brainwagon

This morning I see that Dan, NM5DV has worked out his issues with this Softrock, and is now putting out a nice signal up above WA5DJJ. Yesterday, his signal made it briefly into Belgium alongside WA5DJJ: I’m wondering if anyone has been using Softrocks as beacon transmitters. Down below, you can perhaps see hints of […]

Alan, VK2ZAY apparently has changed his beacon to send MT Hellschrieber, in addition to his FSK CW. If you look carefully, you can see VK2ZAY in letters. Very neat!

After more or less a full day where I made almost ever mistake possible (exaggerating) on gettin my Softrock Lite built (which it is, except for connectors, it’s ready for final testing), I put the grabber back up in receive mode. I didn’t bother to get the WSPR beacon back up for now, but that […]

I’m kind of at a position where I don’t know what to do, and I’m having a feeling that I shouldn’t be working on machinery today (the temporary knack muse has left me). I got the power supply and local oscillator installed, but I’m now at an block: when I powered up my Softrock with […]

Caught W1BW’s flying W twice in a row. You can see WA5DJJ across the top (the new crystal oven seems to work pretty well) and VK6DI across the bottom dimly.

On Saturday, I sent a check off to Tony Parks, KB9YUG on Saturday along with my order for two Softrock Lite II receiver kits: one for 40m, and the other for 30m. I hope eventually to liberate my FT-817 from its current beacon duties on my grabber site and replace it with this simple little […]

Well, overnight, I didn’t get a whole lots of activity. I saw a single brief opening arout 2:15AM local time (10:00 UTC) where I got some very marginal reception from VK2ZAY and VK6DI but that lasted only for about 8 or 10 minutes, then both faded into the background. It’s now around 15:30, and I’m […]

This morning, I saw this on the W8LIW grabber… You can see the usual suspects toward the bottom: the flying W of W1BW, the FSK CW of WA5DJJ, and at the bottom, Vern’s (VE1)VDM. Above and to the right you can see my dim DFCW signal, and higher above the matching WSPR. W8LIW isn’t reporting […]

Without further comment: To their credit (whoever it was) it did not repeat. 🙂

I had been experimenting with using S/MT Hellschreiber as a beacon format. It worked, and I got a few reception reports, but it’s copyability seemed pretty weak. I saw glimpses of it occasionally in the W8LIW and even VK6DI grabber, but it really wasn’t strong enough to call it decodeable. So last night, spurred on […]

Earlier, I noted that W8LIW was getting signals simultaneously from both Europe and Australia, so I was hoping that as the earth spun around, I might get some good DX signals. Thusfar, the only one I’m getting is Vern’s Big Ears beacon from Nova Scotia, right down along the bottom (repeating VDM). Oh, and I’ve […]

Okay, this is getting kind of repetitive, so I’ll try to reduce this to its bare minimum. Got quie a few WSPR spots from VK6DI overnight. Timestamp Call MHz SNR Drift Grid Pwr Reporter RGrid km az  2009-02-22 11:16   K6HX   10.140133   -26   0   CM87ux   2   VK6DI   OF88cd   14725   259   2009-02-22 11:04   K6HX   10.140133   -26   0  […]

I hadn’t checked the totals in a while, so I thought I’d give it a try. I’ve now had WSPR spots from 37 out of the 50 states, and such far away locations as Japan, Australia, New Zealand, a single spot from Belgium, several from Italy, and yes, Wake Island! VK6DI is the most distant […]

Earlier this afternoon, I was getting not only the usual suspects, but also VE1VDM and W1BW. Glad to see the flying W back again… It looks like my rig is tuning a bit high: Vern was supposed to be down around 10.140005, but I have him below 10.140 (the dashed line). I’m probably tuning about […]

That’s Northern Utah. Mark, KU7Z noted lots of activity stateside, and here’s his screengrab: I’m getting into Seattle pretty well all day too. Some odd propagation on 30m today: I saw VK2ZAY on W8LIW’s grabber around 20:00UTC, which I think is too early to be gray line. Still no European spots for me.