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The WSPR Desktop transmitter is a standalone multi-band WSPR transmitter with built in GPS for the radio amateur/experimenter available from Zacktek.
https://www.zachtek.com/product-page/wspr-desktop-transmitter
Some quick features:
1. Standalone operation, PC required for configuration but not for operation.
2. For transmission on a variety of HF Bands (2-5), based on model and user-choice.
3. Is powered from USB.
4. Comes with built-in GPS module and includes external GPS antenna with long cable for easy installation.
5. Use the PC configuration software to set up your call-sign and band-choice and after that it can operate in standalone mode.
6. Timing and Maidenhead position is automatic from the GPS network.
Take it camping, move it to another QTH, use it mobile.
Needs only 5V 250mA so can be powered from a phone charger or USB power pack.
7. Contains an Arduino with open source software.
Software and Schematic is published on documentation page.
8. Available in three models.
Model Low for bands 2190m and 630m (136kHz and 474kHz)
Model MidPlus for bands 160m, 80m, 40m, 30m, and 20m (1.8MHz, 3.5MHz, 7MHz, 10MHz and 14MHz)
Model HighPlus for bands 17m,15m, 12m, 10m and 6m (18MHz, 21MHz, 24MHz, 28MHz and 50MHz)
Want to learn about QRP radio? What equipment do you need to do QRP portable operation? Peter VK3YE gives an excellent presentation on all things QRP including rigs, antennas, batteries, kits, homebrew, tips, tricks and experiences he has had.
Check out Peter's website for more information http://vk3ye.com/
YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/vk3ye/videos
https://www.jaycar.com.au/australian-ham-radio-handbook/p/BM2492
Learn about Ham Radio in Australia! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5eROubL6Jc
The 2020 VK Summer VHF/UHF Field Day, a ham radio contest was held on the weekend of January 18th and 19th. The contest is split into either an 8 hour or 24 hour section. Details on the contest can be found below. We operated the ham club station of the Radio and Electronics Association of Southern Tasmania - VK7OTC from the summit of Mount Wellington above Hobart.
Many stations around Australia participated either from home or portable. Thanks to VK4IF, VK3KQ and VK7TW for providing footage of their operations. In about 7 hours of operation we managed about 115 contacts, about 16 contacts an hour or a contact every 3 mins.
Does your station suffer from the ever present and increasing noise on the HF bands? Think there is no solution to this problem? How can you overcome this QRM even in an urban environment?
Today Justin VK7TW reviews and demonstrates the effectiveness of the MFJ-1026 Deluxe Signal Enhancer/Noise Canceller. Main antenna was a G5RV and AUX was a 30m horizontal with counterpoise
http://www.mfjenterprises.com/Product.php?productid=MFJ-1026
I conducted some recent tests with VK7MO who was running a low powered transmitter on WSPR (100mW). This gave me the opportunity, among other things to evaluate how well my Minikits LNA masthead (preamp) was performing on 144MHz.
I must admit when I put my preamp up the tower, I was a victim of the "all knobs to the right" rule, setting it for maximum gain (+18dB). The ham advice I read at the time specified to turn up the gain until the background noise increases slightly "1 to 2 S points". But I live in a relatively remote and quiet location, so the background noise did not lift all that much - so I thought. More on that later.
Anyhow, testing with 7MO with my preamp on/off made no discernible difference in my decodes from him which were relatively weak (-28). As the local 2m beacon is off air, I didn't have anything else to compare it with at installation time. Turning the LNA on resulted in the WSPR audio level bar graph increasing by 7dB. Some searching was done through various posts on the VKLogger, and some valid questions were raised by VK2OMD on the subject of masthead preamps and LNA's.
To answer some of these questions, I needed to calculate my overall noise figure (NF) of my system. A good article to start with is here.
I decided to calculate the NF of my system without the preamp inline. This would give me a baseline to see if there was any improvement. Below is the diagram from the above link with my data in it. The NF of my rig (FT897D) was a rough guesstimate as I don't have the ability to measure it. However QST magazine post reviews of rigs Minimum Discernible Signal (MDS) figure, from which, you can work out the NF value. I couldn't find the FT897 review, but I could the 857 which is essentially the same radio. MDS is -140, so the calculated NF is 6.9dB. A local amateur did some measurements on the 857 and concluded it's NF was 7.3dB, so pretty close.
Below is an example of what to expect when there is no preamp in the line. I use a length of RG213 from the antenna and LDF-450 down the tower to the amplifier, bias tee, radio etc. I haven't included those items in the loss path as it is negligible. There would also be some induced noise in these components, again I think negligible. We can see that receivers SNR is degraded only by half a dB due to the coax loss.
Quoted from another article I read on the internet - "When amplifiers are cascaded together in order to amplify very weak signals, it is generally the first amplifier in the chain which will have the greatest influence upon the signal to noise ratio because the noise floor is lowest at that point in the chain". My Minikits preamp claims it's NF is typically 0.7dB at 145MHz.
Below is with my preamp in the line. Note there is now extra loss of 0.3dB between the antenna and preamp for the coax tail. It's CNT-240, about 4m of it to the preamp which has to be mounted vertically on the mast. My last preamp had water enter when it was mounted horizontally. The closer to your antenna terminals the better, as any loss before the preamp degrades the overall SNR. My SNR is enhanced by 6.15dB due to the preamp in line and the losses before that to the antenna being only 0.3dB. As my cable loss is only 0.55dB after this, the gain has been set too high (18dB). The gain should be set to only offset the losses plus 10dB. Additional gain has little positive effect on the SNR and increases the risk of intermodulation and overload on strong signals. It also probably has the potential to degrade the SNR as it's just amplifying additional noise, maybe masking our weak signal.
Conclusions