Not quite QRP - the Haiku Omega VLF transmitter

Jim M0BMU has posted a link on the LF reflector to a site showing the Omega beacon antennas and transmitter at Haiku Valley in Hawaii. This very accurate beacon system operating just above 10kHz. It has now closed being largely replaced by GPS. My house and entire garden would fit twice in the room shown as "the dummy load room".

VHF NFD next weekend

Next weekend it is VHF NFD so there will be a good opportunity for some QRP DXing on the VHF bands. In past contests I've managed to work way up to Scotland from here with just a small halo and 5W. This sort of DXing sometimes requires going on to CW to complete contacts though. Best times, ignoring conditions, are usually early Sunday morning as the sun is rising, when tropo conditions are good, or late in the contest when stations are looking for new stations to work.

Kanga Products kits

The well known range of QRP kits from Kanga are now available again in the UK. These include the FOXX3 transceiver and the Sudden receiver. See the Kanga Products UK website.

Live 8.97kHz transmission from Germany

DK7FC is transmitting now (0800-1100z) on 8.97KHz. His signals are visible on his 8.97kHz grabber . Stefan is testing further improvements to his earth electrode antenna. The message is very clearly "73" sent in DFCW 600.

Nuclear submarines + UK Trident nuclear deterrent

There's a programme on BBC TV tomorrow about the design and building of the UK's latest nuclear submarine. The preview said that each costs 1 billion UK pounds to build!! Couple this with the 100 billion pounds we are likely to spend on upgrading Trident nuclear weapons and we are talking about a huge amount of money.  I find these sums on such weaponry obscene and plain wrong. If similar amounts were invested in the search for sustainable energy sources I'd be much happier.

More 500kHz WSPRing with the earth electrodes "antenna"

This evening I've again been running my 500kHz QRP transverter into the earth electrodes separated by 20m of wire at about 1.5m above ground only. Reports from M0BMU (69km) and G0KTN (210km) confirm that this is only 6-8dB worse than my spiral top loaded 5m long vertical (i.e. ERP is now between 50-100uW). At the moment the only antennas I have up are a disconnected V2000 VHF/UHF vertical and this earth electrode antenna also used on 838Hz VLF, so the signal is definitely just what's coming from the loop formed in the ground.

German VLF earth mode test: 5.2 km on 8.97 kHz

Stefan DK7FC has been doing some experiments with around 50W to a 300m spaced grounded earth electrode "antenna"  in a remote location in Germany. Today his experiments were successful with his transmission of 30 minutes clearly received on his E-field probe receiver and grabber located in the city some 5.2km away.  See the report on his experiments at  http://www.iup.uni-heidelberg.de/schaefer_vlf/VLF_5km_with_an_earth_antenna.pdf . Stefan can improve the electrode arrangement and increase current into the ground as well as run up to 500W. He's hoping to see the signal on the DF6NM VLF grabber located 174km away. If successful, this would be the first reported amateur radiated VLF DX using earth electrode antennas.

VLF Earth Mode: 5.25km DX today with 4W

This evening I repeated my visit out in the fens with my loop seeing how far I could copy my 4W 838Hz beacon. After getting good QRSS3 copy at the same location 5.1km out as 2 evenings ago, I then tried going further out along the same fenland drove road. Although I managed to copy the signal at 5.25km this evening, no copy was achieved at any greater range despite travelling along several different lanes in many different directions. I'd like to know what it is in the roads that is helping - I assume water pipes, but it could be gas pipes or buried cables. What is clear now is that without these, the signal is absent more than 0.5km from home. This time I tried looking for the signal in far more places about 4-6km to the north of the village, but there was no trace of signal in this direction. Best directions are west (fenland peat) and south (chalk uplands). I've still to test to the east.

Another future test will be to try receiving the signal with a second pair of earth electrodes instead of the loop at some distance from home as one might expect stronger signals. This test will have to wait until the weekend though. If similar to results close to home, the 50Hz noise will be much worse though and this may prevent reception unless very quiet spots can be found.

Another beautiful QRP transceiver from AA1TJ

Menos es MAS is another fine QRP transceiver design from Mike Rainey AA1TJ. This really is about as simple as an HF transceiver gets with reasonable performance and QSOs in his log to prove it.  I like Mike's technique of using a development board to knock circuits together. This approach is fine for lower HF bands.

Earth Mode DX map

This map shows the places round and about my QTH in Burwell (JO02DG) where I was, or was not, able to receive my 4W 838Hz earth mode signal in tests on June 21 and 22nd. Red dots here show attempts that failed, i.e. no signals detected, and green dots show where signals were successfully received and recorded. Best DX was 5.1km, but further is certainly achievable on QRRS3 with "utilities assisted" earth mode i.e. where ground coupling is enhanced by buried pipes and cables. Best DX with 4W into the 20m spaced earth electrodes using purely induction seems to be around 0.5km.