Tracking wildlife

I watching a wildlife programme on TV the other day which had a feature about urban foxes. The naturalists  had fitted radio collars to some of the foxes and were able to track them over a wide area.One fox went off on a trek that lasted a couple of weeks and covered a distance of several kilometres.

In another programme radios have been attached to larger birds such as geese and ospreys to track their migration paths.
I wonder what frequency is used? One of the maturalists in the urban fox project seemed to be trying to DF a fox using what looked auspiciouslylike a 3 element 2m Yagi. I've seen similar antennas used o locate larger animals in Africa.

I would love to know what technology they use. My Kenwood TH-D7E APRS radio - despite being too big to use as a tracker for anythimg much smaller than an elephant -  can run for only a few hours with the GPS enbled and the power set to a sufficient level to enable tracking over a reasonable distance.using a less than optimal transmitting ntenna.

Across the pond on 10m with 200mW

WSPR never loses its ability to astound. Today I've been WSPRing on 10m, still with 0.2W. My signal was decoded by 5 different Stateside stations.

Timestamp	Call	MHz	SNR	Drift	Grid	Pwr	Reporter	RGrid	km	az
2014-01-18 14:26	G4ILO	28.126105	-25	0	IO84hp	0.02	KZ8C	EM88pm	5973	287
2014-01-18 14:36	G4ILO	28.126145	-22	1	IO84hp	0.02	KB9PVH	EN53oi	5959	296
2014-01-18 14:44	G4ILO	28.126131	-16	0	IO84hp	0.02	VE3SWS	FN06ge	5201	293
2014-01-18 15:18	G4ILO	28.126107	-9	0	IO84hp	0.02	N2NOM	FN22bg	5267	286
2014-01-18 15:38	G4ILO	28.126104	-23	0	IO84hp	0.02	K9AN	EN50wc	6175	293

More WSPR with 20mW

I've been WSPRing on 30m today, still with a power of 0.2W. I think WSPR is more interesting when you use low power: it's always interesting to see how far you can get.

20mW is not the lowest power you can use, though, it's just the lowest power the K3 will comfortably produce. (You can set the output power to 0.0W but I'm not sure how accurately the rig will maintain the power at such a low level - something to check.

Today my 0,02W into the MFJ magnetic loop in my attic was received by 30 different stations. Here's the list:

