In praise of Jay W5OLF's WSPR beacon

I received this email from Jay W5OLF:

"Hi Roger,

I was catching up on your blog and saw the comment about how much you like the 10M beacon. That warms the heart.  We all try and make a contribution to the hobby and guess I at least made one.

Cheers, Jay, W5OLF"

W5OLF WSPR beacon

To which I replied, with great pleasure:

"Hi Jay,

I can honestly say I have had more fun from your 10m WSPR beacon than from ANYTHING in all my time in amateur radio. Thank you!

73s
Roger G3XBM"

I was an SWL in 1961 and had a licence since 1966. The beacon needs no PC and is totally self contained. As a routine I reset to internet time every day but you could use a radio for this and once a day is probably far more frequently than necessary.  As you can see, it is very small. The last time I looked there were 1W beacons for 30m and 20m and a 0.5W one on 10m. If you enjoy this mode, I can recommend these. It never fails to amaze me how something so small to a small, low, wire antenna regularly gets spotted around the planet.

See http://w5olf.com/2014/12/18/new-wspr-axe-cw-beacon/ .

No USA spots today

For the first time in a long time my 10m 500mW beacon was not copied at all in the USA today. The low power may not have helped and others may have been more successful. However, it may be a sign of things to come? The danger is falling conditions will see more people give up on 10m WSPR which would be a great pity. The next few years will be very interesting on 10m, especially outside the Es season.

More VK (really long distance) reports on 10m WSPR today

My little 500mW 10m WSPR beacon has been copied in Australia 3 times today already, and conditions are meant to be just "fair"! VK6XT spotted me a couple of times this morning (again) but the best was VK5MR (16144km) at 1230z.

It never fails to amaze me that this tiny little stand-alone 500mW WSPR-AXE-CW WSPR mode beacon is copyable in a shack on the other side of the planet. I have now been copied at this range many times.

Reports from YV5ESN (7294km) in South America seem almost local, HI.  USA stations really do seem like locals now!

W5OLF website

W5OLF's tiny WSPR-AXE-CW

Jay, W5OLF, the creator of the "no PC needed" WSPR-AXE-CW beacons for WSPR on 30m, 20m or 10m has just started a new website.  He expects to start selling the new versions of his little beacons, either as kits or built and tested units, in late January. These stay on all the time (the PA can be turned iff) , but frequency is randomised over 100Hz within the WSPR window. Once set, the timing is fine for ages and ages - certainly days or even weeks.

Jay's email (replace the (at) with @ ) is: w5olf(at)comcast.net .

His new website is www.w5olf.com .

I am privileged to be a beta tester of his 10m version (500mW). As you will have read in earlier posts, this unit certainly works very well, mine having been copied all over the planet in just a few weeks. Just press a button to sync time on an even minute and watch all the reports come flooding in. I was blown away with mine. Tiny, but brilliant. If you like WSPR I can thoroughly recommend this little unit. It comes pre-programmed with callsign, locator and power level.

UPDATE 1448z: This little unit has been spotted in Antarctica (13676km) 8 times today already. My antenna is nothing special, just a low 3 band end-fed wire.