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
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
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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Re: New Year's Eve Operation
Dear? Al,
The way I do it is to setup TxS screens to about 6 or so.?? Then you program each MODE TRANSMISSION SCREEN for each frequency you want to transmit on.? You also need to set DIT to 005 (for 5 second dit length)? and I set FRAME START to 10 00 (this puts all the mode transmissions in a 10 minute period so they can be stacked).
Then set the mode transmission screen 0 for the first frequency (Most combination operators who work WSPR and QRSS USE THIS 0 SETTING FOR WSPR AS IT TAKES 2 MINUTES)
Then set the mode transmission screen 1 for the second frequency for your first QRSS transmission (make sure you put the proper filter selection for this frequency) Then select MODE to be DFCW, Then power 23 and my auxiliary output is 0.? Running WSPR 1st and then you can squeeze in at least 2 and maybe 3 other QRSS transmissions before you run out of the remaining 8 minutes after your WSPR transmission.?? It will take some experimentation in this area as each call sign gives a different time consideration.?? But almost everyone can do at least 2 DFCW transmissions in 8 minutes.? So now you can transmit WSPR in the first 2 minutes and two QRSS transmissions in the last 8 minutes? of a 10 minute period.?? Turn all the different mode screens on after you program them (make the little bars go away).? Hook it up to your antenna and watch the grabbers and your WSPR? signals and see if you start showing up on a QRSS GRABBER.?? It takes a bit of? fiddling with the programming parameters but you will eventually get it going.??
I hope this helps.? There may be others that have a better way of explaining this.? If so, go to it.
73 Dave WA5DJJ
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Re: QCX Troubleshooting - Please can you help?
Hans
Okay, I stand corrected.? I guess I have never worried about AVCC before.
I always relied on the internal 1.2 volt reference for measuring analog
voltages with ADC.?? I went back and read over the comments on AVCC and
AVCC1 so maybe I now understand things a bit better.? Is it necessary to have
both AVCC leads tied together or both filtered/bypassed to facilitate startup?
Arv
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On Sat, Dec 9, 2017 at 10:17 PM, Hans Summers <hans.summers@...> wrote: Arv
This is not correct.?
The AVcc pin provides power to the internal analogue voltage circuits in the ATmega328.?
The QCX uses the ATmega328 ADC with the reference set to the supply voltage (AVcc). Not the internal reference.?
73 Hans G0UPL
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Just thinking .... maybe toggling transmit using the onboard key while adjusting the reference frequency.....
72; Kurt -W2MW
Get
On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 8:25 AM -0500, "Kurt Zimmerman" <kurt@...> wrote:
Good day all; ? To Hans, just a suggestion for an enhancement. I found manually calibrating the reference crystal a bit cumbersome having to set the frequency, jump out of the menu, transmit a signal then back into the menu to readjust.? Yes I know the GPS unit is a plug-n-play and is real easy to set.? Since I didn’t have the GPS unit had to set it manually. I was able to get it close.
My suggested enhancement would place the rig into transmit upon entering that menu option and apply the change of the reference frequency. This way it can simply be aligned against the reference source by simply dialing in.?
Not sure if it can be done but would be a great enhancement for a great little rig.
72; Kurt -W2MW?
Get
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Is your beacon day or night? I'll look for you.
73 Ernie
On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 3:57 AM, KP3FT via Groups.Io <kp3ft@...> wrote: Hi Ernie,
I'm not sure what times Jim uses Opera, but I'm on 40-meters now, transmitting a beacon periodically.
Jim-
What nights and band/freq are you on ?Opera2? Would like to try to spot you. 73
Ernie KC4SIT Sent from my iPhone On Dec 7, 2017, at 10:12 PM, James Zelazny jr < wtfbsyt@...> wrote: Not sure what your saying.The quote was from my post saying ,why not have FT8 beacon for U3S?
JT9 has fewer spotters as does many other modes that came and gone...so yes,FT8 in the U3S is a good idea since there are more people listening there.
I run my U3S using Opera2 on 40m...not because it is a good idea but because the mode does not require a GPS for timing and the only mode for non GPS.
But there is only a handful of spotters using it.
FT8 shows lots of stations making it a bit more usable for QRP.
I personally think there are enough QSO modes available to now they are consuming the bandwidth with a splattering free for all mess.
QRP folks do not have a chance anymore below 1 watt...sad stuff.
Jim
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Re: QCX audio crackle is still there!
Yep. ?I’ve gone through the alignment now a couple of times. ?Maybe a third time will prove to be the one! ?I’ll have a look this afternoon. This morning I have to shovel snow!?
