The QRSS Knight with the Nobel Prize

We are in some very distinguished company on the QRSS "Knights" mailing list. Joe Taylor, K1JT, is active in the group. Joe won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1993. His biography includes references to ham radio that will warm the hearts of all Knack sufferers: K1JT's bio

This year, Joe created a new piece of software that is being used by many of the Knights. It has a name that will appeal to QRP'ers. Here is a description:

WSPR is the name of a computer program.
It is pronounced "whisper",and stands
for "Weak Signal Propagation Reporter";
it implements transmitting and receiving
functions for a digital soundcard mode
called "MEPT_JT", which stands for
"Manned Experimental Propagation
Tests, by K1JT".

WSPR generates and receives signals
using structured messages, strong
forward error correction,
and narrow-band 4-FSK modulation.  Its
principal design goal is reliable
copy at very low signal levels.  In
practice it works well at
signal-to-noise ratios down to -27 dB in a
reference bandwidth of 2500 Hz. 

Joe recently released a new version of WSPR, so if you are going to give this a try, make sure you do so with the most recent release. You can download WSPR 1.0 (r972) from

http://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT/WSPR100.EXE

The BEST Jean Shepherd Ham Radio Episode

Mark, W8MOJ, found this one a while back, but then somehow we lost it. This morning I found it again. Jean Shepherd talks about ham radio homebrewing, regen receivers, searching for parts at radio row, building stuff in the basement, secretly studying for his ham license during civics class, and one of his teenage ham friends who, in his basement, secretly built a.....

"Other kids would draw Christmas trees and sailboats... I would draw schematics of phone transmitters."

Don't miss this one! Here is the link to the mp3 file: Jean Shepherd, January 24, 1973

N3ZI's $9.99 Counter Kits

Doug, N3ZI, was one of the intrepid participants in the ARRL Homebrew Challenge competition. FB! He is now making available some very inexpensive digital frequency readout kits. Jerry, NR5A, sent me one. (Thanks Jerry!) Obviously this is a kit useful to Knack victims.

Here is the web site for the kits: http://www.pongrance.com/

UK Amateur TV: KNACK TO THE MAX

You will really like the video archive of the British Amateur Television Club. Start out with the "Bob and Brian" show. It is as if "60 Minutes" did a segment on THE KNACK. Don't miss the excellent antenna lecture by Dud Charman, G6CJ. He used small-scale antennas at UHF to demonstrate the principles behind directional antennas. All of the videos in the archive are very good. Thanks BATC!

Here's the link: http://www.batc.tv/channel.php?ch=1

My Beacon (MEPT) Circuit

Guys have been asking to see the schematic for my 30 meter QRSS MEPT beacon. Here's the oscillator circuit. This actually started out on a plane ride. My son Billy and I were talking about electronics. I drew a basic schematic for an oscillator, and we built one when we got home. It originally used a 20 meter crystal. At one point we were playing "find the oscillator" -- hiding it somewhere in the house, and tracking it down with a Sony shortwave receiver. Now, with some modifications, it is the first stage in my 30 meter MEPT beacon.

An ugly schematic for a rig built with the ugly construction technique. Nothing fancy here. Two feedback amps and a PNP transistor as a switch to key them. I let the oscillator run continuously. (Let me know if you can hear the "backwave"!) About 20 mw out. As you can see, it doesn't take much to get a QRSS signal on the air.

Shepherd Learns Morse and Discovers Ham Radio

Here is another gem from Jean Shepherd. He describes his discovery of CW at age 6 or 7, his first shortwave receiver, and his discovery of amateur radio. Plus, some Army Signal Corps madness.