Timestamp	Call	MHz	SNR	Drift	Grid	Pwr	Reporter	RGrid	km	az
2014-01-13 11:52	G4ILO	10.140243	-11	0	IO84hp	0.02	ON7KO	JO21ce	637	124
2014-01-13 11:52	G4ILO	10.140209	-23	0	IO84hp	0.02	DL8HAF/P	JO53dm	899	92
2014-01-13 12:32	G4ILO	10.140206	-26	0	IO84hp	0.02	DK6UG	JN49cm	973	121
2014-01-13 12:54	G4ILO	10.140217	-22	0	IO84hp	0.02	DC5EO	JO31ed	760	117
2014-01-13 12:54	G4ILO	10.140210	-18	0	IO84hp	0.02	G8CRB	JO02bf	355	138
2014-01-13 13:18	G4ILO	10.140195	-19	1	IO84hp	0.02	G0GSJ	IO84jc	61	170
2014-01-13 14:20	G4ILO	10.140199	-19	0	IO84hp	0.02	G4ILR	JO02pp	379	124
2014-01-13 14:20	G4ILO	10.140224	-29	0	IO84hp	0.02	M0BLP	JO02ad	359	139
2014-01-13 14:30	G4ILO	10.140210	-20	0	IO84hp	0.02	OH8GKP	KP24rt	1945	43
2014-01-13 14:30	G4ILO	10.140203	-19	0	IO84hp	0.02	GM4SFW	IO77sn	331	349
2014-01-13 14:30	G4ILO	10.140199	-11	2	IO84hp	0.02	OH3HTI	KP21ag	1760	54
2014-01-13 14:30	G4ILO	10.140182	-13	0	IO84hp	0.02	LA5GOA	JO29oi	737	41
2014-01-13 14:38	G4ILO	10.140197	-23	0	IO84hp	0.02	OZ7IT	JO65df	1001	80
2014-01-13 14:38	G4ILO	10.140194	-13	0	IO84hp	0.02	SA6BSS	JO68	1084	60
2014-01-13 14:48	G4ILO	10.140189	-21	0	IO84hp	0.02	SM6WZI	JO67mp	1067	65
2014-01-13 14:56	G4ILO	10.140208	-21	0	IO84hp	0.02	DC8SE	JN48xi	1155	122
2014-01-13 14:56	G4ILO	10.140180	-7	0	IO84hp	0.02	ON7KB	JO21ei	634	122
2014-01-13 15:04	G4ILO	10.140204	-11	0	IO84hp	0.02	DK4TJ	JO31fc	768	117
2014-01-13 15:04	G4ILO	10.140236	-25	0	IO84hp	0.02	PA1GSJ	JO22da	586	117
2014-01-13 15:14	G4ILO	10.140238	-21	0	IO84hp	0.02	DL1WER	JN58dd	1189	122
2014-01-13 15:24	G4ILO	10.140195	-13	0	IO84hp	0.02	DL1KCQ	JO33uc	746	99
2014-01-13 15:36	G4ILO	10.140188	-25	-1	IO84hp	0.02	M5LMY	IO91oi	405	154
2014-01-13 15:36	G4ILO	10.140197	-12	0	IO84hp	0.02	PI4THT	JO32kf	729	107
2014-01-13 15:36	G4ILO	10.140196	-15	0	IO84hp	0.02	LA9JO	JP99gb	1949	26
2014-01-13 15:36	G4ILO	10.140191	-20	0	IO84hp	0.02	SM0FGT	JO89xg	1384	60
2014-01-13 15:36	G4ILO	10.140182	-12	0	IO84hp	0.02	LA5GOA/RX2	JO29oi	737	41
2014-01-13 15:46	G4ILO	10.140222	-12	0	IO84hp	0.02	DC0DX	JO31lk	776	113
2014-01-13 15:46	G4ILO	10.140215	-17	0	IO84hp	0.02	DC4LC	JN48np	1088	123
2014-01-13 16:22	G4ILO	10.140208	-17	0	IO84hp	0.02	DK4LA	JO54ae	868	88
2014-01-13 16:48	G4ILO	10.140196	-23	0	IO84hp	0.02	HB9FGQ	JN36kk	1163	137

A new batch of QSLs

A batch of QSL cards arrived from the bureau today (thanks, Ian.) Here are just a few of them.

News for kit builders

Javier Solans, EA2GCY, maker of the Iler 20 and 40 kits is now selling a range of kits from YouKits. The new kits are already listed on his very impressive-looking web site. If this means that the Chinese-made kits will now have building instructions to the same high standard as Javier's own kitsit is very good news for kit-builders.

Whispering with 20mW

Many people who operate the weak signal mode WSPR use too much power. If you don't use very low power (QRPp) you'll never find out what this mode is capable of. So to remind myself I thought I'd do some whispering on 10m using 20mW of power. It's easy to use low power with the Elecraft K3 as the power level is adjustable in 0.01 watt increments.

10m stations hearing or heard by G4ILO on 8 Jan 2015

It's a pity that the WSPRwebsite can't display a map showing only spots of one callsign. The map shows spots involving one callsign. sent or received. So the map shows WSPR signals I decoded, not only those who heard me. Some of those stations were using as much as 37dBm - whatever that is in watts. Here are the stations that decoded my tiny signal. My 20mW into an attic diopole made it across the pond on several occasions

Timestamp	Call	MHz	SNR	Drift	Grid	Pwr	Reporter	RGrid	km	az
2014-01-08 15:44	G4ILO	28.126104	-24	0	IO84hp	0.02	W9HLY	EN70mt	5930	291
2014-01-08 15:24	G4ILO	28.126112	-21	0	IO84hp	0.02	KZ8C	EM88pm	5973	287
2014-01-08 15:24	G4ILO	28.126104	-27	0	IO84hp	0.02	K4RCG	FM08xl	5688	284
2014-01-08 15:06	G4ILO	28.126103	-24	0	IO84hp	0.02	W8AC	EN91jm	5649	289
2014-01-08 15:06	G4ILO	28.126110	-18	0	IO84hp	0.02	KB9VLR	EN54vj	5845	296
2014-01-08 15:06	G4ILO	28.126144	-19	0	IO84hp	0.02	ND6M	EM55se	6594	289
2014-01-08 14:56	G4ILO	28.126106	-21	0	IO84hp	0.02	KB9AMG	EN52tx	5964	295
2014-01-08 14:46	G4ILO	28.126167	-22	-1	IO84hp	0.02	KC9YSR	EM69il	6175	291
2014-01-08 14:38	G4ILO	28.126106	-18	0	IO84hp	0.02	VE3SWS	FN06ge	5201	293
2014-01-08 14:18	G4ILO	28.126098	-26	0	IO84hp	0.02	K9AN	EN50wc	6175	293
2014-01-08 14:00	G4ILO	28.126101	-28	0	IO84hp	0.02	ZR6LU	KG43av	9468	152
2014-01-08 13:40	G4ILO	28.126015	-7	0	IO84hp	0.02	LZ1OI	KN22id	2470	113

