Hi Ernie.
Sorry, is this still the FT-8 discussion we were having?
I don't have a beacon
3a.?
Re: FT8 for U3?
From: Ernie Hollingsworth
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2017 06:05:47 PST
Is your beacon day or night? I'll look for you.
73 Ernie
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Hi OM,
Just bought one, thanks for post. Want to ruggedize a radio for field.
This will be internals.
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Any RPI connection?
73,
Steve
KL7JT/1
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On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 6:20 PM, <N3SZ@...> wrote:
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Re: New Year's Eve Operation
I'm in - I'll be QRSS on 30m. As with some others, it'll be the first time I've used my U3S for anything other than WSPR so thanks for the puch!
73,
John AE5X
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Re: New Year's Eve Operation (how to configure your U3S)
Hi TrueBlue (that’s an unusual name),
Thanks - I enjoy getting all these modes running in the same frame.
It’s entirely dependant on band as to the number of spots. ?At the moment my U3S is transmitting on 10m and has been there since early this year - There are some grabbers operating on 10m and the Knights QRSS group are reasonably active with a lot of discussion this year about meteor scatter where pings have been seen from a few stations. ?
It’s not all about the instant gratification of WSPR :-)
I don’t expect many spots of JT9 on 10m but it’s seen fairly often on CW. ?I tried the TEST call but I seem to remember there was an issue with some feeders to the RBN totally ignoring the transmission when I used that and others reporting it multiple times. ?I was advised to use CQ as well as TEST (hence CQ G6NHU G6NHU TEST) and that works well.
Speaking to Hans at Newark, he did say that he’s managed to get RTTY in the firmware but it still needs debugging. ?I have no idea how close that is on the U3S but I’m in no hurry. ?And yes, RTTY is still used. ?I’ve had over 1,500 Qs this year using RTTY and that’s not just contest Qs.
73 Keith G6NHU
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On 10 Dec 2017, at 20:41, TrueBlue < 44-40@...> wrote:
Great how-to!?
I would question why you are calling CQ in the second message.? If it's to trigger ReverseBeacon, TEST will do it as well and is more appropriate for a non-responding beacon.?
You certainly are an optimist!? I routinely run four modes per frequency in a ten-minute frame and since the advent of FT8 get perhaps three hits a day on JT65 and maybe one hit every week or two on JT9.? I suspect I'd have to wait ten years to get a hit on slow Hellschreiber or FSKCW.? At least WSPR remains relatively active.
I am unaware of the impending RTTY firmware upgrade; is that going to be with the FT8 firmware release?? Is anyone actually using RTTY?
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Congratulations.? You did good.??? 8-)
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On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 2:30 PM, Barry Mercer <Mercerbarry0@...> wrote: I THINK I've solved the problem.? A poor solder joint!
I went over all the connections with a soldering iron again.? I set up a grid like pattern so I tried not to miss any.? Seems the receiver now is crackle free!!? Pretty awesome!
Thanks everyone.? Sure like the kits!
73. Barry.? VE3Zlb
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I THINK I've solved the problem. ?A poor solder joint!
I went over all the connections with a soldering iron again. ?I set up a grid like pattern so I tried not to miss any. ?Seems the receiver now is crackle free!! ?Pretty awesome!
Thanks everyone. ?Sure like the kits!
73. Barry. ?VE3Zlb
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Barry
Quiet initially and noisy after warm up does sound like a cold solder joint or loose
wire someplace.? It could be the wiper on the volume control as was suggested
by another person.?
A defective transistor could be the culprit but that would be the last choice to test
because it rarely happens with today's devices.? A cracked resistor could make
that sort of noise, as could a defective capacitor but those are also low on the
probability list.? If it is a leaky capacitor it might show as flickering DC voltage
on the side of a capacitor where there should be no DC voltage.?
Since the noise is within the audio range I would still try using a fairly high gain
audio amplifier to sample various points in the signal path.
Arv
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On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 1:57 PM, Barry Mercer <Mercerbarry0@...> wrote: Sorry folks, I should have told readers the recording was made with the antenna connected. ??
The crackle is ALSO present when the antenna is disconnected.?
I have not confirmed this but I suspect that when starting the QCX when it's "cold", there is no crackle.? Then, as it "warms" up the crackle develops and stays.? Its frustrating. ? Is this possible??
In any case, thanks for listening... and responding.
Barry. VE3ZLB
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Sounds like the audio has a bad jack, bad speaker/headphone or intermittent short to ground. Take something nonmetallic and tap and jiggle the components in the audio chain. Cold solder joint would have been my first guess.
Sent from my iPhone
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On Dec 10, 2017, at 1:26 PM, Jim Kortge <jim.k8iqy@...> wrote:
On 12/10/2017 3:19 PM, Barry Mercer wrote:
30 Metre QCX, v1.00d powered from 12 Volt battery
I'm having an issue with crackle on my audio. I've posted on this previously. I thought if I attached an audio recording of the crackle, it may help with some diagnosis.