Click here for the mp3 audio file: Shepherd, Morse, Ham Radio

SolderSmoke #87

July 6, 2008     

http://www.soldersmoke.com
               
On the beach at Fregene
-----------
QRSS Mania:
Calibration problems solved
First reports received
The Fun of Grabbers
Checking your signal via Blackberry
The Joy of Milliwatting
Chirp, Click, Drift in QRSS
Temperature sensitivity
Bury that Beacon?
Why so little US QRSS?
More US Grabbers needed
AA1TJ/QRSS?
----------
Elser in "History of QRP in US"
New Slides, WAC on ClustrMap!
MAILBAG: G0FUW reports EI9GQ victin of Knack
KC0PET on understanding our circuits
ON4FW sends FB pictures
KG6TCJ on QRSS calibration
W7ZOI on FD and calibration
W4NI on measuring harmonics
PE1OIT on GPS calibration technique  

The QRSS View from ON5EX -- July 5, 2008

I wanted to give you guys a sense of what you can see on the QRSS Grabbers. The grabbers are just the output screens from the Argo or Spectran (or other) software that have been placed on-line, updating every few minutes. In the screen shot above, you can see the sophisticated signal of Eddie, G3JZO, pounding into Belgium (this is the Grabber of Johan, ON5EX). My much more basic effort is visible as a line of Morse Code just below Eddie's sig. Above Eddie you can see the "snake CW" of IQ4FJ. Along the bottom right of the screen, you will see the square wave signal from the 5 mw solar powered beacon of Paolo, IZ1KXQ (scroll down a bit to see his rig, and his schematic). I think the vertical stipes must be lightning.

Check out I2NDT's Grabber Compendium (but be aware that not all of them are on 24/7):
http://digilander.libero.it/i2ndt/grabber/grabber-compendium.htm

In this screen shot from I2NDT's Grabber, you can see the effect of me turning the air conditioning on in my shack. I have added a bit of insulation (an ARRL Handbook placed on top of the beacon box!) and things seems to have stabilized. With the entire "QRSS band" only 100 hertz wide, it doesn't take much to slide your signal all the way across the band!

Cleaning up my QRSS Signal

This week I worked to improve the quality of my 30 meter QRSS signal. At first I was pleased to just be in the band and visible on the grabbers. But soon I grew jealous of the very clear and clean dots and dashes of IK0IXI and others. My droopy dashes ("Italian tears") were getting embarrassing. Making matters even worse, when conditions were good, very noticeable key clicks became visible on the grabber screens. These became known among the Knights of QRSS as "shop hooks." I thought they made my signal look like some sort of Arabic lettering. Clearly something had to be done.

Yesterday I put a seven volt zener diode voltage regulator in the oscillator circuit. I also drastically reduced the size of the the capacitor that connects the oscillator to the first RF amplifier. This seems to have done the trick. The clicks are gone and the dashes no longer droop. Power out is now down from 200 milliwatts to 20 milliwatts. That's fine -- this puts me in the power range favored by the Knights.

The narrow-band nature of QRSS work makes imperfections very visible. A chirp or click that would be undetectable on ordinary CW becomes very apparent in QRSS. This morning when I adjusted the air flow from the shack air conditioner, I inadvertently sent the stream of cool air toward the beacon transmitter. With the On5EX beacon on my screen, I could almost immediately see the resulting frequency change!

The on-line grabbers are really fantastic. They give you and almost real-time ability to check band conditions. Almost all day I can see my 20 milliwatt signal arriving at ON5EX. Depending on time of day, you should be able to see my signals here: http://www.on5ex.be/grabber/grabber.html Look for me around 10140060 (+/- air conditioning).

Why isn't there more QRSS activity in the USA? Why are there so few American grabbers?

Over the Alps with 5 Milliwatts and Solar Power

Yesterday morning the lower portion of the 30 meter QRSS band was dominated by three Italian stations: Near the bottom of ON5EX's grabber screen was the very clear and FB CW of Fabio, IK0IXI. Fabio runs about 50 milliwatts to a Windom and operates from Civitavecchia, a beautiful coastal town about 20 miles from Rome. Here you can take a look at his rig, and his schematic: http://www.geocities.com/ik0ixib/bcn.html A bit further up were the droopy dashes of yours truly, 200 mw (QRO!) to my all-purpose end-fed wire. And a bit further up from me was the very interesting signal of Paolo, IZ1KXQ. Paolo runs 5 milliwatts from a super-simple solar powered rig (see above) that resides on the roof of his house. It puts out a distinctive square wave sig.

IKoIXI's crystal is in an oven and is temperature stabilized. He stays on the same freq all day. We've found that my signal seems to drift down in freq during the course of the day, as Rome heats up. It moves about 15 hz down from early morning to afternoon. IZ1KXQ's rig is more exposed to the heat, and seems to move quite a bit more, and his sig moves UP in freq. I think this drifting adds to the QRSS fun.
FB Paolo! FB Fabio!

