Wednesday, April 23, 2008

SURPRISE

Looking today traffic on 30m I had a new surprise. My signal, just 1w output on a vertical, was reported by K1JT station 7829Km away. Amazing! I have already told you that WPSR is very funny playing with as funny is propagation in early 24.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Playing with WHISPER

"WSPR (pronounced "whisper") stands for "Weak Signal Propagation Reporter." This program implements transmitting and receiving for a digital soundcard mode called "MEPT_JT", an acronym for "Manned Experimental Propagation Tests, by K1JT". This is the initial release of a GUI-based version of the program."
With these words, Joe Taylor, this brilliant mind that honors our hobby being a ham himself, describes his tool for checking propagation by snooping very weak signals around the world. I installed it and played with it like a toy. It is really amazing to decode transmissions i HFof only 1 watt or so from thousands miles away. Among real DX stations I "heard", as you can see in the snagit snaps, it was Patrick, F6IRF. I did not really know that he was involved and it was a good surprise for me. It reminded me the bottles of beers we shared last year in Friedrichshafen fest.

So give a try to WHISPER! It deserves it and after all it has a lot of fun.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Cheers and beers...

I do not usually post personal moments but this is an exception. We gather together to a cozy place just to celebrate my Honor Roll achievement. It was a very nice evening telling stories about past and planing future ham plans with a lot of beers in between. Call signs that honor me with their presence: SV8CS, SV8AXZ, SV8DOU, SV8KOK, SW8KOR, SW8KOU and SW8KOJ. I thank them all as that moment was a goal of a life time trip and I was very happy having them with me breaking the tape.

In the other hand last weekend I played a lot with CQ WPX CONTEST. The propagation was fair, especially in upper bands. I listened mostly on 15m and 10m and I heard many well known calls as 8R1K, 5D5A, 6V7E,WP2Z, 8P1A, FG/OM3LA, ST2KSS,ZD7X, 9V1YC,C01R, D44C,E20WXA and finally my friend Sardjana YB2ECG whom I usually meet in every digital mode contest and it was the first time I heard his voice. In other words I spent a very interesting weekend.