Friday, June 22, 2012

VOAProp - updated solar data


The source for the solor data has changed.    See the full story at:

  http://blog.g4ilo.com/2011/12/voaprop-and-wwv.html

The summary and magic URL is:

What you need to do is: 
  • In VOAProp, click the Solar Data button to open the window that displays the WWV file.
  • In the Data URL field, enter the address of the replacement file which is:  http://ok1dub.cz/wwv/wwv.txt .

Digital Operations on Field Day


APRS -


Every FD site will usually have APRS on line.  Remember, you can contact any other FD site in the world on your APRS channel. (144.39 in North America).

Just send them an APRS text message.

Of course, this assumes you know their callsign.  To facilitate learning who else is on the air, send a CQ FD message to the APRS CQSERVER and your CQ will go to every other CQ FD site on the planet.  This has nothing to do with FD rules and points.  It is just a way to have fun and be able to contact any FD site without knowing apriori their calling freq.

Just send an APRS message to CQSRVR and make the first two words of the message be CQ FD .... for example, "CQ FD from Bob in Annapolis, MD".  These do not count for points, but are a great way to have ham radio fun with other sites.

This will log you onto the CQ FD message group and from then on, you will get ALL OTHER such messages from all other such stations.  When you DO see an incoming CQ FD message, now then you know their callsign and can MESSAGE THEM DIRECTLY from then on.

To keep the load down, you can only send one CQ FD message once every 30 minutes, but you will remain logged on for up to 12 hours.  After no activity, you will be dropped.

Oh, for more info about APRS and Field Day, see http://aprs.org/cqsrvr.html

Bob, WB4APR


JT65-HF -


While this will require manually entering callsigns, it should work -- really same format as a RTTY contest qso. All free-text except the initial search/pounce call.  Note that don't need 2-way grid exchange, or RRR or 73's ...  the FD info is the non-callsign info being exchanged ... and going to next step implicitly R's the previous.

CQ FD KJ4IZW
  KJ4IZW KB3EAW EM00  (structured)
KB3EAW 3A WNY
  KJ4IZW 1H EPA
TU KJ4IZW FD
  KJ4IZW W1LIC FM00   # flows to next caller
...

Also, doesn't require any custom initial reply to the CQ ... and hopefully they mimic the FD report format ...

I'll be operating as K4NAB club call, running the digital station .. PSK31 & RTTY, but would like to proof-of-concept JT65 too.

--david
KJ4IZW

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

On The Air with HF Soundcard Digital


Update 6/12/12 - After running WSPR for a couple days I'm moving on to packet and APRS-Messenger.  The UZ7HO soundcard modem is receiving well and it looks like transmitting is working.   I have to tweak the configuration of the BPQ32 switch to use a realistic delay between connect attempts.   Then I can try a VIA connection to see if the nodes I'm hearing are hearing me.   Updating BPQ32 to the latest version will give me APRS and Unconnected Packets.   That will come after getting APRS-Messenger running and testing it out for a few days on the 30 meter APRS frequency.

Note to self - I still have to figure out why my WSPR display is showing from 0 to 200 Hz instead of 100 Hz to 300 Hz.  It appears I'm missing all the stations in that upper half of the band segment.

Cool discovery - the 2.0 WSPR User Guide document has some screen shots of the program being used.  Timing was good and I was on the air at the right time to show up on Joe's screen for the Additional Details section.

-----

It's so cool to FINALLY have a a solid HF to Computer Soundcard interface working...

Last weekend, at SeaPac, I picked up a West Mountain Rigblaster Advantage from their booth manned by Sholto.    Soundcard, PTT, Computer Rig control and more - all running in one little box with one USB cable to the computer..   Nifty...

After a bit of cable juggling and installing drivers (after all this is LinuxXXXXVista...)  I put it on the WSPR channel on 20 meters and gave it a "Transmit Now" kick.   2 minutes and some seconds later I went to the WSPRnet database and did a query on who have heard me.   I thought there might be one or two...


     Timestamp         Call                 MHz              SNR Drift Grid         Pwr Reporter RGrid km az
 2012-06-10 17:44 WA7NWP 14.097033 -12 0 CN87wq 10 K7UEB/20 DN06tb 337 121
 2012-06-10 17:44 WA7NWP 14.097052 -19 0 CN87wq 10 KK7KZ DN30xm 1131 131
 2012-06-10 17:44 WA7NWP 14.097027 -25 0 CN87wq 10 W7QL DN40bo 1134 130
 2012-06-10 17:44 WA7NWP 14.097043 -19 1 CN87wq 10 W7YLQ CN85mq 231 196
 2012-06-10 17:44 WA7NWP 14.097027 -8 0 CN87wq 10 KL1X BP51ip 2306 322
 2012-06-10 17:44 WA7NWP 14.097027 -20 0 CN87wq 10 K4COD EM73sc 3532 103


I'll have a bit more cable juggling - mostly extracting - and then it's down to just seeing what can be done and using the incredible software that's available.

73
Bill

Thursday, June 7, 2012

SDR really?


Ok - after the SeaPac/TAPR SDR seminar at Seaside last weekend, and now that I have a borrowed SDR receiver - it's time to pay a bit more attention to SDR (Software Defined Radio).   I've brought the HPSDR maillist up from the backlog and will be cleaning up the history...

My current hardware is the Funcube Dongle Pro.   Once it's running I'll have more incentive to get the SoftRock transceiver built and running.

I'll start with the FDP on the home station PC.   Next step is to plug it in and let it do the driver install magic.

Then I have to find software:

Once there's some sort of software running, what to I use it for?  I have 80 KHz of reception between 60 MHz and 1.7 GHz.  I'll know more once I get 
  • Broadcast FM
  • All the legacy packet channels - 145.01 to 145.09
  • Will it stretch down to 6 meters at 50 MHz?   I've seen one note that says it will.
  • APRS at 1200 (144.39) and 9600 (144.35) at the same time...
I'll update this post as I make some progress and learn more.