Radio Signals from Jupiter and Io on 17 Meters

Jupiter and Io montage captured by the New horizons spacecraft.
The Jupiter image is false-color near IR data obtained with the LEISA instrument, built at GSFC.

I try to always read the QRP-L postings of NA5N -- Paul always has something interesting in his messages. Today I found this:
Jupiter emissions peak around 18-22MHz; they are a function of when the moon Io crosses certain longitudes of the relatively fast spinning Jupiter. There used to be a couple of calculators online (haven't checked lately) as to when the L-bursts should occur. The timing is quite predictable; detecting them on every predicted occurrence is not. You have to have an antenna with a little bit of gain. The signals are generally weaker (that is, near the atmospheric noise level) than can be detected with a dipole. With a fairly decent setup, the Jovian L-bursts sounds like ocean waves crashing on a distant beach, just barely above the noise level. The S-bursts sounds like random pulse type static in short bursts. These are harder to detect than the L-bursts.

I had known about the Jovian radio emissions, but I didn't know that the moon Io was involved. For me, Io's involvement somehow makes this even more interesting. Jupiter and its moons (including Io) are some of the few celestial objects I can regularly see from central Rome.

Here is a good description of Jupiter's radio signals, and Io's role in transmitting them:
http://radiojove.gsfc.nasa.gov/library/sci_briefs/decametric.htm

And here is an interesting article about the discovery (50 years ago) of these signals:
http://radiojove.gsfc.nasa.gov/library/sci_briefs/discovery.html

SolderSmoke Podcast #108

http://www.soldersmoke.com

In SolderSmoke 108:

May 24, 2009
Hubble Space Telescope Repair Mission
WSPR: W3PM sees my sigs, back to visual (briefly), on to Slow Hell.
Ubuntu ham radio software
Time nuts
Jean Shepherd gets his Class A license
"SolderSmoke -- The Book" Good for summer vacation reading.
SPECIAL REPORT FROM DAYTON - FDIM BY BOB W8SX
MAILBAG

CHECK OUT THE BOOK: (First chapter preview available)

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/soldersmoke/6743576



73 from Rome

Tech Details on ET's "Phone Home" Beacon Rig

Mark "MOJ" Johnson, W8MOJ, sent me a really amazing 73 Magazine article. It is from the APRIL 1983 issue. (The month of publication set off my April-fool alert alarm, but this is for real.) When Steven Spielberg was making ET, the producers contacted Bell Labs and asked for help in designing the rig that ET would use to phone home. A ham, Henry Feinberg, K2SSQ, got the job. In the article, Henry wrote: "What Spielberg wanted was a beacon transmitter, something to say, 'Here I am, Come and get me!' I reasoned that three main parts wee needed for a basic beacon: a means of producing a message, a programmer to repeat the message, and a way of transmitting the signal into outer space."

Later, in describing the keying device, Henry wrote: " The surface of the saw blade was coated with several layers of spray paint, which served as insulation, preventing the bobby pins from contacting the metal blade. The message was programmed on the blade by carefully etching through the paint. "

OK, that does it. Time for me to go back to the Trastevere flea market to pick up some more cheap clock drives... and maybe some circular saw blades. I need to get going on my mechanical QRSS one-transistor becaon project.

REAL Hams Make Their Own Crystals....

Bill: You say you buy your crystals from the electronics store? Real homebrewers grind their own crystals. See attachments. Russ

After reading this I was feeling like a complete APPLIANCE OPERATOR. But wait a second Russ -- that's a KIT! Real homebrewers don't need KITS to make their own crystals! And remember, you are talking to a guy who has used iron pyrite and a phosphor bronze to detect radio waves. That means I have homebrewed my own DIODES! ;-)

Thanks for the cool pictures Russ. Those were the days...

Seeing my WSPR signal

Graham, G3ZOD, sent me this WSPR screen-shot. He writes:

Hi Bill. Thought you might be interested in a screen grab of yourself. You're the near continuous signal along the centre of the waterfall just below 200 on the vertical axis.Not DX from Italy to England, but I'm using an indoor wire antenna and I usually receive you for short periods only - never seen such a consistent signal before. By the way: I think your computer clock may be a couple of seconds off according to the DT values; I have mine resync every 6 hours and my clock is generally within 150 milliseconds.
73 de Graham G3ZOD

Thanks Graham! The consistency of my signal is no doubt due to the fact that I have no receive system here yet, so on the WSPR software, in the "T/R Cycle" box I had "TX" checked. So I was "key down" most of the time. Your screen shot made me realize that this might not be the most neighborly thing to do -- someone else on the same freq might be QRMd by my 20 mW DSB sig. So I think I'll ratchet down the T/R cycle here.
My computer clock is erratic. I have to tweak it each day. I know there is a program out there that automates this -- haven't gotten to that yet. 73 From Rome

Shep's Class A License, Part II

I didn't mean to leave you guys in suspense. Here is the exciting conclusion.
EXCELSIOR!

Jean Shepherd Gets His Class A License

I was drifting off into Linux-land, but an e-mail from OM Gene, K8EE, brought me back. I'd thought that we had already unearthed all of the best ham radio episodes of the Jean Shepherd shows. WRONG! K8EE sent me YouTube recordings of the January 7, 1964 show on WOR New York. Gents, all I can say is that you should stop what you are doing, and listen to this. (And don't miss the exciting conclusion in part 2!)

