Last evening was the last meeting of the year as we break for Christmas and the New Year. The turn out was good and members enjoyed their mince pies and other delights. It’s always good to meet up again with friends who have moved away or can’t attend often.
Our meetings will restart in the New Year on the 4th of January when we will have a ‘Welcome Back’ evening, preceded by the usual CW practice.
At the beginning of WWll it was assumed there would be enemy agents operating secret wireless from Britain. Numerous radio amateurs were instructed to listen for them and report back. Although not many were actually detected, some were heard and quickly dealt with.
However, the radio operators heard other signals which were unusual and it was soon realised they were from Nazi operations. Teams of intercept operators both military and civilian were set up to monitor these communications and the results were eventually decoded at Bletchley Park. This intelligence proved to be most useful to the battlefield commanders in bringing the war to a close
In the first instance, it was pointed out that there are numerous versions of Joe Taylor’s software written with the assistance of various groups. The suite chosen for this introduction was WSJT-X. It was also noted that the latest version should be used as apposed to earlier release candidates since significant changes have been made in some operating procedures. After an in depth look at the basic page set up, which is in use across the various modes, a description of WSPR was outlined in a video clip from an earlier TAPR conference.
The need for accurate time on the PC was solved by using Net Time, a small programme downloaded from www.timesynctool.com. This runs in the background and needs no further attention.
The extent of the use of WSPR on HF was shown in a photo of a page from www.wsprnet.org along with the various tables and statistics also from the site.
JT65 on HF was the next mode to be explored. Steps necessary to make a QSO were shown. It was pointed out that the most popular mode lately is FT8, mainly because it’s much faster and can be automated, however, it was also noted that using Shift-Click to place your transmitted signal into a clear space on the waterfall would result in a better chance of being heard by DX stations on a crowded band.