[Lowfer] LEK in BPSK mode

[Lyle Koehler]

Bill de Carle sent me this TRACE file, obtained right after he started
receiving this morning:

AFRICAM log opened: Tue Feb  3 2004  at 07:09
07:09:44 EK LEK LEK LEK LEK LEKhLEK[02]PQn!MyK LwM p[01]cAEJ LEK LEK LE
07:24:45 K LEK LEK LEK LEF I/i LEK LEK LEK LEK LEK LEK LEK LEK LEK LEK L
07:41:36 EK LEK LEK LEK LEK LEK LEK LEK LEK LEK LEK LEK LEK LEK LE) tAu6
07:58:22 du= [03]O

It's not clear whether the signal disappeared just before 0800 because the
propagation path shut down, or if it was because Bill turned on his big
computer. Bill says the dropout on the first line was when he was playing
with the settings. This was "straight" copy, without using the frame grabber
feature of AFRICAM. The "instant sync" feature is the part that really
impresses me!

To put things in perspective, it takes 64 seconds to send LEK(space) in BPSK
mode at MS1000 (1 baud) and with ET1 coding. The same message would take 16
minutes at QRSS30. And the distance between Bill's location and mine is 806
miles.

Initially, I had some problems getting AFRICAM GPS to run on my two desktop
computers, but it worked fine on two notebooks. Turns out that the 1 pulse
per second signal has to swing at least a little bit negative in order to be
recognized by the COM ports in the desktop computers. A 0 to +5V signal
worked OK for the notebooks (an IBM DX486-100 and a Dell P233), though. I'm
presently running AFRICAM GPS on an IBM 333 MHz desktop that has Windows ME
as the primary operating system. However, to make sure it's in a reasonably
"pure" DOS mode, I booted it up with an old Windows 95 DOS startup disk.

Lyle, K0LR