Simple 10m rigs

As 10m slides to the "quieter years" of the solar cycle it will soon be time to look again at using this band for local communications. It makes an ideal band to natter across town and I still think a 10m Fredbox is worth a go. The receiver, a simple super-regen is extremely simple, very sensitive with a simple RF amplifier, but lacking in selectivity so would NOT be useful when the band is busy. At night time in the quieter years it would be perfectly fine. The alternative is a simple 10m DSB rig, which would  be compatible with SSB transceivers.

At the moment, my poor health is stopping me doing both of these projects.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/hf/10m_op?pli=1  .
See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/hf/tenbox .
See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/hf/10msimple_sb .

10m from N.Ireland

An interesting spot this afternoon on 10m WSPR in the form of GI4BTG (498km). This unlikely to be Es (skip too short) and the most probable mode is F2 backscatter.  As far as  I am aware, this is the first time GI has been spotted here on 10m WSPR.

Good 10m conditions

Several different 10m WSPR stations in the USA being spotted this afternoon. CX2ABP has been spotted 4 times already from South America. With Japan this morning, 10m has been good today already by F2.

UPDATE 1740z: Good 10m propagation to the USA. These are recent spots on 10m WSPR. Some VERY strong reports!

10m WSPR recent spots here.

Fredbox schematic

Fredbox 2m AM transceiver

The Fredbox was my design for a 10mW AM transceiver for 2m use back in the 1970s. It was rebuilt a few years ago and a 6m version was spun off. The same basic approach would work on 10m and 4m too, but I have not completed versions for these bands.

Even 2m 10mW AM was enough to work across the English Channel handheld on 2m and the 2m Fredbox made several 60 mile handheld QSOs . For quite a while it was used to natter across town in Cambridge. The Fredbox was named in honour of local Fred G8BWI back in the 1970s.

The Fredbox and Sixbox have appeared in G-QRP SPRAT and in Practical Wireless mags. The schematics also appeared in several foreign language magazines too. The circuits are basic and certainly capable of being improved.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/vuhf/fredbox.
See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/vuhf/sixbox .
 

Declining sunspots

Sunspot count today was down still further to 38 yet 20-30MHz propagation remains "normal", With 10m open to the east (Japan) and west (USA) F2 conditions on 10m seem pretty good so far today.

First 10m WSPR spots from Japan and USA here today

JH1GYE (9380km) was spotting me at 0834z this morning and I have spotted him too. JH6LAV was also spotted this morning

WB4CSD (6025km) spotted my 2W 10m WSPR signal today at 1224z. This was the first (for me) in the USA today. Since then, WSPR spots have been exchanged with several stations in the USA. Since before breakfast Europeans have been spotted here and this has continued all day.

CX2ABP (11127km) - South America

CX2ABP (11127km) in Montevideo has been spotted here 27 times so far today on 10m WSPR until 1856z. He has been coming in most of the day and evening   Although the band was open to North America too, I think conditions have been better. CX2ABP was peaking at -15dB S/N here. Since 1900z only locals have been spotted.

Spots of CX2ABP today on 10m WSPR

WSPR-X woes again

With exactly the correct settings, my WSPR-X running on a Win 7 machine refused to upload spots to the WSPRnet.org database today. When I realised it was not working I did 2 things: (a) I closed the program and restarted it, and (b) reset the PC clock to internet time.

Since doing these things, my "lost" spots successfully uploaded to the database. I have no idea why WSPR-X seems to be so temperamental.Otherwise I like it, especially the realtime,scrolling waterfall and support for WSPR-15, although I have only tried this slower mode once, on LF. Stability needs to be pretty good (over a 15 minute period) for WSPR15.

QRP kits search on eBay

See http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_nkw=qrp+kit .

Occasionally I look on eBay to see what is on offer. Searching for "QRP kits" throws up quite an interesting selection of stuff, much of it only available by eBay and not otherwise advertised. Some of these items are good bargains.

Touch wood, I have never yet had a bad experience on eBay when buying or selling. Mind you, I would be very careful and not spend too much. Some dealers are good (the vast majority) but there are always a few "bad eggs".

Caveat emptor.

No 10m USA here yet

Although 10m WSPR is open here to South America with CX2ABP (11127km) spotted at -28dB S/N (weakly) at 1216z, there have been no North Americas seen here yet. This suggests conditions are not as good as they have been in recent weeks. To be fair, there are hours yet for the USA and Canada to appear. Even on bad days, the USA has appeared very briefly.

UPDATE 1252z:  KZ8C (6290km) has just spotted my 2W 10m WSPR.

UPDATE 1330z: The 10m band does seem to be waking up to the USA now after a slow start.

See post about WSPR-X woes above.