It has been a while since I updated the news section on the website. In the mean time a lot of things happended. I got involved in AMSAT-UKs FUNCube satellite project. Both professional and voluntary. You’ll be hearing more about FUNCube soon!. Also, I’ve bought a new WebSDR server which is now still in Voorburg instead of Delft. The high-samplerate sound cards still don’t work for unknown reasons! One of these cards is now testing in another PC at the Delfi-C³ groundstation.

Unfortunately, I’ve come to the conclusion that the VLF Nordholt antennas are damaged by either weather or lightning or possibly both. performance has been low lately, and the russian ALPHA beacons are really weak now. Hopefully, things are still fixable after I take the antennas down. This will be quite a lot of work as everything is bolted down with large bolts through the antenna platform.

The annual christmas transmission of SAQ was streamed via the WebSDR to 60 users!
The mp3 can be found here and on this temporary mirror
Some statistics:

• 60 Listeners
• 12 Megabit of steams sent
• Serverload OK
• no audio dropouts observed

More info about SAQ and the transmission can be found on The SAQ website

The Grimeton radio station, callsign SAQ, transmitted two times today at 08:00 UTC and 16:00 UTC. The signal was received using the WebSDR on 17.2kHz. For this occasion I put two Nordholt antennas on the roof. One is a long version, and one a short version. I’m intrested in the difference. While working on the antenna, I noticed that one of the 30 year old RG-213 cables was dripping water on the connector side, so I’ve replaced it with a temporary cable.

More than 40 people listened to the broadcasts via the WebSDR, I took a screenshot with 37 people listening.

Listen to a recording of the 1600 UTC transmission:
in ogg
in mp3

Once again, All servers located at the Delfi-C³ Ground station are suffering from network outages and all kinds of weird connection problems. My VPN connection keeps on reconnecting and has no route to the WebSDR and APRS hosts. Direct connection has not been possible for some time now. The Delfi-C³ site seems down as well. Hopefully, the problems will be fixed soon and before 10th of Decemer, when SAQ will be transmitting on VLF 17,2kHz again. The WebSDR should be fully operational then…

After spending considerable time (first request was 24 January 2007) to convince the the owner of the majority of the appartments in my block to let me place an antenna system on the roof, I just got no for an answer. During the next meeting of owners, I hope to convince them the roof is better than fixing brackets on the wall (in sight). Hopefully, they will now agree and still let me place stuff on the roof. To be continued…..

Today, I set up some equipment at the Delfi-C³ ground station for the ITUpSAT team. For their packet link they use Microhard radio’s. Their own ground station is unable to communicate with ITUpSAT 1, so I’ve set up some gear for their team member Ertan ümit to use. He brought his own bidirectional amplifier and a second Microhard radio. These things unfortunately use proprietary protocols. Hopefully, he will establish comms with the satellite and downlink a picture from the on board camera.

This year, Scouting Dirk Duyvel from Alkmaar organised the annual JOTACross, an event for scout troops during the Jamboree On The Air (JOTA). I was the first operator of the station PA3WEG/J and responsible for the radio links used during the cross. All went fine and everyting worked exactly as it should. Read more here (in Dutch). Pictures can be found on http://www.PA3WEG.nl/photos/JOTA2009/

Today, sumbandilasats radio amateur transponder and parrot repeater were secretly tested over Delft. After a scheduled mode change to turn them on, we tested the parrot first and after that the transponder. The tests were carried out by Johan Erasmus – ZR1BMD, Wouter Jan Ubbels – PE4WJ and myself (Wouter Weggelaar – PA3WEG). Wouter Jan was at home on his balcony with a hand-held transceiver and a whip antenna. Johan and I were in the Delfi-C³ groundstation. The transponder expects FM narrow on the uplink and is best received FM wide on the downlink. Some more tests are needed to determine the precise audio behaviour. Two recordings made by the primary and backup transceivers can be found here:

Primary recording
Backup recording

Please note that on the primary recording, the receiver was not tuned after parrot repeater operation and therefore is not correctly centered at the rest of the pass.

At the Delfi-C³ groundstation, I captured audio from Swisscubes downlink. It was transmitting FSK packet at that moment. The recording can be found here. Below is an image of the spinrate analysis. The spin period is now 0.6 seconds for one revolution.

At this very moment, I’m participating in the fieldday contest with the club call PA6ARC/P on all HF bands. Also, I set up the WiFi network to the internet with hardware at hand and an open access point from someone nearby. Don’t worry, we kindly asked ;). I hope to work some of the HAM visitors to this site in the HF Fieldday contest.