"Mr. Rupp, what do you know about the Mu of an '807?" Indeed.

Ubuntu

As SolderSmoke listeners know, I'm not really a software guy. In fact, I'm only a marginally competent user of software. But I've taken a liking to Ubuntu Linux. It works, it is user friendly, and it seems to have developed a very cool African cultural thing around it. Check out the names of the various versions and you will see what I mean:

4.10 Warty Warthog
5.04 Hoary Hedgehog
5.10 Breezy Badger
6.06 Dapper Drake
6.10 Edgy Eft
7.04 Feisty Fawn
7.10 Gutsy Gibbon
8.04 Hardy Heron
8.10 Intrepid Ibex
9.04 Jaunty Jackalope
9.10 Karmic Koala (NEXT ONE) October 2009

OK, now back to the radios...

KO7M Suddenly Goes Manhattan

Perhaps he picked up the vibrations from Dayton and FDIM where they were conducting a Sudden Receiver build-a-thon... Jeff, KO7M, (aka the lucky guy with the Piper Cub) recently tried out Mahanttan-style construction -- he built an NE602-LM386 Sudden Receiver... and liked it.

Jeff writes:

Believe it or not, I have never built anything Manhattan style… So, I decided to give it a go and built a little 40m DC receiver designed by Rev. George Dobbs G3RJV consisting of a NE612 and LM386. I have included a shot of it below. I was very pleased with this building style and think I may adopt it going forward. In particular I like how easy it is to make changes. I just used tin snips to make the pads. For the 8 pin IC pads, I cut them 2 cm square and used a hacksaw to saw between the IC pins and up the middle to separate the pin pads electrically by removing the copper. Make sense? Very simple to then bend the IC pins 90 degrees and solder them down. Preaching to choir, I know… But it takes some us a little longer to get on board, eh? J I was very pleased with the outcome.

I like Jeff's technique for the IC pads. I will have to try that.

SolderSmoke 108 will feature an interview with George Dobbs in which he talks about the Sudden Build-a-thon.

W3PM Hears the WSPR Rig he Inspired

I got a nice e-mail from Gene, W3PM. Gene's simple homebrew SSB rig for WSPR provided the inspiration that got me into the WSPR mode. We'd been exchanging e-mails a while back, then he mentioned that he would be away... Turns out, he ended up within range of my 20mW WSPR sig. (The picture shows Gene doing some maritime mobile satellite operating from the QEII in 2002.)

Hi Bill, I just wanted to let you know that I hear your 20 mW WSPR signal each morning around 0500 to 0700 UTC. Your signal strength varies between -21 and -26 dBm.

I am currently on vacation in Fettercairn (GM4YRE, IO86ru), Scotland which is located about 30 miles SW of Aberdeen in the northeastern part of Scotland. I have very limited internet access; therefore, I cannot report WSPR spots in real time. My WSPR transmitter is active most days on 30 meters until we leave Scotland... I run one watt to a low doublet antenna.

73/72 Gene W3PM GM4YRE

Atlantis, HST in Front of the Sun

Check out the little black marks in the lower left of old Sol. That's Shuttle Atlantis and the Hubble Space Telescope (you can see it in more detail below). The picture was taken from Florida by Thierry Legault. He calculated when the spacecraft would be aligned with the sun from his Florida location and took the shot. Well done. More innovative astrophotography at his site: http://www.astrophoto.fr/ Note: Too bad we don't see any REAL sunspots!

Scary Stuck Bolt on Hubble Space Telescope

They had a scary moment during yesterday's space walk. They were trying to get the old camera out. One of the bolts wouldn't turn. It has been in space for 16 years They kept adding more torque, and they knew they were approaching the point at which the bolt would break, preventing -- forever -- the replacement of the camera. In what looked like their last attempt, the got it turning. Bravo! The live coverage via NASA's online TV is really superb. They are using helmet-cams, and you get to see just what they see.

NASA put together a video on the personal stories of the crew members. I think it is a good thing to show kids (Billy has already seen it, Maria is next):

Fixing the Hubble Space Telescope

Gentlemen, NASA TV is the place to be this week. They have the Hubble Space Telescope in the payload bay of the Shuttle and soon they will be going outside to do the kinds of repairs that Knack victms can relate to. (Update: I'm watching a space walk live through the helmet-cam of Astronaut Grunsfeld. They are now lubricating some bolts on the doors of the telescope.)

Here is the NASA description of the repairs.

Two of Hubble's instruments are in need of repair. ACS, which partially stopped working in 2007 due to an electrical short, is the "workhorse camera" responsible for some of Hubble's most spectacular images. STIS is a spectrograph that sees ultraviolet, visible and near-infrared light, and is known for its ability to hunt black holes. While COS works best with small sources of light, such as stars or quasars, STIS can map out larger objects like galaxies. STIS suffered a power failure in 2004 and was put into hibernation to preserve the possibility of its repair.

Astronauts plan to fix both – a challenging prospect since these repairs are beyond the scope of Hubble’s serviceable design. Hubble’s creators envisioned astronauts swapping out components, not performing delicate surgeries during spacewalks.

An interior electronics box of ACS that supplies power for ACS detectors, contains equipment affected by an electrical short. However, its location makes it inaccessible to astronauts. So instead of trying to reach the problem area, astronauts will attempt to bypass those power-shorted components entirely.

