To whet members appetite for the WSPR challenge which the club is running in February I thought I’d set the club station to work and see what can be achieved using this fantastic digital mode. In the spirit of WSPR I used 5W from the K3 as measured on the Expert to a 30m folded dipole, well within Foundation licence conditions. The results are remarkable.
These European stations all heard GX3WSC in a 10 minute period. Not bad. But it doesn’t end there.
Outside Europe in the same 10 minute period we were heard by ZL, JA and well into the US. If that wasn’t good enough take a look at this:
Not one but two ZLs. I’m very disappointed that we weren’t heard in the South Island!
So if that’s what can be achieved in 10 random minutes with 5W and a dipole imagine what is possible in the whole month of February?
Another criticism of WSPR is that it takes nearly 2 minutes to send a signal. Very slow compared to other modes. How many modes though allow your signal to be reported by this number of stations in 2 minutes?
So lets all get our Ultimate kits warmed up and ready for Feb. I’ll be aiming for 30m as it really works day and night around the world.
73 Mike G0KAD
