Friday, April 2, 2010, I installed the QRP Transmitter developed and funded by Gernot Frauscher, OE1IFM, of Vienna, Austria.

The system has 1W output and cycles through 80, 40, 30, 20, 17, 15, 12 and 10m, so one can hear the WSPR signal returning every 16 minutes. I hooked it up to my HyGain AV18VS vertical antenna.

The beacon hardware is an embedded system based on a PIC 18F2455 MCU, an Analog AD9851 DDS chip and a MOSFET PA with selectable filters. Time and location information are derived from an attached GPS receiver.

Gernot supplied cables and connectors having sent the radio and accessories down with Alexander Wuerflinger who came down for advance work for a group coming later this summer to install a computer network at a college in Mbarara, a city about 2 hours on farther west of us. Alexander dropped off the box with the radio and accessories at the Aidchild site in Masaka a few days ago. Aidchild is a project with homes, clinics, and academies for orphans who are abandoned and living with AIDS. (Donations greatly appreciated.)

I visited a solar energy supply shop here in Kampala to get a deep cycle gel battery and then to a terrific electronics supply store on Bomba Road to get a charger/adapter for the unit.  (I will post an entry on Kampala’s Radio Row in a few days.)

On Friday, I installed the parts and hooked up the antenna. The GPS mouse Gernot sent along has a magnetic base so it attaches nicely to the metal roof of my office.

When I plugged everything in the mouse found a satellite fix in just a few minutes and began transmissions. In the first few minutes of operation we were picked up by grabbers in Japan, Italy, Russia, and Germany. You can check out the propagation here. When you click on this link, type in my call sign – 5X7JD – then click “UPDATE” to see who is picking us up.

Gernot has designed and built an outstanding unit, one I highly recommend. He is considering marketing the unit as a kit and is looking for interesting places to set up beacons. Last year he set one up in Namibia. Check out his website for some of the engineering details. If you are interested in a kit of this radio, send him an email and encourage him to put it on the market.

Those of you who have been reading this blog for awhile know beacons are a favored project and I had hoped to get one on the air from our site. When Gernot first approached me some months ago I leapt at the opportunity to have his unit be the cornerstone of my beacon ambitions. Thank you, Gernot!