Sunday 23 December 2012

HPSDR on 70MHz WSPR again

Overnight I remembered that it is possible to control the HPSDR under Cat control. It can emulate the TS-2000. So I went into HPSDR setup and changed Cat control to 4800-N-2 on COM17  and enabled it:-


In the WSPR program under station parameters PTT method was changed to CAT, enable cat was ticked and Kenwood TS-2000 4800-8-N-2, no handshake chosen:-


Remember N8VB VCOM previously set up a virtual com cable between com7 and com17
Now the HPSDR is controlled without DTR etc. WSJT can also control the frequency.
Efforts were rewarded. My signals were heard in Holland:-

 2012-12-23 19:12  G4FRE  70.092501  -23  -1  IO82uc  5  PA0O  JO33hg  614  74 
 2012-12-23 16:08  G4FRE  70.092507  -17  -2  IO82uc  5  PA0O  JO33hg  614  74 
 2012-12-23 14:56  G4FRE  70.092474  -16  -1  IO82uc  5  PA0O  JO33hg  614  74 
 2012-12-23 14:22  G4FRE  70.092485  -18  -3  IO82uc  5  PA0O  JO33hg  614  74 

And in the UK:-

 2012-12-23 15:54  G4FRE  70.092522  -20  0  IO82uc  5  G3SHK  IO90dx  131  162 










 2012-12-23 12:00  G4FRE  70.092501  -25  -1  IO82uc  5  G0MJI  IO83ni  144  344 
 2012-12-23 10:32  G4FRE  70.092521  +12  1  IO82uc  5  G3LVP  IO81wv  26  154 
 2012-12-23 09:24  G4FRE  70.092451  -15  3  IO82uc  5  M0NKA  IO92  95  63 


And I heard a signal from Holland:-


 2012-12-23 14:02  PA0O  70.092501  -30  -1  JO33hg  50  G4FRE  IO82uc  614  261

Saturday 22 December 2012

HPSDR on 70MHz WSPR

Tonight I decided it was time to work out how to interface the HPSDR to the K1JT WSPR programme and try it on 70MHz. My Penelope board has a -20dB coupler on the output giving 0dBm which is fine for driving my DEMI L70-28 transverter http://downeastmicrowave.com/PDF/VHF-UHFXVERT_pd.pdf (serial number 1!) to 35W maximum. The normal 0.5W output of the Penny board should be terminated in 50 ohms to protect the output stage

I use the W5WC dual RX version of POWERSDR as this allows me two 96kHz chunks of the band to be seen at the same time. Usually one is on the beacons and one is on the calling channel
First I installed my paid for copy of Virtual audio cable which will allow the audio to be connected between the 2 programmes. It was configured to support VAC1 and VAC2.
Next a copy of N8VB's VCOM programme was installed with 2 pairs of cables, COM6>COM16 and COM 7>COM17
In the HPSDR Setup, CAT control TAB the port is set to COM 16, RTS and enabled:-  


Next the VAC setup in HPSDR. VAC1 is setup as VAC2 as the input and VAC1 as the output:-

Next the WSPR programme needed setting. Audio IN is set to VAC1 and audio OUT is set to VAC2. Note these settings are the REVERSE of the HPSDR ones


Drive level to the transverter was set to produce 5W output. The 10MHz reference for the HPSDR was produced by a Thunderbolt GPS unit,  which also, with the help of KE5FX "Lady Heather" Monitoring programme http://www.ke5fx.com/heather/readme.htm was used to set the computer clock every 15 minutes. The 70/28MHz transverter Local Oscillator is not yet GPS locked; an upcoming project based on the G4HUP DFS design

The system was allowed to run whilst packing the Christmas Candy

Looking at the WSPRNET spot database http://wsprnet.org/drupal/wsprnet/spots it was pleasing to see the signal had been seen:-

 2012-12-22 22:16  G4FRE  70.092565  -15  0  IO82uc  5  M0NKA  IO92  95  63 
 2012-12-22 22:16  G4FRE  70.092534  -22  -1  IO82uc  5  PA0TBR  JO22pi  517  84


The PA0BTR spot was the ODX for the days spots on 4m; not bad for my Indoor Halo!