The recording is a few seconds of audio from the thirty metre band.
I have reflowed just about everything on the QCX, twice. No change.
Again, any suggestions are appreciated.
Barry. VE3ZLB
In any case, perhaps after listening Sounds like static to me. Did you have an antenna connected to the rig or is that how it sounds
with a dummy load on the antenna port?
Interesting,
Jim, K8IQY
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On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 12:57 pm, Barry Mercer wrote:
I have not confirmed this but I suspect that when starting the QCX when it's "cold", there is no crackle. ?Then, as it "warms" up the crackle develops and stays. ?Its frustrating. ? Is this possible??
The first thing that came to mind was "defective capacitor". Which one? No telling... but some freeze spray might help you find the offending component?
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Sorry folks, I should have told readers the recording was made with the antenna connected. ??
The crackle is ALSO present when the antenna is disconnected.?
I have not confirmed this but I suspect that when starting the QCX when it's "cold", there is no crackle. ?Then, as it "warms" up the crackle develops and stays. ?Its frustrating. ? Is this possible??
In any case, thanks for listening... and responding.
Barry. VE3ZLB
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Re: New Year's Eve Operation (how to configure your U3S)
Great how-to!?
I would question why you are calling CQ in the second message.? If it's to trigger ReverseBeacon, TEST will do it as well and is more appropriate for a non-responding beacon.?
You certainly are an optimist!? I routinely run four modes per frequency in a ten-minute frame and since the advent of FT8 get perhaps three hits a day on JT65 and maybe one hit every week or two on JT9.? I suspect I'd have to wait ten years to get a hit on slow Hellschreiber or FSKCW.? At least WSPR remains relatively active.
I am unaware of the impending RTTY firmware upgrade; is that going to be with the FT8 firmware release?? Is anyone actually using RTTY?
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Barry,
Is this recording with the antenna disconnected? ?Also have you eliminated any power supply noise. ?Maybe try a battery. ?It sounds like a dirty wiper on the volume control. ?Or maybe a leaky capacitor in the audio chain. ?
Bill N7EU
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Barry
Does this crackle go away when you disconnect the antenna?? If yes then it may
be something intermittent in the antenna wire or feed line.? It definitely sounds like
something intermittent in the signal path.? Maybe a bad solder connection...?
My suggestion:? Use a reasonably high gain audio amplifier to monitor audio from
the BFO mixer to the receive audio amp.? If it appears to be before the BFO mixer
then add an RF detector to the external audio amplifier and continue probing back
toward the antenna input.? It should go away at some point, indicating that you are
in the general area of the problem.
Arv
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On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 1:19 PM, Barry Mercer <Mercerbarry0@...> wrote: 30 Metre QCX, v1.00d ?powered from 12 Volt battery
I'm having an issue with crackle on my audio.? I've posted on this previously.? I thought if I attached an audio recording of the crackle, it may help with some diagnosis.
The recording is a few seconds of audio from the thirty metre band.
I have reflowed just about everything on the QCX, twice.? No change.
Again, any suggestions are appreciated.
Barry.? VE3ZLB
In any case, perhaps after listening
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On 12/10/2017 3:19 PM, Barry Mercer wrote: 30 Metre QCX, v1.00d ?powered from 12 Volt battery
I'm having an issue with crackle on my audio. ?I've posted on this previously. ?I thought if I attached an audio recording of the crackle, it may help with some diagnosis.
The recording is a few seconds of audio from the thirty metre band.
I have reflowed just about everything on the QCX, twice. ?No change.
Again, any suggestions are appreciated.
Barry. ?VE3ZLB
In any case, perhaps after listening Sounds like static to me.? Did you have an antenna connected to the rig or is that how it sounds with a dummy load on the antenna port? Interesting, Jim, K8IQY
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Re: Annual QRSS New Year's Eve Party
Qrss freqs are on all band below the wspr bandpass and we are generally using 200 -300Hz bw, you might find some old lists saying 7000.8 and 3,5008 and so on but as both those frequncys have ben overtaken by buzzers and SLB:s we have moved close to the wspr on all band, so, just put in wspr freq- 0-200hz and you should be in the right bandpass, watch out for collisions and move a couple of hz if you are running over any other station. obs, on 80m we are using the old? 3.594000 and not the new?3.568600. ? that might and will probably change in the future.
here is the freq, just retract 0-200hz on those, like 40m = 7.039800 - 7.04000
- 160m 1.838000?
- 80m 3.594000
- 60m 5.288600
- 40m 7.040000?
- 30m 10.140100?
- 20m 14.097000
- 17m 18.106000?
- 15m 21.096000?
- 12m 24.926000?
- 10m 28.126000?