The failed power supply is connected by cables to a series of electronics boards, which are within reach but have no power because of the damaged box. Astronauts will install a new power supply to a handrail on the ACS outer enclosure, remove the electronics boards and install different ones that are compatible with the new power supply, and connect them to the new supply with exterior cables. The arrangement simply cuts the damaged box out of the equation.

Innovative tools for the repairs are designed and developed by Goddard engineers and tested by the astronauts for refinements. STIS needs a new power supply circuit board. The repair would be relatively easy but for the electronics access panel, which was never meant to be opened and is attached to STIS by 111 small screws. The screws are hard to grasp with the astronauts' gloved hands, and could create problems if they were to escape and float around the electronics. So engineers have created a "fastener capture plate" that fits over the top of the panel. When the astronauts remove the screws, they will be trapped in the plate. Astronauts will then switch out the power supply circuit board and close off the open electronics with a new, simpler panel that attaches easily with two levers.

3 Kids, 3 Cesium Clocks, Mt. Rainier, Time Dilation

He may not know it, but this dude has a bad case of The Knack. From his web sites:

In September 2005 the kids and I took several very accurate cesium atomic clocks from home and parked 5400 feet up Mt Rainier (the volcano near Seattle) for a full two days. The goal was to see if the clocks actually gained time, even if billionths of a second, as predicted by Einstein's general theory of relativity. Does gravity really alter time and can this weird phenomenon be detected with a family road trip experiment?

Ten years ago I wanted to build a LED digital analog clock that would be accurate to better than one second per year -- so I would have the fun of adjusting it when a leap second occurred. This simple goal resulted in a most interesting journey into electronics, horology, astronomy, test equipment, quartz oscillators, rubidium and cesium atomic clocks, hydrogen masers, frequency counters and phase comparators, GPS, Loran C, GOES, and WWV / WWVB radio receivers. That makes me one of the Time-Nuts. By now I've exceeded that goal by a factor of a million: the best clocks in my collection (active hydrogen masers) are accurate to better than one microsecond per year. Excluding national government laboratories, my home time lab now has the most accurate clock in the world.

For info on the Rainier Time Dilation Road Trip: http://www.leapsecond.com/great2005/tour/
For a more general discussion of this madness: http://www.leapsecond.com/

Hey, but who are we to talk, right?

SolderSmoke Podcast #107

http://www.soldersmoke.com

On SolderSmoke 107:

SolderSmoke -- The Book!  ON SALE NOW!
Get it here: SolderSmoke: A Global Adventure in Radio Electronics

Orbits II reborn via a VK6 junkbox
NA5N's Amazing Atlanticon 2002 article
WSPR madness:
20 mw across the Atlantic.
K1JT picks up my sigs
WSPR generates interest on Hack-A-Day
Linux: Ubuntu gets SolderSmoke Thumbs-up
Somerset Supper Report
Diode Ring Mixers
Solar conditions
AA1TJ, Chloroform, and HB transistors
ET's rig
Have fun at FDIM!
MAILBAG

SolderSmoke -- The Book! On Sale Now!

SolderSmoke is the story of a secret, after-hours life in
electronics. Bill Meara started out as a normal kid, from a normal
American town. But around the age of 12, he got interested in
electronics, and he has never been the same.
To make matters worse, when he got older he became a diplomat. His
work has taken him to Panama, Honduras, El Salvador, the Spanish Basque
Country, the Dominican Republic, the Azores islands of Portugal,
London, and, most recently, Rome. In almost all of these places his
addiction to electronics caused him to seek out like-minded radio
fiends, to stay up late into the night working on strange projects, and
to build embarrassingly large antennas above innocent foreign
neighborhoods. SolderSmoke takes you into the basement workshops and
electronics parts stores of these exotic foreign places, and lets you
experience the life of an expatriate geek. If you are looking for
restaurant or hotel recommendations, look elsewhere. But if you need to
know where to get an RF choke re-wound in Santo Domingo, SolderSmoke is the book for you.
SolderSmoke is no ordinary memoir. It is a technical memoir. Each
chapter contains descriptions of Bill’s struggles to understand (really
understand) radio-electronic theory. Why does P=IE? Do holes really
flow through transistors? What is a radio wave? How does a frequency
mixer produce sum and difference frequencies? If these are the kinds
of questions that keep you up at night, this book is for you.
Finally, SolderSmoke is about brotherhood. International,
cross-border brotherhood. Through the SolderSmoke podcast we have
discovered that all around the world, in countries as different as
Sudan and Switzerland, there are geeks just like us, guys with
essentially the same story, guys who got interested in radio and
electronics as teenagers, and who have stuck with it ever since. Our
technical addiction gives us something in common, something that
transcends national differences. And our electronics gives us the means
to communicate. United by a common interest in radio, and drawn closer
together by means of the internet, we form an “International
Brotherhood of Electronic Wizards.”

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/soldersmoke/6743576

Homebrew Transistors? Careful with the Chloroform!