Sunday 16 December 2012

ADS-B using the R820T USB Dongle and VirtualRadar

Having managed to produce the Data I also wanted to try displaying it with virtual radar. This is available from http://www.virtualradarserver.co.uk/  To use it with ADSB# server some parameters have to be changed under options. Data source to "AVR or Beast raw feed", Address to 127.0.0.1 and port to 47806

Start ADSB# first 


then Start Virtual radar which will show incoming activity


To see the data in map format click on the link to http://127.0.0.1:VirtualRadar. The following is the map after running for a few hours showing the airplane tracks; not surprisingly all to the east of me. Currently 39 planes are being tracked:-


Looking back at the virtualradar window the above "connection" can now be seen listed:-


Comparing the plots produced by the same data using Virtualradar and PlanePlotter Planeplotter captures more planes, but it is not free! 

ADS-B using the R820T USB Dongle and PlanePlotter

G4VXE recently alerted me to software capable of producing ADS-B data under windowshttp://sdrsharp.com/index.php/a-simple-and-cheap-ads-b-receiver-using-rtl-sdr. I downloaded the executable and after installing the R820T driver using Zadiq from http://rtlsdr.org/softwarewindows we were in business. Connecting the homebrew 1090MHz colinear on the window ledge data packets were being produced.


Note that the driver only needs installing once, not as some have tried after every reboot

Next we needed something to display the data

I already had the paid for planeplotter installed on the computer so I would try that first. A couple of changes to the setup used with the Modesbeast were needed. The mode S receiver option needs setting to "AVR receiver"


The IP address and port then needs to be set:-



Finally the input/output settings need to be set to AVR receiver TCP


Planeplotter was started and left running for 6 hours:-



Not as good as the ModeSbeast but very good for the price of the USB dongle.

Friday 14 December 2012

Hermes as a VNA: Reflection

Next task was to look at filter return loss. In addition to hermes one needs a reflection bridge. This has a port for RF input, a port for reflected output and a port to connect the device under test. Looking in the RF goodies box I found a commercial Wiltron 80NF50 5MHz to 2GHz SWR bridge which would be ideal. To try it out a filter in the 0.005-2Ghz HF bands was needed so looking in the MW2I contest parts box I found one of the two W3NQN bandpass filter box that was built on the PCB from 5B4AGN and decided to test the 15m filter
To make sure it still worked i first configured the system for transmission measuring 3 to 30MHz as described yesterday. The results were as follows:-



Which showed it still worked. Next the system was configured for return loss. The Hermes transmit output was connected through the 6dB attenuator to the bridge RF input. The Reflected RF output from the bridge was connected to the receiver input of Hermes. The device under test port was left open circuit. The software mode was changed to reflection chart , It was time to calibrate.
For return loss a calibrated open circuit, short circuit and 50 ohm load are needed. I had purchased a suitable set from SDR-Kits with SMA male connectors so these were used, being attached as prompted by the software.
The filter box, terminated in a 50 ohm load  was then connected to the device under test port and the following measurement produced:-


This showed that the filter had around 20dB return loss over the whole of 15m. To expand the vertical scale I clicked the "auto range" button under "display":-
 To further expand the horizontal axis the start and stop frequency boxes under the plot were changed to 15 and 25MHz:-

This showed how good the return loss was. Obviously it is still working fine.
All results (measurements AND calibrations) can be saved to disc to allow later use.

Hermes as a VNA: Transmission

Tonight I found a short time to try out the VK6APH VNA code to use my Hermes Board/ANAN  10 as a VNA.  

