Increasingly, the Internet of Things (IoT) is driving new ways of doing Wi-Fi. One standard (new to me at least) is 802.11ah which has been around since 2015. This operates around 900 MHz with a range of up to 1km. It will be interesting to see if there are spin-offs for amateur radio.
30 Jan 2024
29 Jan 2024
Oscar 100 narrowband transponder
Every few weeks I take a peek at activity levels on the geosynchronous satellite. I do this by looking at the webSDR at Goonhilly Down. My impression is this is well underused.
Attenuators
To get to 10mW I shall probably run my FT817ND at 500mW, and add an attenuator right on the output of the rig. The attenuation needed will be 500/10 i.e. 17dB. There are several calculators on the internet. Using the FT817ND will allow me to declare the correct output power.
See https://www.everythingrf.com/rf-calculators/attenuator-calculator as an example.
10mW ERP 10m WSPR tomorrow?
Starting tomorrow, I hope to start 10m WSPRing at 10mW ERP.
Clearly, my previous attempts using 500uW work when conditions are very good, but 10mW ERP will be a good indication of how 10mW ERP (licence free under UK 8m ISM rules) 8m might behave. An extra 13dB could make a real difference. If I get spots on 10m WSPR, I may not bother to renew my 8m TX permit as I will learn more experimenting for free with 8m 10mW ERP WSPR. I shall probably use 8M3ISM on 8m WSPR.
Judging by reports today, several spots might have been managed with 10mW ERP on 10m.
UK General Election year - NOT amateur radio
Every 5 years (at least) the UK population holds an election to choose a governing party. .
We are expecting one this year. For many years the government has been by the Conservative Party, which likes to tax less and people themselves decide how they spend their money. In recent years, Covid has cost a lot, so taxes are higher than they would like.
According to the polls, the opposition Labour party should win.
Politics has a habit of throwing surprises and it would not surprise me at all, if the outcome, in the end, is far closer than many suggest. All parties have good and bad things.
My politics tends to be near the centre.
Near Charing Cross station on Saturday - NOT amateur radio
OFCOM reminders
When I remember, I tell people that OFCOM updates the data it holds on licences etc regularly. It also consults on lots of things. See the OFCOM website of details.
10m 500mW (QRO for me!!) WSPR (Monday)
My 500mW WSPR TX was turned on at 1115z. Already 5 stations have spotted me.
UPDATE 1206z: Spotted by 10 stations so far on 10m QRP WSPR TX.
Looking for very old WSPR spots with WSPR Rocks
The creator of WSPR Rocks, Phill VK7JJ has been very helpful and has helped show me how to access WSPR spots back to 2008 using the SQL feature.
Perhaps it is best I share from the email he sent me. Clearly, you will have to adapt the query to suite your needs, but you get the idea.
" 1. click the SQL tab in http://wspr.rocks and copy and paste the redish text below into the upper editing panel on the SQL page
2. click the [run query here] button to test your query. If it returns a bunch of spots rather than an error message that's good, so click the [run query in wspr.rocks] button to execute it in wspr.rocks.
The time, callsign and band criteria should just about be self explanatory, adjust the times to suit but retain the exact format.
If you end up exceeding the 5,000 spot display limit then let me know. If you want to get rid of the false decode of OH3FR then include this line in the query: and rx_sign != 'OH3FR'
73 Phil
select * from wspr.rx where
time between '2023-12-01 00:00:00' and '2024-01-24 00:00:00'
and tx_sign = 'G3XBM'
and band = 28
order by time desc "
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