I suppose it was inevitable. After years of pushing the envelope with the tunnel diode, it seems like Michael, AA1TJ, is moving toward homebrewing his own transistors. Michael writes:

Hey, I found a Yahoo Group of kindred spirits late last night, 2N1150_Down; where the interest is centered on early Germanium semiconductor devices. I downloaded a book from their files that, until now, I'd only heard about. Practical Transistors and Transistor Circuits, by J.S. Kendall, first appeared in the U.K. in 1954. Believe it or not, the subject of the book is how to make the "practical" transistors referred to in his title! Of course, these are point-contact devices built from a pair of cat's whiskers on a slab of "P-type" Germanium salvaged from diodes. I especially like where he writes, "Great care should be exercised owning to the anesthetic properties of the chloroform vapour...the constructor may not be aware of the danger until he is almost on the point of collapse." Oh brother!

Better yet, I found an article in the group's files taken from the March and April, 1954 issues of The Short Wave Magazine, by G3HMO. This fellow not only made his own transistor, he used it to build a one-transistor, 160m, transmitter and then went on to make contacts with it up to a distance of 30miles! He writes, "There is nothing impractical about making a point-contact transistor at home." Oh baby, crack me open a bottle of chloroform and let's get to it!

The photo above is, of course, the original point contact transistor from 1947. It looks do-able.
In searching for the picture I came across this interesting article from the author of the wonderful book on this subject "Crystal Fire" : "How Europe missed the Transistor"

Big Solar Flare -- End to the Minimum?

From a WIRED article today: "Solar flares rise and fall on an 11-year cycle, and last year marked what scientists thought was the solar minimum. But through the beginning of 2009, the sun stayed unusually quiet. That changed yesterday, when a major sunspot appeared on the backside of the sun, where it was captured by NASA’s STEREO instrument."

The NASA stereo images were nice, but the amazing picture above was taken from a backyard in Buffalo, New York by solar photographer Alan Friedman.

It seems like the effects of this new prominence will be felt here on earth on May 8. Woo Hooo! Maybe my WSPR signal will cross new oceans!

Inside a Mini-Circuits Mixer, and the Dissing of DSB

I'm not crazy about using integrated circuits, especially the really complex ones for which true understanding of how they work is impossible. The Mini-Circuits mixers are not, of course ICs, but for me they too have always had a whiff of the "black-box" about them. Thomas, OZ2CPU, pulls away the veil with this photo of the innards of an SBL-1.

I came across Thomas's very interesting web site when I was installing in my QRSS beacon rig the SBL-1 mixer sent to me by Jim, AL7RV. That poor SBL had died suddenly during testing. Thomas alerted me to the cause of death: In his caption for the picture of the innards, he notes, "I was unlucky to kill this one during my first transmit experiment. The IF input can NOT accept more than +20dBm audio level."

Joop and I have been discussing diode ring mixers, and I've been reading an article about them by Paul, NA5N. It looks to me like the designers of the SBL mixers weren't really thinking of balanced modulators when they created these things. Just look at the schematic above. In a normal receiver application, LO energy goes in from the L port, your RF goes in R, and your IF (or, in a DC receiver, your AF) comes out from the I port. But when we use these things as balanced modulators, we have to put the Audio INTO the I port. You can see how too much voltage on that port would quickly release the smoke from those little hot-carrier diodes.

The data sheets are oriented to the standard application (RF into R, LO into L, IF output at I). We are told to keep the LO level at +7dBm and that the 1 db compression point for the RF input is +1dBm. But at what level should you put the AF input to the I port if you are using this thing as a balanced modulator in a weird WSPR DSB rig? Similarly, the data sheets give SWR data across a wide frequency range for the L and R ports... but not for the I port. DSB is getting dissed!

K1JT Spots My DSB QRPp WSPR Signal

2009-05-03 16:42	N2CQR		-29					K1JT		7035	4371
2009-05-03 16:38	N2CQR		-24					K1JT		7035	4371

I got into WSPR because I wanted the gratification that comes from seeing a map readout indicating that my QRP signal has crossed various oceans. Well, yesterday I crossed the pond for a second time, but this time the receiving station heard the signal more than once, so the rx station callsign appeared on the display (if the signal is heard only once, you get the line showing the path, but NOT the rx station call). And what a fine callsign it was: K1JT, Joe Taylor, Nobel Prize winner and the inventor of WSPR.

In the last SolderSmoke I got Joe's name wrong (I called him John). It must have been too early in the morning here. Anyway, I was gently corrected by Wes, W7ZOI, and I promissed to make ammends. Sorry Joe! (Thanks Wes).

The Dover Construction Club

Last night there was a meeting of the Dover Construction Club (discussed by Nigel, M0NDE, in Solder Smoke #194). For the first time, the members agreed to be photographed.

Above, in the foreground, Merv checks the main board of his softrock, Ian explains to Paul how a mod to an old FT101ZD will work, and Nigel is seen using the microscope and observe to Merv he has not soldered all the IC legs down on a SMD board. He says he knows. grin!!

Ian Keyser, G3ROO, host of Dover Construction Club. At his bench in a separate part of the workshop where he has test equipment to diagnose the inevitable faults. Here he is working on the RAMU featured in a past edition of Sprat.

In a corner of the garden a brick arch leads to the workshop door, behind the brown door hides the secret world of the amateur radio constructor. Obviously, this is something of a clandestine operation.

Tony, sitting at the other end of Ian's test area, taking down some CW.

In this workshop club members have bandsaw, milling machine, lathe, and pillar drill.

Wow! That's the kind of club that we'd all like to be part of -- Nigel's comments on SS 104 generated a lot of envious e-mail . Thanks a lot guys!

