EME, to the Moon

 Inspiration

It's the ultimate challenge of amateur radio, Earth-Moon-Earth also known as moon bounce but is it possible with a small station like mine? Until recently I would have said no but after using MAP65 from K1JT I'm starting to think that maybe it is possible.
I've been using SDRs for some time now on VHF, so I already had available the IQ output needed to use MAP65.  This allows the decoding of all JT65B signals within a 90kHz bandwidth.  I've used the software to monitor beacons on Two with good success, at times being able to decode four beacons at the same time, GB3WGI, GB3NGI, GB3VHF and F5ZRB. But it never occurred to me to try and hear anything off the Moon. That was until one evening while watching an art programme an item appeared about artist Katie Patterson's Earth- Moon - Earth.

Katie used EME to record Beethoven's Moonlight sonata complete with gaps due to fading and then replayed it on a modern player piano. This romantic idea of radio waves going to the Moon and back was an inspiration so I started reading all about EME. I soon discovered that with JT65B, on Two, small stations were having success with single yagis and no elevation.

 Help needed

Ground gain or in this case sea gain

Apparently, EME is possible with 100 Watts and a single Yagi using JT65B.  It is often achieved at Moonrise or as the Moon is setting when ground gain is available.  I took this photo of the Moon over the sea a while ago and if I've got this right it should help to illustrate the principle.  Light from the Moon is taking two paths to the viewer, direct and that reflected from the surface of the sea. The reflected light adds to the overall illumination. In radio that can add as much as 6db to the signal at 144 MHz.  There's much more about ground gain online as a search will reveal but it's just like having four Yagis, not just one. Of course, it's only available when to Moon is at low angles as in the photo. ↗

 First monitoring

So with this in mind, I started to monitor off the Moon. Pointing my small 9 element beam towards Moonrise I left MAP65 running overnight.  Moonrise would occur in the early hours so I wouldn't know if anything had been received until the following morning. Come morning there was just one line in the band map, "73", time, signal strength, etc.  So to see if anything else had been received I opened up the text file Map65-rx found inside the MAP65 folder.  It contained all decoded data received through the night and to my amazement several stations had been received, two Russians and an Italian. Pretty encouraging but I had in the past, while monitoring beacons, seen false decodes so to be sure I turned off the Deep Search and renamed the CALL_3 file to be sure that I was indeed hearing off the Moon.
Once again I pointed the beam towards Moonrise, left MAP65 running and waited to see what might be decoded with the Deep Search disabled.   Once again there were several stations decoded and this time they could not be false decodes.

 More monitoring

 

 Over the following weeks, I continued to monitor and I soon started to realize that signals could be heard from Moon elevations of just 1 degree to as high as 25.  Outside this range decodes are few and far between but they did occur even 1 degree below the horizon on one occasion and at 60 degrees above.

Next.......

 I've improved receive performance by building a new preamp.  I'm looking very carefully at the transmitted signal as getting audio harmonics to a low level seems important to me. I need to familiarize myself with the operation of WSJT JT65B. Just monitoring is easy but TXing is going to be more demanding. I need to test my amp at the high duty cycle of JT65B........etc...etc....... but hopefully I'll soon be ready for that first contact.  I'll post here if I make it.

Cheers & beers

Dave G8TTI

UPDATE
15/12/2016
Well, I keep trying but not had much luck so far.  Was spotted on Livecq by a Dutch station but can't help wonder if that was tropo.  Also had a QRZ, well I think it was for me.  I'll just have to keep trying. Amp works fine and I have a 12dBd antenna to try, hopefully, that will help.
73

WSPR setup

Here's my WSPR setup.
Two Metres: home brewed hybrid SDR (has IF at 10.7MHz) nine element Tonna.
Four Metres; home brewed SDR loosely based on a design by WB6DHW and a two element HB9CV
 Have the same arrangement on Six but not used it to date.
Can also receive using home brewed TRX with SDR IQ output from 160 to 2.
Antennas are 80 metres from the house with amplifiers and pre-amps in shed below the mast.
Keeping power low has been no small challenge!

Four Metre Screen

Two Metre Spots

WSPR from an alternative address

 I have recently return from a holiday to the South coast of England. I felt it would be great fun to operate WSPR from the holiday cottage that overlooks Start Bay. It is a wonderful location. With fantastic sea views. So I was keen to see what spots I could get.

I took along my old IC 706 but did not have an antenna suitable for HF. I did however have a mobile whip that I could press into service. At least put it on to the car and see how well that would work. I didn't know where it would be possible to install an antenna otherwise. Looking around the cottage I realized that it would be possible to suspend the mobile whip from the guttering.