As suggested in the V1.9 user manual I put a 6dB attenuator on the Hermes TX output to define the source impedance for measurements as 50 ohms

First I connected the TX output through the 6dB attenuator to the RX input and carried out the calibration routine. Just to check it had worked alright, i left the connection in place and hit the measure button, which resulted in the following result


Which is what I expected to see

Next I needed a filter to measure. The first filter that I found was my LF lowpass filter that I used in front of the SDRIQ to keep high power MW stations out of the front end while listening to 136 and 500kHz. This was connected between the TX and RX ports of Hermes still with the 6dB attenuator in circuit. The result is as follows:-

When I can find the necessary adaptor cables, the next task is to use a reflection bridge to measure return loss


Thursday 13 December 2012

The KX3, the fridge and the hairdryer

In my post on Jul 7 2012 I noted that frequency stability of the KX3 was not good enough for digital modes even on 40m. It had been pointed out that the KX3 was designed as a portable mountain top rig for use on SSB and CW and it was never designed to be highly stable

Since that time Wayne N6KR has done some investigation and has come up with a procedure to generate a custom frequency offset versus temperature table for the KX3 that the KX3 can use to adjust the offset. The procedure is at http://www.elecraft.com/manual/KX3%20Custom%20VFO%20TC%20rev%20A8.pdf

To do the procedure,  a highly stable (the XG3 isnt good enough!) 50MHz signal source is needed. Elecraft will sell you a suitable XG50 for the purpose but there has to be something in the shack. The K3 runs off a GPS locked 10MHz source so the fifth harmonic could be used? Initial tests showed the 50MHz level was not high enough, I needed a harmonic generator. Searching the parts bin I found an LF minicircuits mixer with connectors (intended for my 477kHz TRUE transverter). These contain diodes so they must generate harmonics. I found that driving the IF port with 10MHz and connecting the RF port to my 6m antenna produced a healthy 50MHz signal. good enough for the procedure

After making sure that I understood the procedure the KX3 was put in the fridge for 30 minutes. When removed the KX3 starts to warm up and the KX3 records the audio frequency of the tone against temperature (actually temperature a to d value...you can see what is happening in the KX3 utility programme as well as on the KX3 LCD) and stores it. To calibrate the upper temperature range (above KX3 ambient temperature) a hairdryer is used to heat it up. The procedure suggests until 52C but, being winter mine stopped at 43C which is adequate for the UK so I stopped calibration there.

After applying the calibration table It was great to hear the note of the 50MHz signal stay at around 550Hz all the way back down to 25C. The process was speeded up by putting the KX3 on a bag of frozen peas!

Next to see what the KX3 looks like on LF QRSS


Wednesday 5 December 2012

KX3 Maintenance

Time to take the KX3 apart and address a couple of issues

I finally got hold of the KXBC3 Battery charger/Real time clock that was ordered Dec 28 2011 (11 months!). Took about 30 minutes to fit. Now I do not have to take the batteries out of the case to recharge them, but there is enough backup power on the board for the clock to remember the time for up to 5 minutes if the batteries are taken out.

While it was apart I took out the RF board to do the upgrade to take care of the lower dynamic range on 80/160m that was identified in the ARRL QST KX3 review. This involves removing 4 surface mount Inductors and replacing them with different values. The Inductors cost under $1 from Mouser Electronics. The modification took just 30 minutes. For the squeamish you can get Elecraft to do the changes for you  for $50 plus shipping each way as they consider it an "improvement" not a "defect correction"

Next I will do the extended temperature frequency calibration procedure to see if I can make it work on HF QRSS/WSPR without drifting. Fortunately this has to be done with the covers on

Saturday 1 December 2012

Hermes in motion

 Finally got a few minutes to put together my new SDR radio. I collected the TAPR Hermes Transceiver board mid week http://openhpsdr.org/hermes.php. The PA and enclosure are  from Apache labs https://apache-labs.com/ and have been here for a while. To Interface them together 2 connectors have to be soldered, a resistor removed and a couple of cables hooked up. It is a bit crowded in the box!

