Yet another try at 1000+kms on 500kHz

Overnight tonight (Tuesday/Wednesday) Martin OE5HYM will be listening for my WSPR signals. Martin is 1128kms away in Austria and he has a well-equipped receiving station. So, I am hopeful that breaking the 1000kms barrier is now just a matter of time. With luck, there will be more stations in the 1000-1200kms range staying on overnight too. However the solar conditions appear less favourable for LF propagation tonight.

Another try at the 1000kms target tonight

Again there are a LOT of stations in Europe listening on 500kHz WSPR and I've already had reports tonight from stations 685, 701 and 896kms away from me. The beacon will again be run through the night to see if anyone over 1000kms away manages to decode me. Unfortunately I think the main problem will be there won't be anyone listening in the 1000-1200kms range: TF3HZ is much further away (1836kms) and the station in Poland and one near Stockholm seem to have gone to bed and switched off :-(

Sixbox video added

As promised, I've put a small video about the Sixbox 6m AM transceiver on my YouTube channel. You will recall that the Sixbox was a small 40mW AM transceiver derived from the 2m Fredbox. This version is built "ugly style" in a diecast box and has a tunable receiver covering about 5MHz around 49-54MHz. The Sixbox is described in SPRAT 140 and also in the German magazine QRP-Report. It is also described on my website.

500kHz ATU video

Just put a short video of my tiny ATU for 500kHz onto YouTube.

A good night on 500kHz

Last night I ran the WSPR beacon again overnight hoping to beat my magic 1000kms barrier using the 1mW ERP station. Unfortunately there were no reports quite that far (990kms was the best), but it was an excellent night with lots of DX reports. DX is of course relative: G4JNT was copied in Alaska and several stations were heard across the Atlantic. Still for my modest power I was well pleased.

M1KTA's version of the 40m Flea Transceiver

Dom Baines M1KTA has just completed his version of the Flea transceiver for 40m and it looks a very neat job. Dom describes this on his blog and it is well worth a look. He gets 1.3W out from a 2N3866 PA. I look forward to working him very soon.

Gnat-1: 1 transistor transceiver from SPRAT 138

Am I alone in struggling with this design from SPRAT 138?

Today I did a breadboard version for 80m on the bench. On TX I had no problems (as long as I grounded the transistor's emitter directly on TX), but on RX the performance was diabolical and no better than a crystal set with injected carrier. I cannot quite fathom out the function of the transformer T2 or why the key is grounding the secondary of T2. As described in the article I would have thought T2 could be removed and simply key the emitter to ground on TX and decouple a larger (variable) emitter resistor on RX.

Has anyone had success with this design on RX? It may well be me!

500kHz new reporters: DL-SWL and G3JKV

No further DX records broken in the last 24 hours but a couple of new stations reporting me: DL-SWL who is in JO52 some 701kms away and G3JKV who is in IO91. Thank you for your WSPR reports.

Did my 1mW ERP reach Moscow on 500kHz last night??

This evening, Andrey RN3AGC sent me an intriguing screenshot taken from his PC in Moscow 2433kms away from here. It shows a very weak trace on the screen at the frequency which only G3XBM was operating last night. It is just possible this was my 1mW ERP signal. If so, it was too weak for the WSPR software to decode. You have to look very hard to discern the trace.

Hello Roger,

Probably? :)
Yesterday only you on this frequency worked.

73 Andrey

New G3XBM videos on YouTube

Today I've added a couple more videos to my G3XBM YouTube Channel. They are of the Fredbox 2m AM transceiver and of the FETer 80m CW transceiver. The latter uses just 14 parts but works remarkably well. I hope to add more videos about my projects in the next few weeks.