Sunday 26 January 2014

Back to WSPRing

Its been sometime since I worked on the 10m Wispy transceiver, and im still not convinced by the results on Tx that I was seeing. However, I do think that its probably my test setup thats at fault here.

I now though have a more pressing reason to get this project working - CHOTA! This year, I will be putting on a special event station for churches on the air, from the tiny chapel of St. Mary's, Lead. A WSPR or PSK-31 demo station would be ideal for this event, so out comes Wispy again for another go.

I have yet to build the receive strip, so plan on doing so and getting that working before having another crack at the transmitter side. I have also requested help from a 3rd party to check the project over and see what is amiss with it (if anything!). In order to help eliminate the test setup as a source of problems, I will in the next few days knock up a battery powered two-tone test oscillator, an Altoids special! This will give me a supply and ground independent audio source.

Others have replicated the Wispy without major trouble, so im sure its either something im doing wrong, or something wrong with my test set-up.

Once it is working on both receive and transmit, I plan to work the PA a little to give 2w DSB (1w SSB equivalent) if possible, just to give it that little bit extra oomph, I also understand that with a little pulling the crystal can be shifted to put the rig onto the PSK-31 sub-band. If this can be done then I will make it switchable and use it for 10m PSK-31 as well as WSPR.


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