Hermes Transceiver board

Apache Labs PA and Filter board


Anan-10 Front Panel
Anan-10 Rear Panel



As can be seen it can select 3 antennas, an ethernet interface to the outside world (can be GIGE), can be locked to GPS, has a low level transverter output, operates 10kHz to 55MHz and produces around 15W from one of the 3 antenna ports

It arrived with V1.8 software but I upgraded it, through the ethernet port to version 2.0 which was released a couple of hours earlier

I hooked it up to the W5WC dual receiver version of Power SDR which allowed monitoring of 500kHz and 40m as can be seen from the following:-


There is software available that allows monitoring 160/80/40/20/15/10 all at the same time with panoramic displays for each although you cant listen to all at the same time

VK6APH has also created software to use the device as a 55MHz VNA allowing transmission/reflection to be measured and displayed as a graph or a smith chart



Sunday 25 November 2012

500kHz WSPR 24 November

After watching the football decided to have a look on 600m using the HPSDR and the DX-B antenna for 160/80/40/30m which slopes to the north east at a height of 20'. WE6XGR (WE2XGR/6 but wspr takes twice as long to send that call!) said he would be QRV so first look there:-



0442 -19 -1.5   0.499500  0 WE6XGR FN12 50
0444 -23 -1.2   0.499500  0 WE6XGR FN12 50
0446 -21 -1.3   0.499500  0 WE6XGR FN12 50
0448 -21 -1.2   0.499500  0 WE6XGR FN12 50
0450 -22 -1.3   0.499500  0 WE6XGR FN12 50
0452 -22 -1.2   0.499500  0 WE6XGR FN12 50
0454 -26 -1.5   0.499500  0 WE6XGR FN12 50
0456 -26 -1.4   0.499500  0 WE6XGR FN12 50
0500 -26 -1.0   0.499500  0 WE6XGR FN12 50

after WE6XGR faded out just to check the receiver I retuned to WG2XIQ on 475.7kHz who was his usual strength

0504 -5 -0.5   0.474700  0 WG2XIQ EM12 30

Tuning around also heard WD2XSH/31 in VA and WE2XSH/7 in MS

To protect the wideband frontend of the HPSDR (0.1MHz to 55MHz) from the 40m QRSS transmissions I was making I had to use my 1kW rated 500kHz low pass filter in front of the receiver as it was the only suitable filter I had, the smaller ones are in England

28MHz WSPR 24 November


Lots of skip around the USA but not as much abroad

Saturday 24 November 2012

28MHz WSPR 23 November

Slightly better conditions, more European stations and  into south america
10m WSPR 11/23

Thursday 22 November 2012

Digital modes at Thanksgiving

Being Thanksgiving today time for some radio. I dusted off my ARDMEPT trannsmitter which is capable of multiband WSPR and QRSS running 250mW. Having the HF6V multiband Vertical switching antennas between bands was not an issue
I loaded the code for QRSS on 30m  30m WSPR and 10m WSPR. The results were interesting:-

10m WSPR
One station in England (G4HZW), two in Australia (VK7BO, VK2ZMT),  the rest in North America

30m WSPR
One station in Venezuela, the rest in North America

 Due to issues with grabbers hosted on QSL.net I used the new grabber in New mexico at http://qrss.nmsu.edu/SPOTD-30M.html

30m WSPR received in New Mexico

500kHz in USA

From the LF reflectors I had noticed new LF licences had been issued in the USA and new modes had appeared so it was time to take a look with my HPSDR and DX-B wire antenna

Monday night I looked on 474.2kHz and saw a signal from WG2XIQ (identified by his 12wpm ID) but couldnt decode as WSPR or the new JT9-2 digital mode, indeed they didnt look on the panadaptor like either mode. It was late so I switched off

Tuesday morning I tried the setup on 30m QRSS and noticed a lot of jitter on the Argo display. I was suspicious of the VAC connection between PowerSDR and WSJT-X so I ran a cable from the headphone output of the HPSDR to the computer mic input. QRSS looked fine and was easy to copy

Tuesday evening listened on WSPR on 474.2MHz. saw 2 signals

WG2XIQ in Fort Worth 0520 to 1432z

121121 814 30 0 -0.5 0.475686 WG2XIQ EM12 30 0 1 0

WG2XJM in PA from 0606 to 1156z

121121  820  8    -24      -0.5  0.475775  WG2XJM  EN91    37      0       1       0

Wednesday evening listened on the new JT9-2 (-2 is 2 second transmissions) on 474.2MHz. saw 2 signals

WG2XIQ in Fort Worth 2352 to 0532z

0820
10
-5
0.1
1420.6
0
14
WG2XIQ EM12

WG2XJM in PA was also seen at -33dB at 0254.

