ZS6BNE's Blog

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RaDAR - WSPR our propagation tool

Posted: 08 Mar 2021 10:40 PM PST
https://zs6bne.wordpress.com/2021/03...pagation-tool/



I had built the QRP Labs U3S WSPR transmitter and expanded it for two bands
namely 40m and 20m. My interest is 40m as most of my RaDAR operaions take
place locally although during the challenges its always good to cross the
oceans and access other continents and make contact with other RaDAR
operators around the world.








For quite some time (A few weeks) I have been WSPRing from my RaDAR
playground in KG34ac but I started to get irritated by the slight QRM I was
experiencing on my CCTV cameras which I use as The poor mans trail camera.
Seeing my grandson was returning to school after almost a year attending on
line schooling due to Covid-19 my wife and Eduan had to go back to town in
Lichtenburg and only join me on weekends again. I had to do a few chores
there yesterday and took the U3S into town and set it up there. I had built
a trap dipole for the purpose and got it up at about five meters above
ground in an inverted vee format. The antenna was fed with a length of
RG215, better than it was here at home.




I had to update my 6 character TX grid to KG33bu on the WSPR database after
I found it was only registering 4 characters on the WSPR database. I had
conflicts with duplicate call signs in different locations so the RX side I
renamed to ZS6BNE/p which is what it is actually. I use a RF Space SDR-IQ
SDR running on its software typically Spectravue. I use a virtual audio
cable (Software) to channel the audio to WSJT-X running in WSPR mode. Here
too I have an inverted vee on 40m for reception. My main concern obviously
is 40m.




This opened up some interesting facilities. ZS6BNE TX in KG33bu and around
30 km away as the crow flies the ZS6BNE/p RX in KG34ac. This is my own NVIS
alert / testing facility and has already shown some interesting results!




As suggested by a friend on our local WSPR WhatsApp group I use
http://wsprd.vk7jj.com/ to do queries on the WSPR data. From this data I
intend pulling it into Libre-Calc and drawing graphs from the results. Here
you can clearly see a NVIS opening and to prove it I made contact with Andy
ZS6ADY who is usually skip to me!








Im looking forward to those graphs and seeing the interesting results!




73 de Eddie ZS6BNE