[Lowfer] WSPRing in a thunderstorm...

[John Langridge]

JD,
Thanks for the great, detailed reports.  I just switched from the U3 at 23 dbm ERP to the main station using the MF Solutions converter at 30 dbm ERP.  
I'll stay at 30% TX cycle tonight so I can try to hear XKA.  XSV and BDQ as well as /20 have been regular fixtures here.  Noise level is higher 
tonight than previous sessions when storms were closer.

Interestingly enough, since I made the system switch a bit ago, reports have been lean.  That may be part QSB and partly the fact that I reduced TX cycle.

I'm 
impressed with all the stations that have successfully decoded the 23 
dbm tonight with the seasonal noise.. band is definitely all over the 
place.  I look forward to getting back to QSO's!  Until then, I will 
continue this routine or something similar.

73!

John XIQ


________________________________
 From: JD <listread at lwca.org>
To: "Discussion of the Lowfer (US, European, & UK) and MedFer bands" <lowfer at mailman.qth.net> 
Sent: Thursday, June 5, 2014 9:33 PM
Subject: Re: [Lowfer] WSPRing in a thunderstorm...
 

We got through our "green sky at morning" with minimal consequences, apart 
from a power outage followed by an Internet failure.  Mother Nature's 
version of "the cloud" can knock out man's version easily.  All seems to be 
working this evening, so maybe I can give you a quick wrap up of last 
night's adventure before going back to the farm and seeing what the WSPR 
prosepcts are tonight on 630 m.  Here are the two screen shots I mentioned 
last night:

http://lwca.org/mbarchiv/pix/2014/0604wspr2.jpg

This one includes the first decodes of both stations yesterday evening.  XIQ 
was on continuously, but appeared weaker in the shot above while XXM was on. 
I first attributed this to AGC action in the receiver, since XXM is usually 
quite strong, and cranked up the drive to the clipper slightly.  A similar 
results showed up later, leading me to think I'd gone too far with the drive 
and capture effect was taking over...which may have been a contributing 
factor.  But as the evening wore on, I eventually saw that both stations 
were undergoing much wider fluctuations in signal levels than usual.  Some 
of this can be seen in the last screen shot of the night, below.

http://lwca.org/mbarchiv/pix/2014/0604wspr7.jpg

It was interesting to try to guess from the Argo trace when XIQ would be 
strong enough to decode.  Sometimes I'd think it was too weak, but after a 
little extra processing time, the decode would appear.  Other times looked 
just the same to the eye or even a little stronger, but no decodes.

As of tonight, I already had XIQ solidly at sunset, but later the level 
variations got a bit wilder.  In one time slot, the header came through 
fine, then there were 40 seconds of virtually nothing before the signal 
recovered.  That one decoded after an extra delay, but with a 7 dB worse 
reported SNR.  I thought I'd put that one on the memory card too, but 
apparently not.

Static started out about an S-unit lower at sunset, but could get worse at 
any time (it was trending that way when I left to come here and report).  I 
have no idea how long the weather is going to cooperate.  I'd like to think 
maybe I'll be able to snag someone else at 630 tonight, but that depends on 
when the next batch of storms are due to arrive--or worse, materialize in 
place.

John D 

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