I also heard the "local" WD2XSH/6 and WD2XSH/7 beacons and the WD2XSH/31 beacon in Virginia

Sunday 11 November 2012

ADS-B aircraft reception

For a change today I hooked up my Modesbeast ADS-B aircraft receiver to my homebrew colinear, placed on the inside window sill and left it running for the day. The following shows the trails of the aircraft I decoded and plotted using planeplotter software:-


Surpising coverage. Flights to Guernsey/Jersey are seen along with planes over France, Belgium and Holland. More planes are seen East of me but I was surprised to see the planes due west of me which are blocked by the Malvern Hills

Sunday 4 November 2012

WSJT on Raspberry Pi using Raspbian



After the previous success on WSJT on UBUNTU it was next time to try WSJT on the Raspberry Pi. It only needed a few tweaks, all related to where portaudio19 was installed on the RPI:-

 svn co svn://svn.berlios.de/wsjt/trunk

 cd ../trunk

./configure --with-portaudio-include-dir=/usr/include --with-portaudio-lib-dir=/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf

it did a whole load of things starting at "Compiling wsjt" and ended with "Installing into: /usr/local"

still in trunk:-:

make clean

make

after it finishes make sure you have permissions to execute  ../trunk/wsjt.py:-

sudo chmod 777 wsjt.py

Even though the serial port isnt used, WSJT still tries to talk to it so make sure /dev/ttyAMA0 permissions are set appropriately

to launch WSJT:-

./wsjt.py

Set the options. Make sure that the serial port is set to /dev/ttyAMA0, which is not the default

Saturday 3 November 2012

WSPR on a Raspberry Pi using Raspbian

I revisited this topic in my jan 28 2013 blog wspr-on-rpilapdock-under-raspian.html. The method below does not work due to issues with the "latest" revision of software on the svn. It works fine if revision 2840 is used

 Having got WSPR and WSJT working on my Ubuntu laptop, the next challenge was to get WSPR working on the more restricted  Raspberry Pi

First discovery was that a new version of the RPI image was available 2012-10-28-wheezy-raspbian.zip so that was downloaded and installed. At installation time I took the opportunity to overclock the board at 1GHz and in the same menu allow the memory space to fill ALL the memory card (if you dont you only have 2GB to use, even on a 16GB card!
Searching the internet I came across a blog "Compiling WSPR on a Raspberry Pi" at http://timbertops.co.uk/blog/?p=88  I also found some improvement pointers at http://www.vk2mev.net/?p=96

the "merged" steps (before I forgot how I did it) are:-




sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install build-essential subversion python2.7-dev python-numpy python-imaging-tk python-pmw libportaudio2 portaudio19-dev libsamplerate0-dev gfortran cl-fftw3 python-dev hamlib-utils

svn co http://svn.berlios.de/svnroot/repos/wsjt/branches/wspr

cd wspr


./configure --with-portaudio-include-dir=/usr/include --with-portaudio-lib-dir=/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf

To make sure the hardware floating point processor is used (speeds up decode), the Makefile created by configure needs editing.

vi Makefile (edit wouldnt work on my machine on this file)
make sure line 5 reads:-
FFLAGS = -g -O2 -fno-range-check -ffixed-line-length-none -Wall -Wno-character-truncation -Wno-conversion -Wtabs -fPIC -mfloat-abi=hard
make sure line 9 reads:-
CFLAGS = -Wall -O0 -g -Wall -O0 -g -mfloat-abi=hard
next