The antenna hanging from the gutter

So I set about doing this, as you can see from the picture. It was quite close to the cottage and had no ground plane. So I was not sure how well it would work or how or where it would match. But I discovered that it matched quite well around about 10 MHz. So the choice was obvious, I would use the antenna on 30 Metres. I had already reduced the output power from the 706 to just one Watt.  So with one Watt, a tablet and a makeshift antenna I gave 30 Metres a try. To my amazement the first spot came from Australia, the next from North America. Quite something for one watt and a lashed up antenna. I continued to WSPR on 30 Metres for the following two days, but then decided to try 20 Metres and retuned the antenna slightly. I found the results were not as good. Seems as if 30 Metres is a good band, one I have not tried before.

Although it was interesting to see where I could reach on HF I decided that Two Metres would be worth a try as well. But as I did not have an antenna with me for Two I had to set about making a dipole which I did using a plastic coat hanger and some stainless steel rod. Listening around it seem to recieve signals fairly well from the high vantage point overlooking the sea. So I decided to post on the WSPR Facebook page that I was operating from an alternative address  on the South coast of the UK.

I don't know how legal it is to operate / A when you cannot identify yourself to 6 digit QRA locator, as licensing conditions require, so I went to the trouble of putting on the WSPR website that I was actually operating /A thereby letting anybody caring to take the trouble to look up my call that I was operating away from home. I'm not sure, as I said, whether this is legal, but I did it anyway. I think there must be many people who perhaps stretch the licensing conditions a little bit using WSPR, but I don't think that these infringements are anything other than slight twisting of the rules. For example, leaving your station running while you go up top of the garden or are in bed sleeping. I wonder whether strictly speaking this is within licensing conditions. Let's hope OFCOM are happy.

Unfortunately, the results on 2 Metres were disappointing with no spots whatsoever even though a station in north France was beaming my direction. I transmitted  for several days but he heard nothing of me. Power output on 2 Metres was just 10 Watts, antenna was a dipole.

The setup

Some spots......

Some spot on 30 Metres

Continuing to WSPR on 144MHz

I'm continuing to WSPR on 144MHz with some success I think. At this time there is plenty of activity from Holland, so I'm getting spots, unfortunately not often able to spot the PA stations. Although there are quite a few traces on the WSPR waterfall they do not always decode.  Here is an example that shows a relatively strong station with Doppler shift that would not decode. This seems to be a problem with WSPR on Two Metres.  It would be nice to try WSJT-X on tropo as I understand that Doppler would be less of a problem. 

Strong but Doppler shifted signal probably from Holland

 Below is another that failed to decode.

NO decode WSPR 144MHz

So I am sorry if you've spotted me and I have not spotted you but this probably is a two way problem, there is just more activity in Holland, so thank you for that!

WSPR on Two Metres 144 MHz

WSPR on 144MHz has been something that I've played with over the past few days.  Running twenty Watts and a 9 element beam produced the results in the image below.  Although I can't say these distances are DX they pretty good considering the flat tropospheric conditions at the time and the low power.

Listed in distance unique spots only

 The map

If you've spotted me thank you very much.

73

G8TTI

First attempts with WSJT-X, 14MHz and 28MHz

I don't venture onto HF very often but recently I've been reading about WSJT-X and as I've played with WSJT JT65 on VHF it seemed it might be fun to have a go.

My HF setup is a homebrew SDR transceiver which runs just 16watts or so and a 14MHz 1/4 wave ground plane.  With a very long run of coax to the ground plane I doubt if more than half of the 16 Watts reach the feed point. So QRP (more than 5 Watts, so some would say not QRP) and a compromised antenna from what I'd read will fit WSJT-X well.

No trouble setting things up, usual fiddling with the CAT settings though. Found that I needed to set Power-SDR to ID as a TS2000 for some reason.

My first outing was on twenty, managed a few Europeans without much trouble but it was disappointing to discover most couldn't be bothered with the recommended procedure and after exchanging calls were soon sending 73. Still doesn't matter.

The screen, WSJT-X left PowerSDR right

Working further a field was a little harder but a couple of North American contacts were soon logged. One even going through all the transmit periods and sending short station details: 5W DP 73.

Despite the success I found that many stations that were good signal strength either didn't want to work me or couldn't hear me. So I was left wondering sometimes just what power these station were using.

The DX station

A trip to Ten Mertes one lunch time produced this contact, the second most distant I've ever made! Didn't know where CA was!

And the card to prove it!

I'd like to try WSJT-X on Two but not sure where to look for activity but perhaps there isn't any.

RTL dongle HDSDR and an IC706

I hadn’t realized just how easy it is to use an RTL dongle with HDSDR to provide a panadaptor until I happened upon an article on RTL-SDR.com showing just that.

As I've already tapped into the IF of my old IC706 I thought I'd give it a go. Actually I found the HDSDR website more useful that the RTL-SDR site in explaining how this is done. It's straight forward. You do need to download Omni-rig for the CAT control of your rig.

