7 Aug 2009

WSPRing

Today I made my first foray into WSPR mode (Weak Signal Propagation Reporting).

I've managed to decode WSPR signals on 30m and 40m OK, but every time I tried to TX with the program it bombs out and wants to send Microsoft an error message. I'm using a SignaLink USB interface (working fine on PSK31) and have set the WSPR PTT option to "0", which should allow VOX operation on TX via the SignaLink USB interface rather than via a COM port. Anyone know why this fails to work and crashes the program?

WSPR is a mode which allows specially encoded very weak signals to be decoded and then the resulting report uploaded to a central database. So, for example, you TX with a QRP mW signal on 10MHz and someone receives the WSPR message. Using the software, a report appears on the internet, so you know how far the signal reached.

See http://www.g4ilo.com/wspr.html for a good introduction to WSPR. Spots (uploaded by the program or manually to the internet) can be seen at http://wsprnet.org/meptspots.php

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