[600MRG] WG2XIQ/R

[John Langridge]

Last night I was testing a "remote rx" located a mile away from my normal operating position.  It consists of an Ensemble II LF SDR, soundblaster 96khz outboard sound card and dell netbook.  The antenna was a simple marconi-T, 25 feet tall, top load sloping back to ground with base load to resonate/match and a single ground rod.  No radials were used.  Ground condx at this site/region average 30 mS/m.  This is the same site and setup that I used to perform my first micro-antenna test this past January.

After the first night, the results were good.  The system seemed to perform well in the presence of my nearby RF.  XXM was a regular, followed by XJM who indicated that reports were consistently about 8db down from what my main station was reporting (VE7SL loop) on the same cycle.  Mike/12 along with Rudy/20 were reported in addition to John VE7BDQ, which was a very nice surprise.

During early testing, the netbook seemed very stressed by the CPU load of HDSDR and WSPR, particularly during decodes when strong signals were present.  This actually seemed ok last night and continues to run ok this morning from what I can tell but the system is bare bones at the moment with no remote control due to the load issues.  I am planning on building a system to locate remotely at a quiet site but I have not fully defined what that means yet .  I had received permission to use a local site about 20 miles south of me but the owner became a silent key last spring.  There are some other quiet sites available that I am exploring which have the space for good rx antennas, are in rural, quiet locations, and have internet and power.  While an RF shot would be best for audio, the distances are much too far  for the sites I am looking at so I will have to address latency issues should an IP audio return be used.  Having used IP via skype for both CW and
 phone while remoting my HF station around the US while traveling, the latency was generally not a problem for normal skeds and QSO's... it would have been problematic for contesting and dxing, however.

So this is all a work in progress that had been mothballed until I saw the recent work of Stefan DK7FC and it got me to thinking about working on it again.  I will continue to let the "remote rx" run for testing using WSPR but may at some point temporatily turn it into a QRSS grabber with upload to a website.  Please feel free to try to ring its bell.  That certainly helps with my testing here...

good condx last night.  Kinda like Rudy alluded to in his email - who knew there was a solar storm going on?


73!

John XIQ