Successful non line-of-sight 481THz test tonight by cloudbounce

QRSS3 signal at 3.6km by non line-of-sight cloudbounce

Armed with my simpler QRSS3/CW beacon (see earlier post) I did a very successful non line-of-sight (NLOS) cloudbounce test this evening using my 1W red LED in 100mm optics (run at 340mA). TX was my "G3XBM" message in QRSS3 (3 second dots CW) at 820Hz subcarrier.

With the beacon aiming out through the double glazed shack window at nearby Burwell windmill (as an aiming point) I set off for a road at Landwade which was 3.6km away "over the hill" and on a NLOS path from here. At Landwade I set up the 100mm optics and my variation of the KA7OEI head feeding into my laptop running Spectran. Immediately I got a good signal from the beacon 3.6km away. Signal was around 10dB S/N in 0.67Hz bandwidth. The signal was neither visible as a red glow nor audible in the earpiece despite listening quite hard and panning around for best signal.

This was my first proper NLOS test and it is extremely encouraging. I did try to elevate the RX to higher points in the sky but best reception was with the optics aiming at the lights of Burwell village in the distance i.e. as low as was possible in elevation. At the TX end I was aiming to just clear the slight rise in ground to the east of me near Burwell windmill.

Weather conditions were light patchy low cloud with pretty decent visibility. I did notice QSB as cloud cover varied.

I'm really lucky finding this test path as I can put the TX beacon on the bedroom shack windowsill and fire towards the windmill. In daytime I would be able to align the RX better as I was having to guess the best direction with only Burwell church visible. I had to tweek the alignment to what I thought was the right direction. I did not spend a lot of time trying to peak the signal and better copy is possible.  In all honestly I did not expect this test to be successful.