WSPR....Again

Another bad weather day here in Kingston, heavy blowing snow and winds up to 70 kph, not a nice day to be outside, but a perfect day to be in the shack.....  The snow was drifting up to three feet in my driveway, so it was a busy afternoon of shovelling as well.

We are expecting this sort of weather for the rest of the week, so the chair in the shack will be occupied a lot....

Since Christmas I have been spending a lot of time playing around with digital signals, first with WSPR, and now with PSK31.  In the last two days I've managed to work 29 countries on PSK31, including Panama and Israel.  It took a while for me to get used to the macros, and getting them set up correctly, but now that it's working as I want it to work I'm having a blast.

The big thing that sticks out for me is the lack of DQRM, LIDS and Band Police.  Maybe it's early days for me yet, but I'm enjoying the peace and quiet compared to SSB.

Today I also spent some time back on WSPR to see how the propagation was doing.  The picture below shows the results for 1820 UTC today.  The SFI was 109, SN=41, A Index=14, and the K Index=2.  This was done today with 1w.

2016 Plans...

Happy New Year to everyone, hope your holidays were quiet and full of good DX...

Things have been pretty quiet around this QTH apart from some PSK31 operating.  Plans are currently being made for some "micro-DXpeditions" in 2016.  There are a couple of islands and lighthouses that I would like to get on the air this year, but trying to fit it all into the family schedule is getting harder to do.

The "pre-pre-planning" for Field Day has already started.  Our club will once again be running two separate FD sites, and we're sorting out who's going where in order to make sure we have full capabilities at both sites.

Winter Field Day is also nearly upon us, that takes place on January 30th - 31st.  Link for that event is HERE.   Field Day doesn't always take place in the good weather!

I'm sure this year will be a busy one.  I have decided that once the weather warms up I'm going to operate portable at every chance I can get.  I missed out on a pile of rare DX last year, so my goal this year is to try and get as much of that rare DX as I can.

Where I want to spend next summer.......

See You Next Year!!

More WSPR

Yesterday was a good day to hide and stay the heck out of the kitchen.  So I decided it would be a good time to go and do a couple of hours on WSPR.

The propagation conditions seems to be pretty good on 20m, so here's a look at what 500mW got me around 1700 UTC.

Here's the shot into Europe

Here's the shot into North America......not too many Canadian stations about....

Radio used was the IC-718 into my 148' Inverted L long wire antenna.

Merry Christmas

May peace, happiness and goodwill be with you and your family not only on Christmas, 
but throughout the year and beyond. 

From my house, to your house, 
here's wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a

Happy New Year for 2016.