sudo make 

programme created, now to consider hardware:-

The RPI has an audio output but no audio input. Some have used $5 USB soundcards, but I   did not have one in my collection. Fortunately I still had the I-MIC which I used with my Ipad to run ISDR. A web search revealed this should work with the RPI without any software updates. 
Plugging in the Imic it appeared in the list of audio playback and recording devices:- 
aplay -l **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices **** card 0: ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA], device 0: bcm2835 ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA] Subdevices: 8/8 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 Subdevice #1: subdevice #1 Subdevice #2: subdevice #2 Subdevice #3: subdevice #3 Subdevice #4: subdevice #4 Subdevice #5: subdevice #5 Subdevice #6: subdevice #6 Subdevice #7: subdevice #7 card 1: system [iMic USB audio system], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

arecord -l
**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 1: system [iMic USB audio system], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

time to launch WSPR:-

wspr

The usual screen for WSPR3.0.1 appeared which looked like success. I selected the imic as   audio in and audio out source in options

Hooked it up to the K3 and got decodes!


Time to try Transmit. I usually key the transmitter via the radio RS232 port but although the RPI has an RS232 port it needed a level converter which I did not have. I resorted to   using the K3 VOX with success and my signal was successfully decoded:-

2012-11-03 16:10  G4FRE  14.097139  +1  0  IO82uc  5  IX1CKN  JN35pr  995  132 
 2012-11-03 16:10  G4FRE  14.097140  +3  0  IO82uc  5  EA2COA  IN83  961  184 
 2012-11-03 16:10  G4FRE  14.097113  -22  1  IO82uc  5  GW7PEO  IO83gh  156  330 
 2012-11-03 16:10  G4FRE  14.097110  -23  0  IO82uc  5  VK3GMZ  QF22sf  17060  70 
 2012-11-03 16:10  G4FRE  14.097129  -9  1  IO82uc  5  LB1A  JP50mt  1264  35 
 2012-11-03 16:10  G4FRE  14.097121  0  0  IO82uc  5  OH2MUI  KP10wj  1843  50 
 2012-11-03 16:10  G4FRE  14.097181  -8  0  IO82uc  5  EW6BN  KO45hm  2047  67 
 2012-11-03 16:10  G4FRE  14.097112  -2  0  IO82uc  5  LY2BOS  KO24or  1833  70 
 2012-11-03 16:10  G4FRE  14.097118  -25  0  IO82uc  5  VU2LID  MJ88lm  8527  93 
 2012-11-03 16:10  G4FRE  14.097096  -24  0  IO82uc  5  G4SFS  IO81qf  100  193 
 2012-11-03 16:10  G4FRE  14.097097  -9  -1  IO82uc  5  LA9JO  JP99gb  2177  22 
 2012-11-03 16:10  G4FRE  14.097086  -20  0  IO82uc  5  ON7KB  JO21ei  466  98 
 2012-11-03 16:10  G4FRE  14.097104  -20  1  IO82uc  5  DG0OPK  JO50gq  903  95 
 2012-11-03 16:10  G4FRE  14.097129  -21  0  IO82uc  5  DV1VHK  PK04ll  10830  55 
 2012-11-03 16:10  G4FRE  14.097104  -11  0  IO82uc  5  OH2MZA  KP20kf  1890  51 
 2012-11-03 16:10  G4FRE  14.097101  -5  0  IO82uc  5  OK/AD6XP  JN89ff  1355  96 
 2012-11-03 16:10  G4FRE  14.097115  -21  0  IO82uc  5  DU1MGA  PK04  10830  55 

One thing I did discover during the above process was that although the RPI sets its clock via NTP this only happens if the internet connection is available at boot time. If you   connect the internet lead after boot time the clock will be off
The observant will have noticed I did not add "dwc_otg.speed=1" to cmdline.txt as recommended by VK2MEV. I did try it once, but when booting,  the RPI didnt find the keyboard or USB mouse and hence wouldnt let me log in. I had to resort to removing the phrase from the SD card using my windows laptop to get it to boot properly




Tuesday 23 October 2012

WSJT on UBUNTU

After the previous success on WSPR on UBUNTU it was next time to try WSJT. I found an install package for an old version of WSJT but this did not have the ISCAT mode. So I turned to Roger W3SZ who was the Linux guru at the WSJT contest station for guidance. He showed me how to compile the current version from the svn. using the following method (type what is between the < and >)

 <svn co svn://svn.berlios.de/wsjt/trunk>

 go to .../trunk

I checked with the package manager and found I already had the libfftw3 and libfftw3-dev packages.

