.

500kHz WSPR reports map

The new 472kHz band is clearly going to be great fun for all, even without anything special in the way of antennas. However, my experience with small antennas on 136kHz is a different matter: on that band it is MUCH harder to get reports from any distance with QRP.

For details of my 472/500kHz transverter see https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp/Home/472khz-transverter

QRPtransceiver.com website

http://www.qrptransceiver.com/website

This website looks a useful resource for anyone wanting to find out about the commercial QRP radios on the market. As far as I can tell it lists virtually every QRP radio there is and gives some information/links about every one. Well worth a visit and I am surprised I've not seen it before (or at least if I did I had forgotten it!). The link is http://www.qrptransceiver.com/ .

GPS tracking?

Some help needed......

When out in the field locally receiving my VLF and LF test transmissions from home, it would be very helpful to be able to plot signal strength against location. For example, if doing a drive test, with an E-field probe antenna on the car feeding an LF RX and PC audio package such as Spectran, it would be excellent to be able to plot a map or database showing field strength and location. Now I have to confess I haven't a clue where to start! My knowledge of GPS is almost zero and my PC skills are limited to MS Word and simple spreadsheets in Excel (some years ago). So, if anyone knows of a SIMPLE way of achieving this goal please let me know.

On a related subject, what is the best, low cost, pocket GPS tracker that would record a walk (distance, track taken, times) and allow this to be plotted on a map when one gets home?