It bugged me for a while that my blog looked crap on my iPhone. Way too big, you always had to zoom in to be able to read the articles. “Had” because I found a simple solution. Running my blog on WordPress I’ve downloaded WordPress Mobile Pack and the mobile theme from Carrington Mobile 1.1 Theme from Crowd Favorite. And after 5 minutes my blog is mobile ready!

As I wrote before: I’ve managed to store my HRD-logbook on a online MySQL database. My plan is to show my logbook live at the logbook-url of this very site. I’ve wrote a little PHP to be able to do this. So from now on you can take a look at my logbook live! Any changes will be online immediately.
On my wish-list is a search option to look for your own call in my logbook and be able to select one year of QSO’s.

Enjoy!

Reading this article of KB3LMC got my mind spinning. I hate the fact that HRD puts it database on my local computer. I switch computers a lot and it would be great if I could use some sort of central database for all my HRD instances.
Second thing is: I really would love to be able to show my log realtime here on my blog. I use Hamlog.eu for that now, but I don’t like it. I’ve to upload my logbook to that site from time to time and that is to much hassle. It would be perfect to let the webserver read the online database so I never have to upload anything.

The database is already up and running (took me only a half hour or so) and the HRD instances are talking to it (at least one for now). So that’s cool. Now I have to write a plugin for WordPress to be able to show the log online. It would also be handy if the plugin lets the visitor of my site search the database for his/her call. Hmmm, no experience with writing WordPress plugins….. Gonna be interesting.

With the PACC 2010 coming up, I’m getting all jumpy to get my “ultimate contest setup” complete. My plans are to participate in the PACC this year from our club location NERA. Last year I’ve take a look and made a few QSO’s from that location and it is fantastic to operate from there. Far from the inhabited world there is zero QRM. Very nice when you sometimes have to pick up weak signals.
The idea now is to setup my Kenwood TS-850SAT at this location. The TS-850 has a build in voice keyer, but this keyer is not able to repeat the message with an adjustable delay. So I’ll use my own homebrew voice keyer. I already tested with success my headset. It works fine, so now I only have to find a decent foot pedal to switch between receiving and transmitting. Of course I can buy a foot pedal in an instrument shop or something like that. But that is expensive and less fun. So I searching for a solution for that.
Then I’ve hands free for logging. I think I bring my MSI netbook with me for logging. Only thing is I have to find a good contestlogging program. My main rig controller is Ham Radio Deluxe, but that is not quite feasible for contest logging. N1MM makes Windows crashing when it interacts thru the Keyspan USA-19H USB-RS232-adapter to my rig. So that doesn’t seem a solution. I already take a look at many logging programs, but they are all so old and ugly and don’t do rig control (which I want for logging the complete QSO). So I didn’t figure out that one yet.
If you have any good suggestions, please send me a message!

Last weekend I offered a friend of mine, Fred PA3YH, some help with his shack setup. He owns a Icom IC-756PRO-3 radio. Since a few months he bought a Signalink USB and works all different digital modes with it. Actually this combination works really well! He is doing great in QSO’s! The only thing missing was a good logbook. He did connect the rig via the Signalink to his laptop, but didn’t yet use rig control (Cat-V).

So these two things I want to help him with. First, rig control. Fred did already bought a cable for rig control. It is a USB – ACC-connector cable. After installing the driver for the cable, the laptop did see an extra com-port. Now download and fire up the latest copy of Ham Radio Deluxe. No problems so far. Imported his logbook from LogPA (his current log program). Also no problems. What surprised me was the super duper integration of HRD with the radio. I myself do not yet have a Signalink, but men what cool features do you have then! You are able to record sound of the rig, almost all options are controllable from the program.
Also figure out for him how to let Windows use the internal sound card and let the HAM-programs use the Signalink. I wasn’t able to fully test his new setup because he pushed me out of the way, that enthusiastic he was!
The cool thing about this new setup for Fred is that he makes enough time to investigate all the options and tricks. Hopefully I can benefit too from his investigation

As I am a Mac user for many years now, The Unofficial Apple Website is one of my favorite blogs to read almost every day. The other day I read in this blog about 5 Mac applications for ham radio fans. Cool! Two hobbies in one article…

After being stuck a few days ago with the self compiled wspr.py I was searching the web today to find a breakthrough. I could hit myself for the head when I did see a link to one of my favorite blogs: VK2TPM where I found out that WSJT is just a package in Debian

Of course I installed it right away, but this is WSJT and not WSPR. I don’t now how to create a WSPR-signal from here, but I’ll play around with it.
Then I stumble upon another familiar link: G4ILO created a Asus EEE-PC version of WSPR. Downloaded that binary and it runs almost out of the package right away. Clicking around in this renewed interface I got some new insights. Maybe I didn’t set the right Audio In and Audio Out settings. Maybe that’s why my own compiled version didn’t seem to hear a thing.

Hmmm, let’s get on that horse again tonight when I’ll be home

Not yet where I want to be, but did some work to get things working. I’ve installed the Gnome desktop on my Debian Etch linux server so I can compile WSPR for linux. First I had to struggle with all kinds of packages and then I had to check out an svn for the source code of WSPR. If you want to do the same thing and you are running Debian/ Ubuntu, let me save you a few hours of your time, type as root:

# aptitude install subversion gfortran portaudio19-dev python2.4-dev python-pmw python-numpy python-numpy-dev libsamplerate0-dev

When it’s done you should have the appropriate packages installed to build WSPR from source. To get WSPR from source you have to check out svn:

# mkdir src
# cd src
# svn checkout svn://svn.berlios.de/wsjt
# cd wsjt/branches/wspr
# ./configure
# make

hopefully you have a working WSPR! Run it with: python wspr.py

In my case I think somethings going wrong with the soundcard. There is no waterfall and the applications crashes after a few minutes with all kind of errors. When I listen to the input from the FT-817 on the computer, it sounds horrible. I don’t know if it’s the hardware (it shouldn’t) or maybe the drivers. I hope I’ll figure out sometime

Some interesting links I found on the subject:

Compiling WSRP

Compiling WSPR for linux (on wspr.org)

In the series ‘what is WSPR?’ I did some reading last night. If I understand it correctly WSPR is a little computer program made by K1JT that is used to detect propagation on the amateur bands. It is using a very weak digital signal which is produced by your sound card in your computer and send out thrue your transmitter. Your computer also listens on the frequency to spot other ‘WSPR beacons’ and tells the central WSPR server via internet of the status.

WSPR means: Weak Signal Propagation Reporter. The program uses your sound card in QRSS mode and scans a 200Hz band for a signal of 6Hz wide with a baud rate of 1,46 Baud. 4-FSK modulation. Apparently there is 1 tone from your sound card. The nice thing about it is that you’re be able using mini wattage (a few hundred mW) to make big distances. A transmitting cycle lasts 110 seconds and there is minimal information packed.
The signals are received and decoded and sent to a central server and put on a map and a list.

So far the theory, in part 2 my search for a mac version of the program (as my faithful readers know, I’m a real Mac-lover).

Links: original instructions from K1JT
The program
The website (of the central server)

OZ1PIF manual to WSPR

I read more and more lately about WSPR. For instance, this morning I did see this article from VK2PTM. I getting more curious what this WSPR is and how it’s working. And you radio amateurs out there know what we guys and gals do about curiosity…. we will disappear into our Research & Development department and find out what the fuzz is all about!
So that’s my plan for the coming weeks: let’s find out. I’ll report my findings here on this blog.