Ham Radio → On the air with PSK31

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I've made a few contacts now on PSK31. One contact so far in Mexico and listened to another in Brazil. Its hard to believe I'm hitting these places on 20 watts from NW Indiana. I'm going to make a few adjustments in the direction of my dipole antenna this week to see where else I can reach. I really like this PSK31 spotter, it really helps me to understand things.

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Yeah, it's a very fun mode. You really don't need much RF output, and I've decoded signals I couldn't even hear!

PSK is great. My first Dx contact ever was to Venezuela from a dipole running low power. I then worked a lot of Central America as well, but never got too far south. It is great if you like waterfalls!

Over 20w in PSK and you are operating High Power, at least in most PSK contests.

I wish there were a couple of more PSK contests out there just as a little change of pace from the RTTY contests I really like. There is a the TARA PSK Rumble which just happened last month.

I'm at the southern most tip of lake michigan. Looking at my signal reports I can see that I'm not hitting most of the midwest. Is there anything I can do about this? I had one end of the antenna elevated, like a slope which I thought was the cause of this but now that I've made it mostly level its pretty much the same. I'm guessing a vertical would cover more of the area I'm in. Is there anything I can do with my dipole though?

Thanks for all your help guys.

I sometimes like to park my antenna, leave the radio on the PSK window and set it up to report to »pskreporter.info

Try it out!

I was interested in trying that so I looked into it some and couldn't find the program options in dm780 or fldigi that pskreporter.info said to look for.

"Digital Master 780
The reporting client is now integrated into the current version of DM780 (part of Ham Radio Deluxe). This makes it a painless operation to install and use. There are typically over 100 active monitors during the day, mostly in North America and Europe, which means that your call is likely to be heard. More monitors from other parts of the world would be much appreciated.

To enable reporting in DM780, you need to go to the 'Tools' menu item, and then select the 'PSK Reporter' option. This will open a dialog box, and you just check the 'send updates' checkbox, and you are done. Now, whenever the SuperBrowser detects a callsign, this information will be forwarded to the database and made available for other interested parties to view.
fldigi 3.1
fldigi 3.1 (a multiplatform digital mode program) now has builtin support for logging data to the pskreporter web site. This program is popular on Linux, and also, being multiplatform, they could not use the DLL that I provide for generating the logging messages. However, with only a small amount of help from me, they managed (in fairly short order) to build their own implementation of the message generator, and start racking up the spots.

To actually make it work in fldigi you need the information from this message.

Short answer: you want to click the Spot button in the main window.

Long answer: pressing initialize with the autospot box checked should reveal a Spot button at the top right cornet of the main window. If it is unlit, the autospotter receives no data and never calls the PSK Reporter module. This may seem superfluous, but the underlying spotting "framework" is supposed to be able to accommodate other things besides PSK reporter (none of which has yet materialised). The Spot button would then toggle all of that potentially expensive pattern matching.
"

I have it working in DM780 but the options are a bit different in the new version. When I get home I'll see what it is exactly and post it.

I run it with a SignaLink USB and fldigi on my Linux box. fldigi will also run on Windows.
While I like HRD, and Simon is a great guy for doing it, I think it just tries to do too much stuff for one program.

I had much the same problem as you; I lived directly on Lake Michigan in one of the northern suburbs of Chicago and was running off a 255ft G5RV up in my trees about 110 feet. I worked lots of places, but not much in the midwest.

Dipoles have two main lobes and that is where the signal is. If the area you are trying to reach is 90 degrees offset from the main lobe, you are not going to have as much luck unless you sacrifice a virgin to the propagation gods. If you have not played with antennas much, I can suggest that you try MMANA which you can download here:

»mmhamsoft.amateur-radio.ca/

Model your antenna design and you can see what tweaks might help a bit. Even if you are not into antenna design it is a great learning tool.

Bottom line, if you want to pick and choose your targets then a multi-element antenna with a rotor is the way to go. Personally, I like a delta beam because the gain will put your basic yagi to shame. Somebody in my club brought one to field day and I was breaking pile-up after pile-up on the first or second try all day long, and it was only up about 20 feet.

Or perhaps put up a low dipole and work NVIS?

I may give mmana a try. I've struggled my way through the antenna handbook but I didn't seem to learn anything from it.

I'll also see if I can find some plans to make a 40m delta beam. I have an old TV antenna that I kept around for a project. Might be able to salvage some parts of it.

NVIS looks interesting.

A delta beam is a series of triangular elements staggered like the elements on a yagi. Not an easy build unless you are skilled at metalworking, but if I recall the example included with MMANA showed something like 15 dB forward gain! Here is a picture of a typical delta, you need somebody who can weld the slots on the boom that hold the sloping tubes, the third part of the triangle is just wire. Like any gain antenna, the magic is in the length of the elements and the spacing.

I can weld. I'd have a tougher time finding lightweight materials and getting the angles correct. I'll see if I can get the program running tonight.

Thanks

A delta beam doesn't have to be as imposing as the example in your picture. I put up a 2 element delta on 6M that worked great (a 2 el Delta has approx the same gain as a 3 el Yagi).

I built mine fixed pointed to WSW, and still had good coverage off the back side. My "triangles" pointed up, not down. Used a 1x1 piece of lumber, and drilled two holes properly spaced at the distance between the elements. Two more holes at the ends to hang it from the trees that held it up.

Used light line to hold out the other corners of the triangles. Fed it with a tuning section of RG-59 to get the correct input impedance. You can search around the 'net and find build instructions/examples.

For 20M it will certainly take up more space than my 6M did, but it is a cheap and easy build if you have the space and trees.