I have a second qcx on the way. ? I’ve built and had great success with a number of Han’s kits. ? I have a second QCX on the way. ?I figure I’ll wind T1 before I don a white lab coat to construct the rest of the kit. ?But - they sure are fun
thanks for the reply.
Barry
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Good day all; ? To Hans, just a suggestion for an enhancement. I found manually calibrating the reference crystal a bit cumbersome having to set the frequency, jump out of the menu, transmit a signal then back into the menu to readjust.? Yes I know the GPS unit is a plug-n-play and is real easy to set.? Since I didn’t have the GPS unit had to set it manually. I was able to get it close.
My suggested enhancement would place the rig into transmit upon entering that menu option and apply the change of the reference frequency. This way it can simply be aligned against the reference source by simply dialing in.?
Not sure if it can be done but would be a great enhancement for a great little rig.
72; Kurt -W2MW?
Get
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Re: Annual QRSS New Year's Eve Party
Hi Dave
I have not tried this mode. Do you have a list of all the recommended QRSS frequencies and speeds or a link to them please. I might try reprogramming my multiband U3S if I have the details.
73 Ken G4APB
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Re: ZL1RS balloon flight - BB01
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Hi All,
I mounted the board in a case I picked up at a fleamarket and have been enjoying listening to the QCX this weekend.? (some kind of Italian CW contest this weekend...)? I am really impressed with the receiver performance.? One issue I have noticed is that when a very strong station (i.e. S9+++) comes on frequency I have to tear the earphones off.?
I found the "AGC" for Bitx circuit but was wondering if some kind of clamping of very strong signals could be achieved with a zener diode between pins 6 and 7 of IC10B.? Ideas / comments would be welcome.?
As may be seen from the output waveform (0.5V/div and X10 probe into a 50 ohm dummy load) photo I still need to do some work on the LPF toroids.? My initial probing around showed almost 3 dB drop across the LPF - in spite of great care taken to wind the toroids to design value (AADE L/C meter).? ?Moving the windings around with a plastic alignment tool does not change power output noticeably.? Next time I take the box apart I will see if I can find one toroid that is attenuating more that the others and adjust the windings on that.? ?Meanwhile I logged good reports from UA4 and 9A5 so 2.25 W is workable.? My CW skills were much better 40 years ago? :)
Great kit - very enjoyable build.
73
Earl, 4Z4TJ
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Re: QCX Troubleshooting - Please can you help?
Arv
This is not correct.?
The AVcc pin provides power to the internal analogue voltage circuits in the ATmega328.?
The QCX uses the ATmega328 ADC with the reference set to the supply voltage (AVcc). Not the internal reference.?
73 Hans G0UPL
On Sat, Dec 9, 2017 at 9:45 PM, Arv Evans <arvid.evans@...> wrote: AVCC should be very close to the Vcc supply voltage.? If that is at 4.6 then either your Vcc is at
4.6 or something is dragging AVCC down.? Normally this pin is unconnected, but if you want
best repeat measurements from the ADC you can add a filter to the AVCC lead.
ADC reference for analog-to-digital voltage conversions is the built in 1.2 volt AREF potential.
If the AREF is not correct then the ADC measurements will be inaccurate.
If using ADC inputs to detect specific voltages you can use a high impedance DC meter
to measure the actual voltage to see if they are within a range specified by the software.
Arv
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Hi -?
I have a 20 meter kit and I started the alignment procedure and I noticed that I can peak 8.7 by adjusting the capacitor C1 but then when I try adjusting R27, R24 and R17 I am always at the minimum. After some troubleshooting I put my headphones on and noticed that I am not getting the 700 Hz tone.
I checked the frequency out of the Si5351 in normal mode and CLK0 gives 14.0213 MHz and CLK1 is 14.0214 MHz. I don't know if these are the proper values or not. I've also tested the Si5351 in "Test Equipment" mode using the signal generator and the frequency counter (connecting a wire from FREQ to CLK0 as described in the manual) and it seems to work properly.
The voltage inputs on IC5 (pins 3, 2 & 5, 6) are slightly different than what is shown on page 125 of the assembly manual even taking into account my higher supply voltage:
I don't know if these voltages are a problem or not...
Lastly, I did wind T1 improperly the first time, but I removed and re-wound it and it looks correct now.
What else can I check??
Thanks in advance for your help.
73,
-Rob (N4MN)?
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TrueBlue
Jim Kortge, K8IQY
Keith, G6NHU
Kurt Zimmerman
Earl