HERE'S A VIDEO.

Not sure it works as well as Powersdr-if and my homebrew sdr.

HERE'S A VIDEO OF THAT

 Find out more here

 http://g8tti.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/how-i-tapped-into-first-if-and.html

Marconi Two Metre Contest

I've left it to late in life to ever be a CW man but when there's activity in the CW segment of Two I do like to listen. So the Marconi Contest this year was one such opportunity and it happened that it coincided with some good tropo. Here's a couple of screen shots.

CW signals on Two during the Marconi contest 2015

Here's the best I heard


OM3W JN99CH

Distance between IO81WM & JN99CH is 1456.61 km

Here's the Hepburn map for the 8/11/2015

The tropo forecast map from http://www.dxinfocentre.com/

 

Receiving distant beacon OH2VHF by meteor scatter

Left the radio running last night and into the morning just to see if I could copy a signal from the distant Finnish beacon OH2VHF on 144.443 MHz. Much to my surprise I had success and received this short burst. Although not a complete callsign the letters OH2V are pretty clear. I'll try again tonight and maybe I'll receive the complete call. 

The letters OH2V can been seen

 The dash in the V is broken but "di di di dah" can be heard clearly.

Distance between IO81WM & KP20BB is 1877.73 km

About My Scrapbook

About My Srappbook

Here are some notes about the homebrewed equipment that I have made and used over the years. It has all been constructed using the well known KISS approach, Keep It Simple and Stupid. No bells and whistles here, essential features only. I make no great claims for any of it, (some pictures click to enlarge, if you do you will see why I make no claims) other than to say that building it and using it on the air has given me the opportunity to occasionally work some DX, and no small degree of amazement that it has worked at all!radio I hope that in a small way, this website might encourage more home construction, something that can only be good for the hobby of Amateur Radio. After all, if I can do it, so can you, and very likely with better results!

144MHz E's DX

Seemed to me that the E's season this year got off to a pretty slow start but fortunately improved from mid June.  Plenty of contacts on six and four and I was particularly pleased with this two metre one ;-

Distance between IO81WM & IM63NX is 1987.75 km (1235.189 miles)

At the time there was little local activity and after the contact CN8LI went back to calling CQ.

My equipment; homebrew amplifier 200Watts, homebrew hybrid SDR, 9ele Tonna.

Two Metre Interference

Two Metre Interference: has anyone been experiencing QRM on two during the day recently. This horrible hash has been appearing on the band here. At first I thought it must be local to me but then I notced aircraft flutter indicating its was coming from someway off. So turned on rig in the van and could hear in all the way to Chippenham. Anyone else hear it?

"Large spike on right is packet, left spike is GB3VHF"

144MHz 300 Watt amplifier

Been busy making this amplifier recently.
Amp kit from the Dutch RF shop and uses the Freescale MRFE6VP6300 mosfet.
Low pass filter from Homebrew RadCom.
Relay sequencing.
VSWR protection.

SIX Metre amplifier

I've built a couple of amplifiers recently. This one is for Six Metres, I just followed a design from OZ1PIF's website. It uses eight IRF510 MOSFETs. Output should be up to 250 Watts but I've not driven it hard enough to obtain that amount of power but 10 in produces 150 out so I'm happy with that. Seems to tie in nicely with the figures on OZ1PIF'S site. It's QRP to some but I've rarely run more than 20 Watts on Six from anything home-brewed here and I once worked VK with that.

Inside eight IRF510's, RX pre-amp and low pass filter

No front panel meter, no high swr protection, no cooling fan but the MOSFETs are very cheap!

Front panel. The case is from a faulty SMPS.

A card for the amp!

Listening for VC1T, was there any chance of hearing them?

How I listened for VC1T the recent Two Metre Trans-Atlantic attempt which took place 4-11 July 2014.

I have a very modest station but could I ever hear a transatlantic signal? Well maybe, after all I've heard tropospheric signals from the Azores, Madeira and the Canaries on 144MHz and UA3 via sporadic E. Distances in the order of 2500km. The distance between me and VC1T was 3600km. Yes, eleven hundred kilometres more but nevertheless I thought I should at least try and their signal could arrive via the ionosphere! So here's what I did.

To make the best of the opportunity I realised that I needed to monitor continuously and not just when in the shack. VC1T were going to be using WSJT9 modes FSK441 and JT65B.

My setup, no large antenna here

Beside the radio, the computer is a vital part of attempts like these. On mine it would be necessary to run three programs WSJT9, Radio-sky Pipe and PowerSDR-IQ. So a day or so before VC1T went on air I started up the three programs to see if there were any conflicts. None, all worked first time, WSJT and Radio-sky Pipe sharing Virtual Audio Cable. WSJT was set to record any decodes and Radio-sky Pipe set to record any signal just above the noise. PowerSDR-IQ set to 144.155MHz.

