Blog

23cm EME

Since I am about to disassemble my 5m dish soon, I am trying to run as many 23cm EME qsos as I can. I figure I will be QRT by the end of March or something like that. Will put microwave EME on halt for a while, but will most likley be back again some day.

SDRs

I have been playing around a bit with the SDR-rigs. Currently using ANAN-200D and ANAN-10 from Apache Labs and a SDRplay RSP2pro. Both Apache Labs rigs are running simultaneously with an instance of OpenHPSDR each, both feeding VACs to WSJT-X, WSJT and other software. I discovered a good page with lots of info for Apache Labs rigs, by W1AEX, http://www.w1aex.com/anan/anan.html#lost  . Found in my links widget here on this site.

Stormtracker

I have updated my stormtracker page to the StormVueNGX stuff, looks a lot better than the old java applet. Please take a look here.

Tropo openings

Today we had a good tropo opening. I was qrv from time to time during the evening. Really good signals, over 1200km on both 2m and 70cm.

APRS igate

Seems like my new aprs igate, SM7SJR-2 is stable and running good. Consists of a Raspberry Pi 2 and TNC-Pi, see more info here: My APRS page.

20m and 6m antenna

Today I had a crane coming over! Not for tea, but to lift up my 6m and 20m antenna in the top of one of my towers. So the 6m antenna is at abt 25m AGL and the 20m antenna at 23m AGL. Rotator is AlfaSpid BIGRAK. Look into my “QTH1” page for some picturers. I decided to take away the elevation of the 6m antenna, since it is a bit margin to do EME with just one yagi when there is no ground gain.

OH/SM4IVE on MS

Yesterday (13th of July) I wkd OH/SM4IVE, Lasse. On 2m MS/FSK441. Lasse is as usual travelling around the north in his RV. THe qso took quite some time since there were Aurora blocking the signals at times. Maybe Lasse will be QRV on KP27 on his way back, looking fwd to that.

2m EME qso’s

Finally, after being QRT on 2m EME since 1999, I got some new QSO’s in my log. 3 qsos on JT65. I also checked to see if I could detect my own echoes on CW, which I could! Well the echoes were by all means very weak, but I could detect them. Now the finetuning starts (the fun part). I am nearly ready to start to do some tests on 70cm as well. I will also be QRV in the Quadrantids meteor shower.

The antenna array for 2m and 70cm

Is now mounted at 23m AGL. Hopefully it will have no problem with the storm, which we will have tomorrow. If all goes well I might be QRV on MS for the geminids on the 12th and/or the 13th.

2m and 70cm

More work…. I am working a lot with my 2m and 70cm antenna setup (some pics under QTH1 towers/antennas). I hope I will get it up and running before the snow is here. Also doing some testing with my Apache Labs ANAN-200DE, it is quite a machine!