Internet Time Servers

For WSPR, and probably quite a few other programmes, it is important to have your PC's clock accurate to within a second or so. With WSPR, if you are more than a few seconds out the software will be unable to correctly decode signals. There are several internet time servers around which sync the PC clock to very accurate time standards around the word.

The one I use is http://www.worldtimeserver.com/atomic-clock/ . This allows you to download a program called atomic.exe which syncs your PC clock at an interval you choose to an internet time server. It is a great help to keep an old PC in time for WSPR. Without this my old Dell Inspiron would be all over the place with time. Once installed there is nothing to do as long as you have an internet connection.

Going QRT on 137kHz

Another evening on 137.5kHz WSPR and reports again from G8HUH at 250km,  BUT FROM NO-ONE ELSE. I really don't want to run higher power or erect a big antenna. To be honest it is not worth the effort continuing on this mode on this band as there are too few monitoring stations. At the moment I am not inclined to box and finish the transverter. Instead, I think I'll try something else. Not sure what but the potential and unfinished project list is huge.

Ferrite Rod TX on 10MHz WSPR

This morning I tried the ferrite rod antenna on 10MHz WSPR TX for an hour. As before, I mounted the ferrite rod VERTICALLY on the wooden desk with all other antennas disconnected -  the only other antennas are a VHF colinear and a 10m halo, and both of these are around 10m away from the shack. Quite a respectable number of spots we obtained with 2.5W from the FT817.

So far I have not managed to get the ferrite rod antenna to match on 14MHz. It may be the losses in the ferrite are starting to impact performance?

I am still unclear how this tiny TX antenna is working: the assumption is a combination of a small amount of radiation off the H-field (ferrite rod coil) loop and some E-field radiation off the coiled vertical section above the tuned part. Then there is still the possibility that it is just acting as an efficient coupler into the house wiring that is doing the real radiation. Whatever, it puts a signal around Europe and occupies a volume with the tuning cap of just 15cm x 10cm x 5cm on the wooden shack table.

More Ferrite Rod TX experiments

Vertical orientation today - good results on 40m WSPR TX

This morning I tried to get a few more WSPR reports on 7MHz using my small ferrite rod antenna. I managed a few only, then after about 20 minutes I decided to try again with the ferrite VERTICAL on the desk. Don't ask me why I did this, but then I started getting a large number of spots!

Now, all other antennas were disconnected and I tried this arrangement in several places around the room and ALL got decent spots. Maybe what I have here is a bit of a hybrid. If you look at the diagram there are about 80turns on the rod beyond the parallel tuned circuit that I assumed was the magnetic loop doing the radiating. Then again you can consider the parallel tuned circuit as a base loading for the 80t short vertical above it. Tuning C1 will bring the whole system to resonance and a low SWR can be found by adjusting the tap point, which turned out to be best very close to the bottom, about 1 turn up. There is no earth connection. I make no claims as to how this works. Some suggest it is just an elaborate coupler into the house wiring, but the very sharp tuning makes me think this is not likely. Also, if this was the case then surely moving it around in the room would make a big difference? Below are the spots for a few hours on 40m.

WSPR spots with the antenna above on 40m today

However it works, it manages to do pretty well. Now I do not believe in "snake oil" antennas, and make no claims for this one: a small ferrite rod will radiate something (H-field). Add a ferrite loaded vertical as well (an E-field antenna) and that will radiate too. What happens in the far field goodness only knows!

When the weather is better I will take the whole kit into the back garden well away from the house and repeat. If it is working without coupling into the house wires (as I think is the case) then results should be comparable. If spots disappear then it will have turned out to be a very good random wire coupler, HI.

73 Magazine back-issues on-line

http://mikeyancey.com/73mag/listauthor.php? is a searchable list of articles from the old 73 Magazine. I was pointed to it by Leon Heller for an article by Richard Q Marris, G2BZQ about ferrite rod transmitting antennas. Mike Yancey's site has some other useful stuff too, so worth a more general look.

Requests to share xbmqrp website

Friends, PLEASE, bookmark my main website correctly. Don't bookmark my pages where they are actually located (Google Sites) as these may change, as they did yesterday when I did a major site update.

So to access my main website go to, and bookmark:

www.g3xbm.co.uk

Dry eyes and RF?

Testing the ferrite rod antenna on TX this evening (with lots of RF within a metre of me) I'm noticing something I used to get when testing VHF RF PAs years ago in my design days: dry eyes. I assume this is an effect of RF on the body.  Apart from being madder than ever (!) I cannot say RF exposure has done me any noticable harm, but wonder if others have noticed this dry eyes effect?

Although the evidence in general is not strong, there was strong correlation back in my Pye Telecom days between those working on the design of high powered HF/VHF/UHF PA devices and those fathering girls. Maybe there was some subtle damage to sperm with exposure to high RF that made girl pregnancies more likely to succeed? Co-incidence?

A lot more controlled tests are needed, but with the widespread exposure to Wi-Fi and mobile phones it won't be too long before we find out more. So far the evidence is not at all conclusive but you do wonder whether, like smoking, we'll look back in 50 years time and say, did they really all use mobile phones and Wi-fi devices?

More Ferrite Rod TX DXing

This evening I fired up the FT817 and the small 15mm diameter ferrite rod tuned with a 365pF air-spaced variable and have been spotted on WSPR even further away. This time a couple of spots from Norway, the best being LA9JO 2096km away. As someone pointed out, I may be coupling into local wiring and this might help, but the ferrite rod behaves just like a loop with good directivity and matching just as you would expect i.e. a very low impedance tap point is needed for a good match and tuning is extremely sharp. Personally I believe the radiation is all coming from the ferrite rod and nowhere else.

WSPR reports with a ferrite rod TX antenna on 40m (5W into rod)

TXing with a ferrite rod antenna on 7MHz

Just for fun this morning I tried WSPRing on 7MHz using JUST a ferrite rod wound coil and a 365pF tuning capacitor as a tiny loop antenna sitting on the desk. All other antennas and grounds were disconnected fully. I used one of the low tap positions to find a 1:1 SWR position and put the FT817 on 2.5W (3 blobs). The rod did not get warm. The wire used is around 0.5mm enamelled copper with around 60 turns, tapped at every few turns at the cold end.

The ERP was very small, although I have not yet measured it. To my total amazement, I got an immediate -24dB S/N WSPR report from OZ7IT in Denmark at 853km. Just proves how incredible WSPR is and what a powerful tool it is for simple experiments like this.

Ferrite rod TX antenna on 7MHz WSPR - it worked!

OFCOM licence exemption

Martin G8JNJ has brought to my attention a little known, to me at least, OFCOM concession that appears to allow licence exempt operation under certain conditions in many, if not all, parts of the radio spectrum for research and development purposes.

Although OFCOM will grant Non Operational Licences (these were once known as Test and Development Licences) and charge you £50 a year for the privilege (!)  to test new equipment or carry out specific research, they do NOT require a licence if emissions measured at a specified distance are below certain levels (supressed radiation conditions). See http://licensing.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/spectrum/non-operational-tech-licence/ofw357nonopguide.pdf for some guidance notes on this.

My own interest is to research earth-electrode antennas in the frequency range between 8.97kHz (where I already have done some tests) and 137kHz (where I have also tested this antenna structure). Using WSPR and other weak signal techniques, quite a lot of useful work can be done with low uW EIRP levels. It would be interesting to see how such an antenna structure behaves at say, ~40kHz and 73kHz. It may just be possible to do tests at moderate ranges (in the far field) without a licence. Now wouldn't that be interesting?