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30 Metre QCX, v1.00d ?powered from 12 Volt battery
I'm having an issue with crackle on my audio. ?I've posted on this previously. ?I thought if I attached an audio recording of the crackle, it may help with some diagnosis.
The recording is a few seconds of audio from the thirty metre band.
I have reflowed just about everything on the QCX, twice. ?No change.
Again, any suggestions are appreciated.
Barry. ?VE3ZLB
In any case, perhaps after listening
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Re: New Year's Eve Operation (how to configure your U3S)
All,
I’ve got quite good at shoehorning multiple modes into a ten minute frame on a U3S - At the moment I’m running a total of five modes and I will be able to increase that to six modes once the firmware with RTTY is released.
When I was at four modes, I wrote a blog article which described in some detail how to configure this and hopefully this can help people to configure their U3S transmitters to do more than just WSPR.
You can see that blog entry here:?
If you want to see the entire ten minute frame from the point of view of the transmitter itself, there’s another entry here:?
I hope these two blog entries will help people configure their U3S to do more than just WSPR as it’s capable of so much.
73 Keith G6NHU
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Dave,
I'll give it a try!? Am I correct, each symbol is 6 seconds? Sorry, this is all very new to me!
ATM, the message line I use for a CW ID at the end of my WSPR transmission and my message line is "#CS". I take it we need to program several DFCW QRSS segments all on the same frequency in order to get any kind of repetition.?
I guess my question is this: If I understand correctly, would it be better to:?
1. Program my message as something like: callsign<space>callsign<space>callsign<space>...etc. with less Tx'd segments but drop the CW-ID segment,
2. Keep the #CS, maybe add a space, and add more Tx'd segments,
3. Just type out the callsign<space?>, add more Tx segments and keep the CW-ID segment?
Thanks!!
--Al
WD4AH
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Re: New Year's Eve Operation
Dave, I'm just finishing a U3S and would like to join in.? I'm General class though.? Is anyone looking at the alternate, non Extra class QRSS spots?? I can only go down to 7025 Khz on 40M I believe.
Bob
WA1EDJ??
On Sat, Dec 9, 2017 at 11:47 AM, David R. Hassall WA5DJJ <dhassall@...> wrote: Dear QRPLabs Members, ? In my last message I invited all QRSS and WSPR stations to join the Las Cruces QRSS Mafia to operate with us on New Year’s Eve.?? Well, today is December 9th and we have about 21 days left to get our stuff ready to operate from 0000Z 31 December to 2400 1 January 2018.?? It is 48 hours and the purpose is to Celebrate the forward movement of the Amateur Radio QRSS Operation by filling all the Grabber stations with signals.?? The more signals the better.? Don’t worry about stepping on each other a little bit.? Just get a signal in there wherever you can.?? Mother Nature’s Propagation will scramble it even worse, so it won’t really matter.??? Some collisions of signals at one grabber will not be perceivable at another.? So in the end it doesn’t matter.?? What really matters is that you got on the air and you contributed to the massive whiteout of the grabber.? There is a way for the WSPR crowd to join us by programming their U3S’s to do both WSPR and the rest of the 10 minute give QRSS some time with another 2 DFCW QRSS signal and still put a WSPR transmission out every 10 Minutes.??? So get your program manual out and try something new.? We would also love to see you call sign on our screens. ? My contribution this year as a multi-band grabber in New Mexico.? It is presently operating on 30M and 40M? 24/7 in the test mode.? (I may have to take it down for some additional tweaks to improve its operation) but for the most part it will be up. Between now and New Year’s Eve, I plan to add 80M and 20M to it and have them operational.? The Website is ?and this is my test bed for building an all Amateur Radio Band Grabber for 2200M through 10M grabber at This location? by next New Year’s Eve.? Each grabber band consists of a QRPLabs QCX transceiver operating as a receiver, a raspberry pi 3B operating as a spectrum analyzer, and a usb sound card of the inexpensive variety.? It is working well and I am learning lots of new things about it as I keep peeling the onion.? But the one thing I do know for sure.? An inexpensive quality QRSS grabber is within reach for anyone who wants to experiment with these units.? ? If anyone would like to know more about my “experiment” let me know.?? Go to the website and look at my grabs.? Start planning your own setup.? ? Take care and have fun.?? See you on New Year’s Eve.? Get your ?QRSS TRANSMITTERS ready to go on the air.? New Year’s Eve will be here before you know it.? (In case you have forgotten, New Year’s Eve comes right after that jolly old man called Santa Claus or Saint Nicholas or whatever he is called in your country,? and right after New Year’s day come the credit card bills for all the new radio equipment you bought. ) ? Take care and have fun.? Hope to see you on my new Grabber.? QRSS is a BLAST, even at mW’s Merry Christmas, 73 Dave Hassall WA5DJJ? Las Cruces, New Mexico Website: ?
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Keith, G6NHU
TrueBlue
Jim Kortge, K8IQY
Keith, G6NHU