[Lowfer] 2200 m WSPR - Puzzles

[wa3tts at verizon.net]

JD & All:  Here's my screen view, DT between .2 to .4 this afternoon. Some local washing machine, furnace blower, or other unknown local  noise sources   It was fairly quiet in early afternoon....

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1rb25sby69fjsdh/IMG_1284.JPG?dl=0


I pulled all 4 common mode chokes at the 2 EWE  antennas the other day. I'm thinking they may have taken one too many lightning spikes along with the antenna transformers over the few few years. I had a very close lightning strike or light hit about a year or two back and I recall having to replace the transformer in the e-probe along with the fet at the time---it sort of worked at LF but was junk at HF and MF after the lightning event.  I'm wondering if the high permeability cores like 73, 77, 75, W, J are more prone to damage than the 43 and 61 material....

  It just seems like I should be hearing a few dB better than is currently happening...replacing antenna transformers next on my list.


73 Mike wa3tts




-----Original Message-----
From: JD <listread at lwca.org>
To: Discussion of the Lowfer (US, European, & UK) and MedFer bands <lowfer at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Sun, Oct 21, 2018 5:18 pm
Subject: Re: [Lowfer] 2200 m WSPR - Puzzles

I've got two mysteries at the moment. The first I'm not sure anyone has a good answer for (WH2XXP has been coming in at distinctly lower level in mid-day than used to be the case), but a couple of you might be able to help with the second one. WA9CGZ came in a couple of times last night , but only twice, so I didn't think it would be a regular here. But apparently it is--except it doesn't decode, despite having a signal that is visibly clearer than XXP! (That's a benefit of having a couple of Argo instances going. One drawback of using WSPR in isolation as an indicator of propagation is that the signal may be getting through fine, strength wise, but not decoding for some other reason than SNR. Tou won't know that unless you're using other tools simultaneously and comparing results.) The way I know it's WA9CGZ is from finding it on the same frequency in my decodes from last night, then searching for decodes of the call from other reporters...who still were copying him this afternoon! Most notably, WA3TTS and N8OOU. Mike and/or Mike, could you check your WSPR windows or the ALL_WSPR.TXT file and see whether his dT value is near the ±2 second mark this afternoon? Unfortunately, that's one parameter the WSPRnet database query does not show. It indicates his drift is negligible, but gives no clue whether timing may be marginal. This post has a file attachment showing the perplexing signals: http://lwca.org/mb/msg/8439.htm Thanks. John ______________________________________________________________ Lowfer mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/lowfer Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Lowfer at mailman.qth.net Post must be less than 50KB total for message plus attachment! This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html