Second solar peak

The solar numbers are looking quite good currently and there now seems some likelihood that the second peak we are now seeing could (just) exceed the peak of Nov 2011. Fingers crossed.

457kHz personal rescue beacons

http://www.pieps.com/en/avalanche-transceivers/231-pieps-vector

When in Switzerland last week and thumbing through magazines I noticed references to 457kHz personal rescue beacons to help locate people buried in avalanches. They are small, lightweight, like GPS units, and have a range of 40-80m and a battery life from a single cell battery of up to several hundred hours.

There is useful information on these at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avalanche_transceiver and on http://www.pieps.com/en/safety-equipment/232-pieps-backup .  Although of no direct amateur radio application, I thought this an interesting device.

eHam.net QRP reviews

Whenever looking to purchase a new radio or kit, I visit the reviews section at www.eham.net to read what others have to say about their purchases. Occasionally the review average scores are skewed by one bad experience (when the usual score is 1 out of a possible 5 maximum), but overall a good impression can be gathered. For example, the Rockmite scores 4.9 out of 5 with 76 reviews, which is impressive.

Reviews of QRP radios can be found at http://www.eham.net/reviews/products/22 .

Some HF beams spotted in HB9 land

http://www.inqua2011.ch/

Today, our Swiss rail holiday continued with a visit to the capital Bern, about 1 hour north of our current location at Kandersteg. We woke up this more to yet more snow on the ground, and this is MAY!

Yet again we were struck by the cost of things in Switzerland: postcards around 1-2 francs, 2 francs to use the station toilet (ouch!), a coffee around 4.20 francs and 8.50 francs for a bowl of goulash soup. The exchange rate is currently around 1.46 Swiss francs to the UK pound but the tourist rate is somewhat poorer.  Luckily the Great Rail Journeys holiday includes almost everything apart from lunches and a couple of dinners. I can recommend them.

For the first time, a couple of HF beams were spotted on the way to Bern: one was a 4 element HF beam with a 2m crossed yagi above (useful in this rugged, mountainous landscape) and the other a 4 element HF quad.

Tomorrow we head home via the TGV from Geneva to Paris and Eurostar to London.

Swiss rail holiday continues

The Matterhorn

After traveling on the Glacier Express yesterday, we went to Zermatt and up to the summit at Gornergrat, overlooking the Matterhorn. At the top of Gornergrat it was -4 deg C but felt warmer in the bright sunshine. Excellent views of the Matterhorn. I'll post some photos when I can download them from the camera - guess who forgot the micro-SD adaptor!

Rail holiday in Switzerland

As I am currently in Switzerland on a Great Rail Journeys rail holiday (without amateur gear), posts this week will be infrequent. Having a good time though combining rail travel with excellent scenery.  Currently based in Chur for 3 nights and travelling to Arosa by train today. Later this week we travel on the Glacier Express narrow gauge line across the country towards the Zermatt area.

My blog on the holiday (adding to it each day) is at http://hb9trip.blogspot.co.uk/

28MHz BitX SSB transceiver

http://www.qrpkits.com/images/bitx20acase1.jpg

The very popular BitX SSB transceiver is, to my knowledge, available in kit form (from QRP kits) for both 20 and 17m, but I haven't seen versions for other HF bands.

What would be really nice would be a version for the 10m band where 6-8W would be enough to work the world when the band is open. The IRF510s would need to be changed to a Mitsubishi power FET such as the RD16HHF1.

Does anyone know if a 10m BITX has been done or if a kit is available for this band?

37 and 73kHz tests through the ground?

Further to my comment on VLF WSPR, I am still thinking about doing some earth-mode (through the ground) transmission tests at a couple of frequencies between the 8kHz dreamer's band and 136kHz. I'd like to test in the old 73kHz band (legal with earth mode and minimal radiation) and possibly around 37kHz too. A radiated test in the old 73kHz band would not be legal despite low uWs ERP unless I applied for the modern equivalent of a testing and development licence and paid £50 a year, stupid for a couple of tests taking a few hours. Getting MoD approval for that would likely take months and months too.

As my FT817 does not cover this frequency range, and the frequencies will be too high for direct sound card reception, I shall have to build an up-converter for the FT817 with a couple of front-end filters to pre-select the desired LF frequencies or a down converter to feed a sound card directly.  A loop, E-field probe or earth electrodes would be used on RX ahead of the converter with the eventual output feeding a PC running appropriate weak signal software (Spectrum Lab, Spectran, WSPR etc).

I made a request to OFCOM very many months ago to permit me to do some low ERP radiated tests in the band between 9 and 136kHz on the basis that the potential for interference with very low ERP (uWs) and transmissions lasting no more that a few hours at a time would be extremely low.  Such a request required lateral thinking and empowered decisions.  Many, but not all, people at OFCOM seem incapable of making common sense decisions any more. They are also hindered by stupid bureaucracy. Ho hum.

VLF WSPR test

Now I have a second small PC (a small Asus X101CH netbook) the possibility exists for me to try some VLF earth mode tests with WSPR. Although I did receive G6ALB 3km away on 8.97kHz through the ground when Andrew was running around 40W, I have never tried looking for my own signal using WSPR at VLF. Theoretically it should be about as good as QRSS10, so quite weak signals may be detectable.

One idea I have is to TX the actual WSPR tone frequencies at baseband through the ground using my small 5W VLF transmitter. Using either my loop antenna or E-field probe on the car retuned to around 1.4-1.6kHz VLF, I can take some trips into the field to see how things work out.

With stability not being an issue I could even try WSPR15 (15min TX) which has performance close to that of QRSS30. Mind you, waiting at a test site for at least 15 minutes for a result could be tedious. This is where some local help from other decently equipped VLF listeners within a 10-20km radius would be very useful.

Back on 10m WSPR with WSPY TX

Unique 10m WSPR spots using WIPSY TX today

Having given up on 20m CW this morning, I fired up the 10m WISPY beacon TX running around 250mW to see what spots I got. During the day I caught a couple of Es openings. 4X1RF seems to spot me whatever I do/run and on most days!

I have still to put the TX and RX parts of this project together (both parts have been separately tested) as a full WSPR/PSK31 transceiver for 10m.