Overnight 630m QRSS Beacon

After completing the QRSS tests with the GW3UEP 630m crystal-controlled transmitter, I decided to let it stay running overnight to see how it would hold up and if 25W was enough to 'be seen' on 475KHz. In the morning I received three reports...from Kansas, Illinois and Alaska.

As well as sending along an Argo screen capture, Garry, K3SIW in Elgin, Illinois reported:

"Your signal was in and out here the whole night until local sunrise neared "



courtesy K3SIW


The QRSS60 signal is weak but discernible in the thunderstorm QRN at a distance of 1300 miles / 2100km.


John Davis in Kansas was battling even worse QRN but managed to catch a small glimpse of the weak signal just before his sunrise.

courtesy John (JD) Davis

Laurence, KL7L north of Anchorage in Alaska also sent a nice screen capture after setting up one of his many Alaskan Snapper low frequency screen grabbers to watch for my signal.

 

courtesy KL7L

Laurence commented:

"Nice signal on both arrays - a little weaker on the K9AY ast its suffering from the tx loop coupling at the moment -; this shot taken on the omni and shows occasional small Au doppler spread not seen on the beam - nice signal - AOS 0712 LOS 1105Z"

The path from Mayne Island to KL7L is almost exactly the same as the one to Illinois (1300 miles / 2100km) but unlike the eastern path, this is mostly 'over water' and one with little thunderstorm activity.

It seems that the 25W transmitter can do a credible job when run at QRSS60 (something it was never intended to do) if not a bit chirpy.