Afghanistan on 10m

Overnight I left my 10m WSPR station running 10% TX at 5W. During the night I was spotted a few times by a couple of Europeans. My best reception was of T61AA in Afghanistan from just after 0600z. Unfortunately he was unable to copy my 5W on 10m.

This is the WSPR chat log showing that T61AA was genuine. He has been trying EME and 6m at other times today.

Getting back to homebrew QRP

For the last 10 days I have been "distracted" (by my discovery of WSPR) from my main interest - building simple homebrew QRP gear. In the next few days I hope to have rectified this lapse and got busy in the back of the garage making something new. Not sure what yet but I feel the urge to build again.....

50MHz aircraft scatter

Interesting piece on G3ZJO's blog about 50MHz aircraft scatter using WSPR signals. He has a nice waterfall display showing the strange things that happen to a WSPR signal when aircraft are moving.

WSPR versus CW - what's the improvement?

As WSPR is so effective I asked Joe, K1JT, what the difference is between WSPR and "ear-and-brain" CW. This is his very helpful reply:

"For an answer to your question about relative sensitivities of CW, WSPR, and some of the other modes implemented in WSJT, let me suggest going to the "References" link on the WSJT web site, http://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT/refs.html ,
and select reference #11. Table 3 on page 9 gives the information you asked about. The difference given there is about 11 dB, in favor of WSPR over ear-and-brain CW. For most operators, the difference is more like 15 dB."

OK1IAK's tiny WSPR beacon TX

Vojtech OK1IAK has created a tiny WSPR beacon TX based on the KD1JV Altoids tin ATS-3b transceiver kit. He uses the ATS3bv-1.5 firmware. For those not familiar with this creation, it is a tiny 6 band CW/digital transceiver kit fitting into an Altoids tin. See OK1IAK's alternate firmware for WSPR with this rig.

Heard in VK on 40m QRP again

At 1834z, 30 mins earlier than last night, VK8CH reported my 5W WSPR signal at SNR -27dB, which is 1dB lower than last night. A few hours later, VK8CH copied my 2W (33dBm) 40m WSPR signal at SNR of -24, -27 and -28dB over a period of some 20 minutes. PY2GN has heard me twice tonight already on 30m WSPR, again using 5W. W1XP was copying my 1W 30m WSPR signal at a SNR of-17dB.

All this on 15m of end-fed wire strung from the gutter to the washing line post at the bottom of the garden!

40m QRP WSPR signal copied by VK8CH

This evening, VK8CH (Australia) copied both my 10W, then 5W QRP 40m WSPR signals. DX was 13800kms - not bad for a small, 15m long, end-fed wire strung down the garden only 6m at the highest end and 2.5m high at the far end!

What constitutes a QSO?

Having been experimenting with WSPR beaconing, and having a LOT of fun too, I started to ask what constitutes a QSO?

For example, this evening on 160m I both sent and received callsigns, locator grids, frequencies, power, date, time and reports with G8IHT and G4BOO using WSPR. You KNOW the other station has received it from the on-line WSPR database. This was in WSPR MEPT (beaconing) mode and not using WSPR QSO mode, which I've yet to try.

Now, is this a QSO formally? My feeling is no, yet all details were exchanged and received by both parties. Certainly as much detail as would be exchanged in an EME or MS QSO using modes like JT6M, although no RRRs were sent.

Views please?

6m WSPR testing overnight (Aug 12/13)

Overnight I'll be repeating my WSPR mode MS/Es testing, this time with transmissions on 50MHz running 5W for 20% of the time from around 2100z to 0800z. If you have WSPR software, please set your RX to 50.2930 USB and let it run through the night to see what propagation exists.

UPDATE: Not a single report received or obtained for anyone else on 6m overnight. Then 4 hours later I realised I been plugged into the 10m halo :-(

10m WSPR QRP DX - Perseids MS?

I ran WSPR with 5W out (20%) on 10m overnight and was heard twice by F4VNS in JN36hc (see report screen). Although I did not decode anyone on 10m overnight, this may be because there were few stations active on 10m WSPR. The few whispy traces seen suggest doppler shifting (possible MS)?

Anyone know when the Perseids peaked in Europe? I wonder if between 0230 and 0430z?