500kHz looking like 30m!

Just look at this WSPR screen from 500kHz at 2330z this evening. There are G, PA, LA and SM signals coming through pretty well. 500kHz is now getting quite busy at night and it's harder to find a clear spot in the 200Hz WSPR sub-band!

Google ads quirk

Since I mentioned the Flea QRP transceiver some of my banner ads have come up advertising Flea spray! As I've mentioned them again I expect they will remain until I use some other key words in my text.

Self assembling solar cells?

Interesting article on the BBC Technology page about a possible technique for "self assembling" solar cells and other electronics products. See http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8452912.stm

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!