Watts conversion

The original version of K1JT's WSPR software had pop-up "tip" windows that showed the power in watts when you hovered the mouse over the dBm setting. Very useful for duffers like me that can't do a watts to dBm conversion in my head. The new version WSPR-X doesn't, however.

I found (or more truthfully Google did) an online watts to dBm converter on the web which I have duly bookmarked.

Struck by lightning

The night before last Olga and I nearly jumped out of our skins after a tremendous thunderclap which sounded as if it was just a few feet away. I wasn't concerned for the radios as I didn't think attic antennas would suffer from a lightning strike unless the house itself was struck  but in any case  both antenna switches were in the grounded position after I had heard thunder a few days earlier.

I checked both the K3 and the FUNcube Dongle which was the only other radio connected to an antenna and both seemed to be OK so I thought I had got off scot free.

That afternoon Olga noticed that the Netgear DECT Skype phones were not displaying the amount of money in the account. Later I tried to make a Skype call and was informed that Skype was offline We could still make landline calls from the phones but only if we dialled manually. Any attempt to call a number in the Contacts list  using the landline received the message "The number you have dialled  has not been recognised."

Poking the Netgear base unit's Reset button with a sharp stick didn't solve the problem. It looks as if the SPH200D base unit is broken. I'm rather sorry about that because it's an obsolete product and new ones are unobtainable - although eBay has a used one on offer for  several times what it cost when new.

Olga uses Skype a lot to talk to relatives in Ukraine so it was very useful to have Skype connected all the time and not just when she was using the computer, but it's looking as if we will have to live without that facility.

That evening we turned on the Humax Freetime box to watch some TV  and there was no picture. We checked the voltage from the power supply, which is a small 12V 4A  "brick rather than internal switched mode supply. Zero volts. We checked the fuse and that was intact. Unfortunately the Humax power supply has an unusual type of plug so I can't use one of the collection 0f wall warts that I have in a box in the garage to test if the satellite receiver itself is working or whether it's just the power supply that has failed.

There is no proof that lightning really did cause these items of equipment to fail - everything else including the broadband router are still working - but it's quite a coincidence it it isn't.. SoNow all I can do is wait until next week and order a new power supply from Humax. Oh happy days! At least we can still watch TV as I kept the old Freesat box as a backup.

Postscript. According to a neighbour a house a few streets away was damaged by the lightning bolt. Doesn't seem near enough to have blown up two items of equipment though.

WebProp is broken

Many of you will have seen these propagation banners on many ham web sites. They are generated by a script on the G4ILO's Shack website.

WebProp propagation banner

It appears that NOAA changed the format of the wwv.txt solar data file with effect from I January . When I turned on the computer I was greeted by a pile of "bad data" messages from the PHP script that processes wwv.txt and turns it into an intermediate data file which is used by WebProp (and also VOAProp) to display the current solar data.

Unfortumately I cannot fix iy. My vision is too confused to read  type very well and my brain is too befuddled to deal with technical compouter stuffany more. Even typing a blog post is a trial for me at the moment. I have hade to make dozens of corrections even to get this far (one reason for the dearth if blog postings recently.

Is there anyone who knows PHP who would be willing to take a look at the script and fix it so tyhat it will work with the current bersion if the wwvntxt file?

I foolishly thought that if I just left erything as it is then it would juat carry on running without any work from me. Unfortunately things get updated and require changes to be made. Maintaining this website has become  burden I could do without right now It causes me a lot of stress and upset that I can't manage to do things i could easily do before. The easiest solution might be just shut down g4ilo.com for good.