Ham Radio - A preview of ZachTek's new HF WSPR receiver

[@justgregm7843]

These are available. I ordered one a few days ago. I have his transmitter and it works well.

[@traveller-nl]

Please take precautions not to blow out the front end of the WSPR receiver, if you install it on a site where you also will be transmitting (on another radio, another antenna). Think about sufficient separation and orientation of antennas. Think about receiver guard and front end protector solutions if too much coupled power is induced in the (WSPR) RX antenna. You can measure the induced power (which would go into your WSPR receiver) with a power meter between the RX (WSPR) antenna and a dummy load when you TX on a nearby radio set up. It would be wise to ask Zachtek to provide how much signal the WSPR receiver can safely handle in order to compare with your measurements on your own QTH.

[@lysippus]

you beat me to it! hahaha

[@billsheehan1027]

Thank you Kevin (and Harry)! Web page is hot as of 10:00 UCT 9 October, and I just ordered this reciever. Looking forward to the band hopping feature. I have been useing Zachtek's 40m receiver for several years off and on with great success.

[@tomalexander6431]

Hey Kevin, it's good to see you back up making new vids of such interesting ham activities. Wish you well!

[@deBug67]

Thank you for the Video Kevin! That was a great tour of how to set up WSJT-X for WSPR reception. I had a miss-print on the white label. It emulates a IC-746 not IC-741, no wonder you could not find it in the list of Radios :-) but as you mentioned, it is not critical what ICOM radio you pick. 73 from Sweden

[@AlanElBee]

Thanks Kevin, for reporting this and sharing the info. I love my WSPR transmitter from Zachtek, and Harry was terrific in communicating to me when I had a question. "Above and beyond". Looking forward to snagging this receiver when I can. 73, K7KS

[@hobbified]

For about the price of two of these you can get an RX888 MkII and receive *every* LF/MF/HF WSPR/FST4 frequency simultaneously and decode them with wsprdaemon, which is a great contribution to propagation research if you can set it up to be always-on.

[@janetwinslow2039]

The ZachTec WSPR stand-alone transmitters are excellent - I have two for different QTHs.

[@W4TRI_Ronny]

4:50 That Bedslinger printer is doing it's thing! I hear it. Glad you are doing better!

[@loughkb]

Yep, Prusa MK4S. I tried to mask it, but a sensitive mic. It's a pretty quiet printer though.

[@LanceVK6LK_AussieHam]

Hey Kevin nice video and interesting product. May just remind people that you should adjust the mic gain on the usb sound card so as to not overload WSJTX. I noticed that you were near constantly in the red. You would improve the sensitivity by attenuating the incoming signal. Cheers Lance

[@rcbrush99]

This is a great use of RPi and idle antennas. Thank you for this info!

[@DonDegidio]

Hi Kevin, Hope you are making some improvement with your long covid. Very informative video and wish Harry luck with the receiver. When I bought my WSPR transmitter, Harry gave me a custom frequency spread so I can have any four of 160, 80, 40 & 30, 20 & 17, 15, 12 & 10. Stay safe. 73 WJ3U

[@Darrell_Coquillette]

Thanks Kevin for the video. I'll keep an eye out for the website to go live. I hope you're doing well and enjoying the hobby. 73 de N9JOD

[@kevinverville8608]

He makes great gear! I can't wait to get one!!!

[@g4jnw]

I have Zachtek tx units and they work well, i usually set them up on the computer and unplug and set up as stand alone. I wonder if the rx will work stand alone too?

[@loughkb]

No, WSJTX is needed to decode the WSPR transmissions and then upload them over the internet to the database.

[@R50_J0]

$79 USD? Sounds very reasonable.

[@W4TRI_Ronny]

If he is watching please move production models to USB-C. you don't need to provide a cable even because I have 50. I will be a customer.

[@dougtaylor7724]

Back in March Harry told me it would hopefully be October or November before the new one was available. I looked last week and they weren’t listed yet. So happy to here the new model is almost ready. Great video Kevin!

