QRSS – DFCW Operation

Left my beacon on for a couple of hours today to see if I might show up on one of the grabbers. No luck, and took the beacon down as I need to antenna for 75 meters. I did find out that my 160 meter antenna which is about 110 feet long on one side and grounded again against the tower…but I can use my tuner and put it on 30 meters. So have to change around a bunch cables around and I can have a dedicated antenna for QRSS/DFCW operation. I am getting about 300mw output and that is more than enough to reach about anybody.

I am thinking that I will build up my FCC-1/FCC-2 kits next. Bought them a few months ago and want to use them to make a HF signal generator/freq counter for the work bench.

Oh yea, I was reminded to announce my QRSS freq…it is 10.139MHz.

OpenBeacon by EtherKit

I have been doing a beta build for Jason, NT7S who runs EtherKit. It is a QRSS Beacon project that can be run on windows, LINUX or OS platforms. Never did anything with QRSS before, so this all new to me. Completed the build and now doing some tweaking to get the power out to about a quarter of a watt.

The software interface is quite simple and unique…all done from the command prompt. Once the settings are done, the parameters are set in the firmware and no need for a PC interface, which leaves the PC available for a QRSS grabber to monitor your transmission.

I will post more later as the end results are finalized and I get some pictures to show.

What Am I Up To…

What have I been doing??? Not much of anything. Sort of in a winter funk, but trying to overcome that with some kits. I just finished the Four States QRP Club’s (4SQRP) “HamCan” 40 meter regen/transmitter kit. Got it built but have yet to test it. The reason for not testing is that I was also in awe over the new Super VXO kits by 4SQRP Club which was just introduced. I had done some playing around with a Super VXO about a year or so ago…hacked some ideas from the G-QRP Club Sprat article, using two molded inductors and one crystal. So that is a project now in the cache to be done.

At present, I just inventoried and now about ready to build a beta by EtherKit (NT7S). It is called OpenBeacon, a QRSS project that looks really interesting. Have all the parts sorted and in my trusty egg cartoons. But we have company coming in tonight, so may not get at it till Saturday or Sunday.

Also, want to play around with using an op amp for a tunable CW filter. Lots to do, and if I can stop being lazy I can have some fun.

Spring is around the corner…so maybe antennas will also be another project or projects to be done.

Alive and Well…

I haven’t post anything since Thanksgiving as I have done nothing to talk about. Been rather lazy to be honest about it. But, a couple of friends have commented to to me that I hadn’t updated the blog in awhile, so maybe its time to start snuffing solder fumes again and do some CW on a more frequent basis.

Weather here is not bad for February in the terms of snow and temps…hope it stays that way till we move into spring and then summer.

I had been building the NADC transceiver from Hendricks QRP Kits and have all but wiring up the external controls done. But I have put that aside for now and wait to play around with the Hand On Radio experiments shown on the ARRL web site. Every couple of years, I try to refresh this old brain of mine as to the fundamentals to electronics. This choose to do this winter and now want to play with some stuff in the ARRL’s series.

Anyway, stay tuned and see what I end up doing…may not be exciting or earth shattering in new techniques, but I do have a lot of fun and learn a lot by doing it.

72/73’s…Mikey