<./configure --with-portaudio-include-dir=/WSJT9/trunk/--with-portaudio-lib-dir=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/>

it did a whole load of things starting at "Compiling wsjt" and ended with "Installing into: /usr/local"

still in trunk:-:

<make clean>
<make>
after it finishes make sure you have permissions to execute  ../trunk/wsjt.py 

<./wsjt.py>

then I saw

"WSJT Version 9.3 r2589 , by K1JT
Revision date: 2012-09-17 16:13:47 -0400 (Mon, 17 Sep 2012)
Run date:   Sun Oct 21 19:02:33 2012 UTC
..............................."

The normal WSJT9.3 window opened and I set up the options for JT65B and after leaving the rig tuned to 70.0485MHz for a while I saw:-



Next I set it to JT65A on the WSJT frequency on 40m and saw:-


Also worked well on transmit

Double success!

WSPR on UBUNTU

UPDATE: 1/12/2013: 
to make this work now select revision 2840

svn co http://svn.berlios.de/svnroot/repos/wsjt/branches/wspr -r2840





I have used WSPR and WSJT digimodes for many years now but always on windows machines so I thought I ought to try using it on my Dell D630 Ubuntu Laptop

 Initially I tried installing the deb packages for WSJT on the K1JT web site http://www.physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT/wspr.html but both packages had issues

WSPR 2.11

when installing wspr_2.11r2263_i386.deb using the method in WSPR_2.0_User.pdf it installs OK but when I try to execute it I get:-

******************************************************************
WSPR Version 2.11_r2254, by K1JT
Run date:   Tue Oct  9 15:50:42 2012 UTC
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "wspr.py", line 53, in <module>
    w.acom1.appdir=(appdir+(' '*80))[:80]
ValueError: could not convert string to float: /home/dave/Downloads/WSPR

so I moved on to the other available version, wspr_2.00r1714_i386.deb when installing I get the following:-

dpkg: error processing wspr_2.00r1714_i386.deb (--install):
 unable to open file '/var/lib/dpkg/tmp.ci//.svn': Is a directory Errors were encountered while processing:
 wspr_2.00r1714_i386.deb

Searching the Internet I found many others who had discovered the same issues but no solutions. Then I discovered http://www.george-smart.co.uk/wiki/Compiling_WSPR which shows how to compile wspr from the svn location. Following the instructions It installed WSPR3.0.1 (which is the latest "experimental" release of WSPR no signs of "released version" on the SVN.). I had no issues so I tried it on 40m receive after setting the input and output audio to "default" (11), see above

Next I tried the transmit side. When it was time to transmit I got "Can't open /dev/ttyS0".  I checked the port:- 

dave@Ubuntu-D630a:~/trunk$ dmesg | grep tty
[    0.000000] console [tty0] enabled
[    0.555491] serial8250: ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
[    0.988910] 00:09: ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A 

so the port was there. Another web search revealed that there can be issues with who owns that serial port. It was found to be root. and adding me to the uucp group should fix it, which it did. Leaving it running driving the K3 at 5W I found the following spots on WSPRnet:-

2012-10-22 22:26  G4FRE  7.040096  -11  0  IO82uc  5  G4ENZ  IO81vv  24  166  
2012-10-22 22:14  G4FRE  7.040104  -1  0  IO82uc  5  S59I  JN76me  1417  111  
2012-10-22 22:14  G4FRE  7.040096  -11  0  IO82uc  5  LA9JO  JP99gb  2177  22  
2012-10-22 22:14  G4FRE  7.040011  -7  0  IO82uc  5  LA1NRA  JP53ej  1457  26  
2012-10-22 22:14  G4FRE  7.040082  -6  0  IO82uc  5  OK2IP  JN89ee  1351  96 

Success!