WSPRing Across the Mighty Atlantic

You have to look carefully, but in the picture above you can see a little green line stretching from Rome to Maine. That's my 20 milliwatt WSPR signal crossing the Atlantic. W1CDO's receiver picked me up at 0452 UTC yesterday.

Date	Call		SNR				W	by	loc	km	mi
2009-04-29 4:52	N2CQR		-22				0.020	W1CDO	FN43ou	6541	4064

The day/night terminator was in the mid-Atlantic at that time, so I think I had a bit of a tailwind from the gray line! But still, not bad for 20 mw in Maunder Minimum II. K1JT's software and W1CDO's receive system did the heavy lifting. Antenna here is just an end-fed wire among the buildings of central Rome.

Goats Go QRP to the Field!

Another great video from Steve and the goats.

The Flea at MIT

Nick LaPointe sent along this nice virtual tour of the famous flea market (it includes four videos):
http://eepromeagle.dyndns.org/Pick/gallery/v/mitswapfest090419/

Nick also points us to the very interesting web site of Stephanie Maksylewich (VA3UXB): http://planetstephanie.net/

Thanks Nick!

SolderSmoke 106 Podcast

http://www.soldersmoke.com

In SolderSmoke 106:

Sicily, Mt. Etna, The Godfather
DSB success on WSPR
Am I the lowest power WSPR station in the world?
Diode Ring Mixers
SolderSmoke: The Book
SolderSmoke: The Cologne?
And now, a word from our sponsor: Genesis Radio
MAILBAG

Our first sponsor: GenesisRadio

SolderSmoke is very pleased to have GenesisRadio of Australia as our first sponsor. Check out their site: http://www.genesisradio.com.au/G40/index.html

My very ugly DSB QRPP WSPR Rig

As described in SolderSmoke 106. My beacon box is the vertical aluminum box. The junk box AF Amp lies on the shelf. Like they used to say, "It's ugly, but it gets you there."

Eldon's awesome 9V QRSS rig

Amazing! That's the whole rig, keyer chip included! And those red wires you see coming off the end -- that's the loop antenna. Here is Eldon's description of this rig:

For now, even thou it worked, I have abandoned the Water Tank QRSS Encoder, for a more traditional ID Keyer (K-ID2), and I have been busy rebuilding my 9 Volt Battery QRSS transmitter.

For my first approach, I wanted to use the Manhattan style of construction using mostly SMDs. The Oscillator was very successful even thou there were NO actual Manhattan Islands use, the components are just tacked-soldered together - I guess it would have to be called the "Ugly SMD Style".

Photos of Rev-0 are available on my web site;
http://qrss.ebcon.com/WA0UtWH/Gallery/Qx/

Setting the frequency was tough, as the some initial installed component's had to be replaced to get it to oscillate and adjustable within the 100Hz QRSS band. The "Ugly SMD Style" of construction is possible, but circuit changes are difficult. I decided to etch a HB circuit board to provide for a more physically stable "component selection breadboard", where SMDs part values could be easily tried, by just pressing them down in place (which BTW works very well). I then decided to expand the etched board to include space for the K-ID2 Keyer - with the goal of direct QRSS modulation with very few additional components.

This all worked so well, that I constructed another for a final form. Note: the second transistor in the photos is a 78L05 voltage regulator, which is used to help with long term oscillator stabilization, and used to reduce the power requirement and provide battery longevity.

The final QRSS Beacon uses a SMD 2N3904 for the oscillator and is now transmitting 1.5mW into a 18 inch loop antenna, currently only my grabber shows the results. But - My plan is to build this Beacon into the center insulator of a 30m Dipole and then start looking for QRSS Grabber DX. The battery should last several days at this very low power.

My goal is: to achieve long distance, with a very physically-small transmitter, small part count, and with extremely low power.

It will take me several days to construct and install the dipole antenna, until then you can see this Beacon sending "WA0UWH" on the Seattle Grabber:

http://qrss.ebcon.com/WA0UtWH/grabber/

73's - Eldon - WA0UWH

On to the Canary Islands

Got up this morning, walked into the shack and saw on my computer screen a thin green line from Rome to the Canary Islands. I knew that my little WSPR station had reached out to new territory, and had established a new distance record (for me). Life is good!
As I've been doing, I decided to see who was at the other end of that line. It was Luis, EA8AY (pictured above). Luis's station picked up my 18 milliwatt signal at 2106 UTC on April 24. The distance was 1871 miles (3011 kilometers). I was 23 db below the noise.
Luis has a very nice web page: http://www.ea8ay.com/index.html (Warning: This site will likely cause feelings of extreme jealousy: Luis is living in a fantastic location, with a beautiful family AND he is the owner of an Argonaut 509!)
On his site, Luis has a nice video that will give you a sense of what WSPR is like:


wspr with 100 mw from luis on Vimeo.

Crossing a small bit of the pond...

I got into WSPR because I wanted to one day walk into my shack and be greeted by a Google map with big long lines showing my milliwatt signal stretching bravely across various oceans. That hasn't really happened yet, but I got a taste of it this morning courtesy of OY3JE's WSPR station. Jan lives in the Faroe islands, about 1600 miles from me. Last night at around 2300 UTC my 18 mw WSPR signal made it to Jan's location. I was 29 db below the noise. Thanks Jan!
(The images above and below are of Jan's locations in the Faroe islands (from his site).

