Monday, March 21, 2011

80 milliwatts to New Zealand (and Italy)

I realize that having your QRSS signal show up on a distant grabber is no big deal, but this was the first time I've seen the signal from my little DaVinci Code rig make the trip to ZL. You can see my shark fins in the screen shot above. It was just before dawn here, so gray line must have been helping. A Solar Flux Index of 92 also helped. My shark also made it across the Atlantic (and half the Med!) Mauro IK1WVQ's grabber made this nice capture (looks like this was around dawn at his location):

I measured the voltage at the antenna terminal this morning. Less than 2 volts peak. Assuming a 50 ohm load, that's about 80 milliwatts. This is all especially gratifying because yesterday I was out in the backyard with a slingshot and a fishing reel, putting a bit more wire into the trees. It worked!

Here's the transmitter and the schematic. FSK is from a simple two transistor multi-vibrator (G0UPL's circuit -- you can see it in the lower left):

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5 comments:

  1. w2aewMarch 21, 2011 at 10:01 AM

    Awesome! Love the picture of the rig, especially the Altoids heat sink / chimney.

    It would be fun to add a buffer to your multivibrator to drive a visible LED that you could mount at the top of the Altoids tower... ;-)

    73 de Alan W2AEW

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  2. Steve "Snort Rosin" Smith WB6TNLMarch 22, 2011 at 5:10 PM

    Oh, my. Where is the output filter network?

    73.......Steve Smith WB6TNL

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  3. Bill MearaMarch 22, 2011 at 9:34 PM

    Steve:

    You know, I'm a bit concerned that your repeated efforts to get people follow the rules of THE MAN are going to do damage to the whole counter-culture image that comes with your "Snort Rosin" nick name and your W6 callsign. Dude, think of your street cred!

    To paraphrase Humphrey Bogart... "Filters? We don't need no stinkin' filters!"

    But of course, you are right.

    73 Bill

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  4. Steve "Snort Rosin" Smith WB6TNLMarch 24, 2011 at 4:33 PM

    Hi Bill, It's not THE MAN I'm concerned about, it's The Old Man and his rickety old Wouff Hong! Don't want him to use it on us for having "Rotten Signals".

    Besides, even the Maharishi of Minimalism uses proper filtering on his mW rigs!

    73.......Steve Smith WB6TNL

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  5. Bill MearaMarch 25, 2011 at 6:29 PM

    Good point. That Wouff Hong thing always seemed kind of creepy.

    I will alert the Maharishi of Min to the fact that he now has a new title.

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