After the noise: 160m CW QSO

Following my small successes last night battling my local man-made noise sources, this evening I managed nearly a full QSO with GW0IRW on 160m CW when running 5W to my vertical coax to the 10m halo. The noise level is now low enough to sensibly copy stations on 160m, which I've not been able to do for months at night.

I am now monitoring 474.2kHz WSPR hoping to improve on my reports now the local noise floor is much lower. SM6BHZ is already coming in at a respectable -14dB S/N. He is usually pretty strong so it will be interesting to see how many others come through this evening.

472kHz transverter (rev K)

Several people have now built versions of my 472/500kHz transverter. The latest version is shown below which includes provision for an additional low pass filter when using a fairly long (less sharply tuned) antenna. Although some capacitors could be combined to reduce the component count, I've shown it using readily available high voltage capacitors. The 16uH inductors are 43turns of 0.71mm wire on 22mm white PVC pipe.

In the last few minutes I've been looking on 472kHz WSPR and see that SM6BHZ and DK7FC are coming through OK despite my S8 noise floor.

SM6BHZ and DK7FC this afternoon on 472kHz WSPR

SM6BHZ hears me on 500kHz WSPR

SM6BHZ heard me at last on 500kHz WSPR at 0556z this morning, so my best DX has now gone up to 951kms with the tiny station. He reported my WSPR signal at -26dB S/N. The distance beats my previous record on the band by almost 100kms. Gus, thank you so much for country number 6 on the band and Joe K1JT for designing the software to make this possible.

SM6BHZ on 500kHz WSPR

Just received my first WSPR signal on 500kHz - from SM6BHZ running 1W erp. Signal first appeared at 1916z and was decoded 6 minutes later. This is a screen shot of his signals. Several other stations are also copying Gus if you look on the WSPR database and maps tonight. Later in the evening he was so strong he could have been copied with just 2mW ERP.

I also copied another 500kHz WSPR signal, this time from G4WGT who was -23dB S/N with 500mW ERP from IO83 at 248kms. The map shows stations active on TX or listening and shows I've received SM6BHZ and G4WGT. Very clever database this!

Later still copied M0BMU and G4WGT again on 500kHz WSPR.

SSB DX on 500kHz

Just heard SM6BHZ beaconing with 1W erp on 505.5kHz both on CW and on SSB. On CW RST559 and on SSB RS53. This is the first time I have ever heard an SSB transmission on the 500kHz band. SSB is not allowed in the UK NoV as the band is too narrow. Distance is 916kms. I've even got a QSL card already from Gus via the internet. Link is http://www.sm6bhz.com