Test JT65B using GB3NGI

        I have used Radio-sky Pipe, in the past, to monitor beacons and calling frequencies when not in the shack. It can be set to record audio files to a signal level trigger point. It also draws a strip chart that helps to identify short lived signals.

So, from the first day of transmission from VC1T I was ready to monitor. FSK441 was the first mode in their schedule so WSJT9 was set to that mode, monitor only, save any decodes and the station left running.

Monitoring FSK441 for any MS from VC1T

Nothing of any interest was received on the first day, the 4^th July, just one or two EU stations on tropospheric and some backscatter MS. The next day the mode would change to JT65B but that was at 0100z, so I changed mode as late as  possible but before VC1T. WSJT would not be able to decode but Radio-sky Pipe would still record any signals.

On Saturday the 5^th July there seemed to be many more EU station around but nothing from VC1T.

Part call sign decode but in the wrong period so not VC1T

Sunday the 6^th back to FSK441. I was in the shack all morning, lots of EU stations calling, and some very nice backscatter pings. I don't know about anyone else but that morning I had a feeling that something was different propagation wise compared to the previous two days. There was a contest in EU and I heard many pings from contest stations  on VC1T's frequency, CW and phone. Then came the exciting news. And exciting it was. And congratulations to them but I was not surprised that VC1T's signals had been decoded. It just seemed as if things were going to happen. But I heard nothing from outside EU.

A Meteor scatter ping as recorded using RadioSky Pipe but was it VC1T

The news of the decode was very encouraging and so my equipment was left running, recording away. I saved all the audio files from WSJT and Radio-sky Pipe to a memory stick and transferred them daily to another computer searching them for anything interesting. It was possible to run them all through WSJT and look for decodes.  I spend a lot of time searching the Radio-sky Pipe recordings using a spectrogram.

In the end I found just one file that I think I can say, maybe, just maybe, could have come from VC1T.  Timing seems crucial here.  The ping came just inside VC1T's transmit period but perhaps my timing was out or an EI station's timing was out or both. You can see it was recorded Sunday 6th July at 1021 and 30seconds, 0.7 of a second into VC1T's transmit period.

Could this be VC1T?

Whether I heard any thing of VC1T or not I had a great time trying. I only hope there's another attempt soon, I would certainly monitor again, you just never know your luck.

UPDATE:

A year after I made this post the saved files of the 6th July 1021:30sec  ping were sent to JT himself for analysis.  I was happy with the message back,  "it could have been VC1T but there's no way to prove it".  Better I think "than it couldn't have been because ......".

Nice first E's contact

Sporadic E season is here again!
A bit of luck was on my side yesterday, worked SV5BYR for the first E's contact this season on 50MHz. With the limited power and antenna here I'll probably struggle to do any better E's DX this year but you never know!

Distance between IO81WM & KM46CK is 2916.89 km (1812.558 miles), bearing 113.2 degrees

Homebrew Transciever at G3VRE

Here's a video, made by Jon G0IUE, at our local club. It's my one time 2metre transciever which I've now converted to 6 & 4. More details one day!

MOSFET 50MHz amplifier

I've built a couple of amplifiers recently. This one is for Six Metres, I just followed a design from OZ1PIF's website. It uses eight IRF510 MOSFETs. Output should be up to 250 Watts but I've not driven it hard enough to obtain that amount of power but 10 in produces 150 out so I'm happy with that. Seems to tie in nicely with the figures on OZ1PIF'S site. It's QRP to some but I've rarely run more than 20 Watts on Six from anything home-brewed here and I once worked VK with that.

No front panel meter, no high swr protection, no cooling fan but the MOSFETs are very cheap!

Front panel. The case is from a faulty SMPS.

Meteor scatter signal from DB0FAI

This recording of DB0FAI (144.490MHz) was made at 0825 UTC on 6^th May 2013 via meteor scatter during the Eta Aquarids shower.


The spectacular start to the reception of the beacon is caused by a meteor passing into the E-layer of the ionosphere producing a trail of ionisation that last for many seconds before fizzling out.

Two seconds before the main reflection is a minor one of short duration.


Distance between G8TTI IO81WM & DB0FAI JN58IC is 994.47 km (617.966 miles).I made a large number of recordings very similar to this that morning.

Homebrewed on 70MHz

This is my homebrew Six & Four Metre transceiver. Here working a station during a Four Metre, 70MHz contest. The rig has an SDR output. which can be seen driving #SDR. It has an output of 2 Watts which is enough to drive the homebrew amplifier to 125Watts. Power out on Six is 10Watts which drives 150Watts out of the Six Metre amp.

Inside and tuned to a Six Metre beacon