WSPR = Whisper
Joe Taylor and people like him never cease to amaze me. Without trying to state the obvious he really is a clever bloke. I've used WSJT a few times, mostly for receiving but on a couple of occasions I've done a small amount of transmitting. I'd seen WSPR on his website and if the truth be told I had too much on my plate to think about using it. Now I've got some semblance of normality back and the sporadic E season starts to wane. I was thinking of my long 'un'established sdr beacon receiver then the idea struck me.
WSPR + Softrock HF Lite + Atom motherboard = WSPR receiver
Why change from Faros. We'll its no change for the long term but I've still not been able to find a way to use the HF lite with Faros for all the IARU HF beacons. Something that it really frustrating. If only I had the ability to write software!
So the possible change in direction needs a bit of thought. Is it worth while? I’m running it for a few days to see what it gives me. Sounds like the project could be something big if enough get involved.
WSPR is great but its potential for propagation research or even spotting band openings is not exploited because there is well below a critical mass of users on most bands. Most WSPRers are on 30m which is not very interesting as it's always open, but a lot of WSPR users are more interested in seeing how many people copy their few milliwatts than transmitting for day after day on a dead band. I admit I'm part of the problem, because activity breeds activity, and I often can't be bothered setting up WSPR on a dead band when there are more interesting things I could be doing with the radio.
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