Shortly after recording SolderSmoke 86 (in which I shared my tale of QRSS woe), I solved my calibration problem. IK3NWX has a CW beacon on 10141800 Hz. I fired up the Spectran soundcard program, and put the output of my Drake 2-B into the line in connector. With the 2B's bandpass wide, I tuned NWX's beacon to the top of the display. I then adjusted the trimmer cap on my oscillator to put me 1750 Hz below NWX. Eccolo! That put me in the 100Hz wide QRSS band. Almost immediately I could "see myself" on some of the on-line "grabbers." Vic, G3GKI, sent a screen shot (above) You can see some chirp on my signal. I might fix that, but I might leave it as is to make the signal more easily recognizable.
Eddie, G3ZJO, also sent a screen shot. I think this one is from an online grabber located in Northern Italy. You can see Eddie's far more sophisticated signal higher up in the display. My more rudimentary effort appears below. You can make out my call.
The online grabbers are a real hoot. My favorite is that of Johan, ON5EX. Check it out and see if you can see my 200 milliwatts reaching out across Europe. look for me around 10140020. Johan's page updates every minute or so:http://www.on5ex.be/grabber/grabber.html
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Good to see you're finally "in the window". I usually leave Spectran running during the day on 30m, taking screen caps every so often. I'm working on gettig my own visual beacon up & running when I get a chance. Too bad there's not much visual MEPT action here in the US. You'd have to run ALOT more power for me to pick it up here in IL. Also a long time solder smoke listener and fellow victim of the knack.
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Vince - N9VN
Vince: I think you could pick me up easily at 200 mw level. IK0IXI made it to ZL on 50 mw to a Windom antenna! 73 Bill
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