Here is IZ1KXQ's schematic:

Crossing the Pond on 200 milliwatts QRSS

As you can probably tell, I was really pleased to get my little QRSS station in operation. But then came some icing on the cake: Vernon, VE1VDM, sent a screen shot (above) that showed the unmistakable traces of my somewhat chirpy signal. Look around 10140020 Hz . See those kind of droopy dashes? They're mine! (Johan, ON5EX, called them "Italian tears.") Hooray! Crossing the pond on 200 milliwatts!

Of course, this is no big deal in the QRSS world. 200 milliwatts is decidedly QRO for these fellows. I feel some pressure to reduce power. I also feel the urge to clean up the chirp, but then again, the Italian tears make spotting the signal easier.

For a great explanation of how QRSS allows you to pull signals out of the noise see ON7YD's excellent article: http://www.qsl.net/on7yd/136narro.htm

The online "grabbers" add a very interesting dimension to this. You can watch the band from stations around the world simultaneously. Take a look at I2NDT's grabber compendium:
http://digilander.libero.it/i2ndt/grabber/grabber-compendium.htm

Here's something else that I found really cool: I can watch the grabbers on my Blackberry! So, the other day, with my beacon on, as I made my way through central Rome on the 63 bus, I pulled out the Blackberry and opened ON5EX's grabber page. There I could see my droopy dashes at 10140020. Now I've got my eye on the grabber of Laurence, 9V1LF, in Singapore; I hope to put some Italian tears on his screen soon.

Guys, this real "essence of QRP" stuff. I'm reading Ade Weiss's book on the history of QRP, and I often find myself thinking that The Old Man and the QRPers of yesteryear would very much approve of QRSS.

It may seem complicated, but it is not. The transmit systems are just milliwatt crystal-controlled transmitters and some sort of keyer (mine is from K1EL). For receive, all you need is a cable from your receiver to your soundcard, and some free software.

We need more QRSS activity from the States. When will AA1TJ put one of those Zener Diode rigs on 10140030?

QRSS Success -- Signals Visible in Online Grabbers

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

SOLDERSMOKE 86

June 22, 2008

http://www.soldersmoke.com

Maritime Mobile on Lake Bracciano.
Jean Shepherd loses girlfriend due to THE KNACK.
30 Meter transmitter self-constructs (almost).
QRSS Woes.
Do CW signals have sidebands?
Freq Counter down for the count.
Dial Parallax: Drake 2B jumps 3 kc from eyeball to eyeball.
Radio Shack: Count your blessings!
Nice wire from old computers.
Good luck on Field Day.
MAILBAG: VU3RDD NEW HARMONIC!
Frank on analog scopes,
PE1OIT on si570 chips,
KG4ENB on 179 kc LOWFERS,
M0NJP on how XYL's can deal with THE KNACK,
K7JM on SolderSnow,
W8OAJ SolderSmoke as Knack Therapy,
Jonathan 7J1AWL "from commuter train in Tokyo"

Jason, the Argonauts, and QRP

You don't often find beauty in software read-me files, but I found some in those of I2PHD and IK2CZL. Take a look at this. It is from the read-me file for a Slow Speed CW program:
----------------------------

ARGO -- A QRSS Viewer by I2PHD & IK2CZL

Argo is program for viewing QRSS signals, i.e. very
slow CW, or DFCW signals, i.e. slow CW where dots and
dashes are of the same length, but offset in frequency
by a few Hertz, or even a fraction of an Hertz.

The name Argo is taken from that mythical ship which,
with the Argonauts on board, headed to Colchis,
in the quest for the Golden Fleece, much like the LF
Hams are in search of that fraction of dB of S/N which
will allow them to make that elusive QSO.

--------------------------

Here is where you can get the Argo software.
Free!  And lots of other good programs
(check out Spectran):

http://www.weaksignals.com/

Bravo Alberto! Grazie!