[@Barracuda48082]

Nice propagation tester. I could not tell if any sig was from east coast mud flood zone area , USA on smart phone. Nice product for the bench, shack. Thanks Kevin for a thorough cover on this. Good to see your active again

[@lysippus]

he makes nice handy WSPR products

[@CamilleCullen-ow6qj]

Nice product and video! Many thanks. Robert K5TPC

[@sanjithnair3266]

Thanks for the informative video.

[@notionocean]

Great video, Kevin. The audio level looks a little "hot" (wsjtx indicator bar turns red a lot of the time). Is it adjustable?

[@loughkb]

Yes I should have covered that. You can use the system's audio mixer to lower the volume for the microphone input on the audio interface that you've plugged into.

[@notionocean]

@@loughkb ah, of course. It's analog. I have gotten really used to the QRPLabs gear with built-in soundcard. Maybe that's feedback for Zaktek. They could add USB audio to their design to make it more plug and play.

[@AlvinMcManus]

I would think that this would work with a Quadra too. I think I'd like to do this to check out my DX Commander Classic and a 40-10 EFHW I have. You have a great video here. All I would need to do is to use and SO243 to SMA jumper to hook it up. 73 de KN6ZVI

[@G_C340]

Can it be used to log all the signals to a file at a given time with the S/N ratio? If you have two of them you can cross compare antennas with the identical signals.

[@loughkb]

You can do whatever WSJTX allows. I don't know if it can do logging, I think it's primary use is to upload the data over the internet to the database.

[@jonthebru]

I have wondered about whether a device like this exists, I have had a WSPR XMTR on for a long time, this would be the other side of the coin. I use a DX Commander for the WSPR transmissions.

[@rohnkd4hct260]

I have the transceiver but, never hooked it up.

[@JAMES-KB7TBT]

Sweet

[@R50_J0]

Link is 404 - Page not found. Is that intentional?

[@loughkb]

As I mentioned in the video, as of the date of publishing this video the website is not available and he will have something up there in a week or two.

[@markphillips8019]

"pre-production" Hmmmm. If Zachtech thought a little harder about this they could have added a CM108 and USB hub etc into the box for a single cable solution. Oh well.

[@loughkb]

He's focused on keeping the cost down on it. He did consider that.

[@x_CrossHair_x]

All this WSPR / FT4 / FT8 Beacons are Nice .. Good to Know.. the Station is Active and Monitoring the Band.. But.. It would be nice that it would also have the Frequency the Station is currently TXing / RXing on.. Included in the Beacon. Rather than guesswork hunting for them on the Full Band..

[@loughkb]

Why would you need to "hunt" for a WSPR beacon? You know it's going to be within a 200 Hz window that starts 1,400 Hz above a set frequency.

[@x_CrossHair_x]

@@loughkb I'm not referring to the WSPR frequency.. The data it displays has the Station Call Sign - Grid Square.. DB Signal Strength.. But does not contain any information what Frequency you are working so I can call you..

[@loughkb]

WSPR is not a communication mode, it is a beacon mode. A one-way transmission. And you're kind of not making sense. You say you're not referring to the frequency and complaining that it doesn't have information about the frequency It's being transmitted on.

[@x_CrossHair_x]

@@loughkb I'm not saying making a contact on WSPR it self but contain more Station information "In the Bacon" .. Such as the Frequency you are currently working and Monitoring.. Not just the Call Sign and Grid square.. Include the Frequency you are Currently Transmitting.. (So I could Tune to) That Frequency and Perhaps make a contact with you.. (Either That) something is wrong with the Software I use to View FT8 / 4 / Ect.

[@loughkb]

A WSPR beacon would not usually be manned in that there wouldn't be an operator sitting there watching it transmit and waiting for somebody to call him. It's made to be an automated transmission that then contributes data to a network of monitoring stations. Data that can then be used to observe current propagation conditions. There wouldn't be somebody sitting there waiting for somebody to call them.

[@Charles-g5d7k]

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