WSPRing along at 27 db below the noise....

WSPR is fun. I haven't crossed any ponds yet, but the real- time displays of the reception reports are very addictive:
http://wsprnet.org/drupal/wsprnet/spots
Be sure to click on the map display also.

I was intrigued by the Signal to Noise ratio column, and wondered what the reference bandwidth for the noise was. K1JT's pages show the reference bandwidth is 2500 Hz, and that WSPR can decode signals that are as much as 27 db below that noise.

That's great. I guess I don't have to worry about the lower sideband of my 30 mw signal causing anyone any trouble. It will be very far down in the noise.

Are Diode Ring Mixers Fundamentally Different?

Joop, PE1CQP, and I have been discussing mixer circuits, especially the ever-popular diode ring.
Here is my latest e-mail to Joop. The RSGB diagram for the ring diode mixer appears above.

Joop: I think the way the diode ring mixer works is very different from the way a two diode singly balanced mixer functions. The effect, of course, is the same. But the polarity reversing element introduced by the ring configuration -- it seems to me -- makes this a very different circuit.

Attached is the RSGB Handbook diagram I mentioned. I like it, because you can really SEE how the actions of the diode ring produce the sum and difference freqs (you have to keep Fourier in mind, and imagine the results of filtering).

The two diode circuit simply "chops" the input signal at the rate of the LO. And it would even work in a non-switching mode -- you could, for example, use FETs instead of the diodes and bias them to operate in the non-linear portion of their curves, right? This makes me think that the diode ring mixer circuits (aka "polarity switching mixers" or "commutating mixers") are very different.

73 Bill

Balloon! Project Blue Horizon Reaches Mid-Atlantic

Wow, that's an exciting track. The intrepid radio amateurs at Cornell University have a balloon up over the mid-Atlantic. It is approaching my old stomping grounds in the Azores. Beacons are onboard and reports are requested. Here are some more details:

Balloon Launch - Assist in Tracking

The NS3 group of Cornell University engineering graduate students will launch PBH-9 (Project Blue Horizon) from Lockheed Martin in Owego NY on Sunday evening, 19 Apr 09, at approximately 21:00 EDT (Monday, 20 Apr 09, 01:00UT)

This ARHAB flight (Amateur Radio High Altitude Ballooning) will ascend and then float for up to 50-hours while drifting to the east.

The payload will include a KC2TUA-8 144.390 APRS beacon
(track via (http://findu.com/cgi-bin/find.cgi?call=KC2TUA-8)
and HF CW position report and telemetry downlinks on 7.104MHz and 10.148MHz.

The NS3 PBH-9 team requests distant ground stations receive and report HF telemetry via N2XE@arrl.net including reception UT date and time.

Distant receiving stations are welcome to also submit HF
reception reports to W0RPK@amsat.org for the ARHAB <50mhz href="http://showcase.netins.net/web/wallio/ARHABrecords.htm" target="_blank">http://showcase.netins.net/web/wallio/ARHABrecords.htm.

Additional PBH-9 information including HF telemetry transmit schedule and format is available via
http://showcase.netins.net/web/wallio/ARHABlaunchannouncements.htm.

Flight updates are available from the NS3 PBH-9 team
via http://twitter.com/pbh3.

WSPR Double Sideband Success!

Oh, how sweet it is. Today I finally got my WSPR station working. Before departing for Sicily, I installed a diode ring mixer (supplied by Jim, AL7RV) between my MEPT oscillator and my two stage 50 mw power amplifier. I thought I might have enough audio coming out of my sound card to modulate the transmitter, but I soon found out that I needed more AF. Lazy after a week on the road in sunny and snowy Sicily, I reached into the junkbox and pulled out the guts of an old computer speaker amplifier. Some really ugly jerry-rigging ensued. The amp is now sitting near the TX, powered by its own 9V battery. Looks like I'm getting about 25 mw out, but that's from both sidebands. So I'm guessing I'm at around 10 mw.

Following guidance from Gene, W3PM (whose FB SSB rig inspired this effort), I set my oscillator at 10138700. That puts the upper sideband in the middle of the WSPR band.

Here's my first set of reports:

								Reported		Distance
Date	Call		SNR					by		km	mi
2009-04-19 18:32	N2CQR		-18					DL0TUH		1353	841
2009-04-19 18:32	N2CQR		-24					PA1GSJ		1343	835
2009-04-19 18:30	N2CQR		-19					DL0TUH		1353	841
2009-04-19 18:26	N2CQR		-22					DL0ODX		977	607
2009-04-19 18:26	N2CQR		-30					G8BKE		1519	944
2009-04-19 18:26	N2CQR		-26					PA1GSJ		1343	835
2009-04-19 18:24	N2CQR		-23					PA1GSJ		1343	835
2009-04-19 14:24	N2CQR		-22					M0WQR		1601	995

Hey, is this a first? Has anyone else run WSPR DSB?

Sicily, Mt. Etna... and The Godfather

Here's some Italy travelogue, well, actually Sicily travelogue. Above, our two heroes are seen with the Etna volcano in the background. Etna is Europe's largest active volcano. It was spitting out lava while we were there. The top is currently at about 10,800 feet (3300 meters). (It varies!) We went up to the 8200 feet (2480 meters) level (via cable car). Here is what it looked like from there:
It was COLD up there. We didn't stay long. Within 90 minutes of this picture being taken, the kids were back at sea level, and in the pool at 80F.

