[Lowfer] WSPR attempt and WM-MW-SIW in Mechanicsburg, PA

[Garry and Linda Hess]

Mitch,

My solar panel is a 40W unit by Kyocera and I use a substantial deep 
discharge marine battery from BatteriesPlus with a Morningstar SunGuard 
controller. I first activated SIW with a 12W Global panel and lawn 
tractor battery, but they weren't up to the challenge. With a limit of 
1W input to the final I thought that would be sufficient to get through 
a period of cloudy days. However, for good frequency stability I use an 
OCXO, and that adds a lot to the power budget. It's been suggested that 
I could add a daylight sensor to prevent keying and limit current draw 
during the day but I prefer to run it 24/7.

SIW first used a 10 MHz OCXO that drew 500 ma. Divided by 54 it gave 
185.185 kHz for the beacon signal. I changed that over summer to a 4.8 
MHz OCXO driving an N3ZI LF DDS programmed for 185299.3 Hz, placing it 
just below the WM beacons and above XR.

Incidentally, as I write this MP is booming in on 137.3805 kHz, QRSS30. 
EAR on 188.8308 kHz is also coming in well using QRSS30, slow.

73, Garry, K3SIW, EN52ta, Elgin, IL