QRSs QRPp

I blame Hans Summers for this. His articles in SPRAT on very slow speed, very low power CW on 30 meters have caused me to develop a new set of Knack symptoms. I now listen intently to CW that is so slow that by the time I get to the end of a letter, I've forgotten if it started with a dit or a dah. I've become intimately familiar with the refresh rates of strange web sites known as "Grabbers" (I'd never heard of them before. See above for a sample.) And for the first time in my life as a radio amateur, using crystal control is no guarantee that I'm "in the band."

My 30 meter QRSs 200 mw "MEPT" beacon is on the air, but no one has heard me yet. This is almost certainly due to the fact that I'm probably outside the QRSs "band." This band is only 100 HERTZ wide! I'm using a 10.140 Mhz crystal, but the circuit values of my oscillator could easily put me out of that band. And Murphy struck: Just days before I started all this, my frequency counter died. My trusty Drake 2B is of little help in measuring frequency to this accuracy: The dial increments are 10 KILOhertz! And the 2B suffers from a problem totally unfamiliar to those who have grown up with glowing numerals: DIAL PARALAX! (It sounds like Knack-related disease, doesn't it? "I'm sorry m'am, your son Dilbert also has a bad case of DIAL PARALAX!!!")

Wish me luck. Don't blame me if you succumb to QRSs madness. Remember: it is all Hans Summers' fault.

DUGA-3 aka STEEL YARD aka WOODPECKER

Mama mia! Now that's an antenna! Put your HW-8 on that one and you'd be in business!
Here are some more shots of the Woodpecker antenna complex:
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/1200861

Jean Shepherd: KNACK VICTIM!

Guys, stop what you are doing. Put down that soldering iron, or that cold Miller High Life ("the champagne of bottled beer") and click on the link below. You will be transported back to 1965, and will hear master story-teller Jean Shepherd (K2ORS) describing his teenage case of The Knack. He discusses his efforts to build a Heising modulated transmitter for 160 meters. He had trouble getting it working, and became obsessed with the problem, obsessed to the point that a girl he was dating concluded that there was "something wrong with him" and that his mother "should take him to a doctor."

This one is REALLY good. It takes him a few minutes to get to the radio stuff, but it is worth the wait. More to follow. EXCELSIOR! FLICK LIVES!

http://ia310115.us.archive.org/2/items/JeanShepherd1965Pt1/1965_01_29_Ham_Radio.mp3

SolderSmoke 85: Special QSO with WA6ARA

June 8, 2008 

Echo-QSO with WA6ARA! 
Phoenix lands on Mars.
Beacon operations.
Adrian Weiss, W0RSP. FB QRP Author.
Need correspondent for Flea at MIT.
Understanding balanced modulators.
Dan's accident (Dan's Small Parts).
Hendricks Cap Kit.
"Hot Iron"  Journal of The Constructor's Club
The Woodpecker.
MAILBAG (Return of the GONG!):
W6DWF
KC0PEI on "IP Telepathy"
Mark Z on a crank-up Pocket Pixie.
Ramakrishnan in Singapore.
Niels PE1OIT on Robert E. Pease.
Jerry NR5A: Cursed with Beacon Madness.
Echolink QSO with Mike, WA6ARA.

Download the SolderSmoke Podcast at
http://www.soldersmoke.com

The I-QRP Club Magazine

The Italian QRP Club (I-QRP) has a very nice quarterly bulletin. They have recently started to present a good portion of the articles in both Italian and English. The May 2008 edition is very FB, with many good articles, including one on impedance matching with broadband transformers.
Thanks to the I-QRP Club for making this available to hams around the world!

Here's the link:

http://www.arimontebelluna.it/i_qrp/bollettino.htm

Beacon Rig I0/N2CQR 28.240 MHz 1 Watt

Just a few shots of my new beacon rig. The first shows the Beacon Box on the shelf above the HW-8, attached to the battery. I've been running the beacon on solar power, using my two Volkswagen panels.

Here's a look under the hood: The larger board is a crystal controlled 1 watt transmitter (Dour DeMaw's ("Lil' Slugger"). The smaller board is K1EL's amazing keyer. I've left space for a 30 meter QRPp QRSS transmitter.

Finally, here is the "Sideswiper" aka "Cootie Keyer" I threw together in order to get my beacon message into the keyer. I discovered that I need a lot of practice on horizontal CW!