Here is a GoogleEarth View. The yellow marker shows the place at which we took the picture of us in the snow. (The Google shots were from May/June 2006).


Those of you who are fans of The Godfather movie will remember this scene:
Well, here we are, in the same place (but without the shotguns):

Francis Ford Coppola filmed most of the Sicilian scenes not in Western Sicily (where the village of Corleone really is) but in the East, near the beach resort of Taormina, in the village of Savoca. The Bar Vitelli is where Michael Corleone met Apollonia's father. Savoca also has the church where Michael and Apollonia began their brief and unfortunately explosive marriage.

We really liked Sicily. It is a beautiful place, rich in history, and with really nice people.

In Sicily

No posts to blog this week -- we are in Sicily, near the Etna volcano.
Beautiful place. Will talk about this in next podcast. 73

SolderSmoke Podcast #105

On #105: 

http://www.soldersmoke.com

Italy Earthquake
WSPR DSB, WSPR MP3
SBL-1 Blues
Clockwork minimalism
QST articles (design, HBR RX)
Marconi
Spring SPRAT
Blog stuff
ECHO-QSO with Mike, WA6ARA
MAILBAG

Happy Easter! 

Parachutes and QRSS

Kevin, AA7YQ, has made innovative use of a parachute. You are right Kevin, this must be a first:

Howdy Bill, It’s Kevin here in Montana, the ex-Smokejumper. I’ve been meaning to write again. Thanks for the nice comment on SS #100 I got a kick out of it. Anyhow, just thought I’d drop you a note to let you know I finally had a weekend to design and build up a QRSS beacon. I used a Cypress PSoC CY24123A uC to function as the Crystal Oscillator, and keyer. The final is two paralleled BS-170 MOSFETs running in Class-E mode to give me about 560mW out with a 7.5volt Lantern battery as my supply, total system power efficiency is about 63%(RFout over DC in), I’m sure this could be significantly improved, but good enough for now. After several hours of tweaking the capacitor values I finally got the oscillator to fall into the 100Hz window. That was MUCH harder than I had anticipated. With the original version I switched the PA on and off for true QRSS 3 CW, but found this made a significant frequency drift problem. So I added a couple parts and modified the PSoC code a bit, now its running CWFSK, switching about 1.1pF on and off one leg of the XTAL, shifting the frequency about 10Hz and much more stable.

My first tests were with the board sitting on the bench under the desk lamp. This caused all kinds of drift problems. I then put the beacon in a Tupperware container and placed it inside a soft case cooler. I was looking around the shack for a blanket or something to further improve the insulation, when low and behold sitting in a garbage sack… was a condemned FS-14 parachute (equivalent to the SF-10A) that I was planning using for something useful. So I wrapped the chute around the cooler and stuffed it all back in the garbage sack. Surprisingly, temperature stabilization was achieved, beyond my expectations.

The beacon is running good now, nice and stable. I’m fairly certain, that in the history of mankind, no one has ever used a parachute to improve the temperature drift characteristics of a QRSS beacon. Anyhow, I plan on having it fired up quite a bit, so that my antenna is actually put to some good use. It seems I rarely get a chance for one to one contacts anymore. Most of my free time is spent designing and building the radios I never use. Ha. I guess the design and building is the real fun for me.

Anyhow, I’ll talk to you later. 73s Kevin, AA7YQ

PS the Beacon is sending “AA7YQ” followed by a several second pause. It’s showing up on the K6HX grabber between 10.140050 and 10.140060.

2N35s, 1955... and some inspiration from AA1TJ

From Michael, AA1TJ:

Bill, I was re-reading Ade, W0RSP's "History of QRP" last night; especially that last chapter on transistor rigs. It dawned on me that the two 2N35 transistors that I'm presently using in my 40m transmitter were built two months before Bob, W7UUZ's famous, maiden transistor QRP contacts in August of 1955. While we can't go back and beat Lindbergh's first solo crossing of the Atlantic, for example, a fellow could re-live some of the excitement by building a replica of The Spirit of St. Louis and taking it up for a spin. If anything, it gives one a better appreciation of the hurdles those early trailblazers had to leap.

That's Michael's 2N35 rig pictured above. For more details see:
http://mjrainey.googlepages.com/80mqrptransmitter;circa1955

Michael also put a really great message on QRP-L earlier this week. I hope he reprints that on his blog.

SolderSmoke: On Sale on Thai Beaches!

An interesting e-mail from Thailand arrived this week. Excerpts:

Hi Bill Now for the full story

Life was so uncomplicated and peaceful before soldersmoke!

Last October I was lying on the beach in Pattaya City Thailand. I was just lying there enjoying a cold rice beer watching the various peddlers trudging along the sand. I wasn't bothering anyone and thought I was enjoying my retired life style. (Little did I know what was about to happen). Casually the wife reminded me there was a Ham club meeting in about three hours, I should hold off on another beer. Ok, I'll manage till later.

Pattaya Thailand has a great little Ham Radio club with locals from all parts of the world enjoying the one universal hobby without boundaries.

We showed up at the meeting on time and found a nice corner table. ( now the plug for the club - the meetings are the Friday after the first Sunday of every month and are held at Jimbos Bar). After about an half a beer a friend from England wandered over and sat next to me. He produced a CD from his pocket and said is was SolderSmoke, would I like to buy a copy for 100Baht. (approx. 3.00US) . As with most normal people, my first question was, what is soldersmoke? This was my first big mistake. I should have said not interested and looked for other friends that were arriving. But, no, I had to ask what was SolderSmoke.

My friend tried to explain, but feel short of being able to fully relay the meaning of the word SolderSmoke. If I remember correctly there were episodes 1 thru 80 something. I took the CD back to my house. and the next day spent over 5 hours glued to the CD player. My world was beginning to crumble.

I listened to more episodes. and started to think in terms of QRSS, QRPp, long wires etc. This new terminology was fascinating. I grew up in Idaho and was first licensed in 1963. I still have my first rigs that consisted of a Hammarlund HQ-100 and a Knight Kit T-60. I apparently had the knack at age 13 or so, but didn't know what it was called then. hi hi

In a couple of SolderSmoke episodes there was mention of a Drake 2B, a great receiver in all respects. I found myself wanting one (I sure didn't need one), and looking every where. I bought one in great condition with the original for sale tag still on it. It even had the crystal calibrator installed.

Now my vocabulary has expanded to whisperers, grabbers, mickums, reggies, knights of the realm and other terms before unknown to my vocabulary. Fessenden was a terrific individual although I'd never heard the name before episode 90 something. I started to build a QRSS beacon. I am in constant contact with Michael Rainey , AA1TJ. He is a great guy and has helped with a lot of questions.

For the first time in several years I am involved with something I enjoy. This is really fun I said to myself after fabricating a one transistor transmitter patterned after the discontinued ONER. 0-Yes let's not forget Mr. Doug Demaw, I bought the QRP notebook and Solid State Design (I didn't tell the XYL how much this book cost).

I've always been taught that addictions are bad things. I am in serious trouble now. I am thoroughly and completely addicted to SolderSmoke. I get impatient and unpredictable when the podcasts are a little late being posted on the internet. It's just like getting your fix for the week. Yes, fix for the week because it doesn't last the full two weeks. hi hi

I guess this is a non e-cursing thank you kind of Email. SolderSmoke has ruined my life, but my new life is much better with it.

Hope this epistle hasn't bored you to much. Your providing a great focal point for fellow knack victims.

Only thing left to say Bill, is KEEP ON SMOKIN!


Thanks for SolderSmoke

73 de
Stephen (Himself) (seems like everyone has a nickname)
HS0ZHB / NM7J

More Seismic Action

Two more fairly strong jolts today, both from the same region NE of here. The 4.9 was very noticeable at 11:25 am local time, and the 5.6 really shook the apartment at 19:47 local.
The USGS site is really very useful and up-to-date. Lots of data. For example, we learned that the compression wave from the 5.6 jolt took about 15 seconds to reach Rome. The people up in Abruzzo are really suffering and each one of these aftershocks makes things worse for them.

	MAG	UTC DATE-TIME y/m/d h:m:s	LAT deg	LON deg	DEPTH km	Region
MAP	5.6	2009/04/07 17:47:38	42.349	13.405	13.1	CENTRAL ITALY
MAP	4.5	2009/04/07 17:32:53	32.984	47.833	10.0	IRAN-IRAQ BORDER REGION
MAP	5.0	2009/04/07 15:18:41	37.620	-17.441	8.3	AZORES-CAPE ST. VINCENT RIDGE
MAP	4.7	2009/04/07 14:50:02	46.099	151.609	58.1	KURIL ISLANDS
MAP	2.9	2009/04/07 14:46:42	33.883	-116.872	14.4	SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
MAP	4.5	2009/04/07 14:20:10	-7.970	122.916	236.7	FLORES SEA
MAP	5.1	2009/04/07 13:29:48	-6.976	129.425	69.7	BANDA SEA
MAP	2.9	2009/04/07 13:10:43	19.256	-65.076	63.6	VIRGIN ISLANDS REGION
MAP	2.9	2009/04/07 10:08:55	32.209	-116.626	0.0	BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO
MAP	4.9	2009/04/07 09:26:31	42.336	13.360	10.0	CENTRAL ITALY

Earthquake Hits Central Italy

A 6.3 earthquake woke us up last night. Rome was shaking quite a bit. Looks like the epicenter was up in Abruzzo, near L'Aquila. News reports indicate that buildings have collapsed and people have been killed up there.

Deep Solar Minimum

Farhan alerted us to this. From the NASA website:

April 1, 2009: The sunspot cycle is behaving a little like the stock market. Just when you think it has hit bottom, it goes even lower.
2008 was a bear. There were no sunspots observed on 266 of the year's 366 days (73%). To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go all the way back to 1913, which had 311 spotless days: plot. Prompted by these numbers, some observers suggested that the solar cycle had hit bottom in 2008.
Maybe not. Sunspot counts for 2009 have dropped even lower. As of March 31st, there were no sunspots on 78 of the year's 90 days (87%).
It adds up to one inescapable conclusion: "We're experiencing a very deep solar minimum," says solar physicist Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center.
"This is the quietest sun we've seen in almost a century," agrees sunspot expert David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center.
For the rest of the article:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum.htm?list830785