I did not come up with the idea, but Radovan, OK1FCX on the QRSS mailing list did.
Here is the basics :
Use the cheap Pixie 40m TRX and a Raspberry Pi running QRSSPig, a program created by Martin, HB9FXX. This could be done within $50 for a complete grabber, uploading the grabber files to a free service like qsl.net, which is just for HAM radio.The crystal in the original Pixie is on 7023kHz, so a bit far from the frequency normally used for QRSS on approx. 7040kHz.
Now, OK1FCX used a 7030 crystal (the European QRP frequency on 40m), so got the audio frequency down to about 10kHz. It is possible to reduce that audio frequency to about 5kHz with a 7035 crystal available from Box73.de . However, I am in possession of a single crystal on 7038kHz, brining the audio frequency down to about 2kHz. It may be possible to adjust the crystal to fit in with the WSPR frequency on 40m, so the receiver could do double duty as a WSPR and QRSS RX.
Somewhere I should have an almost finished Warbler TRX, modified from the original 80m frequency to do 40m WSPR. If I can find it after my move, I should probably use that for a more permanent solution, but that is beside the point of the "cheap and dirty" QRSS setup. I should probably use one of my 7030 crystals as Radovan did.
In addition, the 40m Pixie could be used with crystals (that I have available) on 7000kHz to monitor the old (and maybe not used any more) QRSS frequency of about 7000.9kHz
I may have to ask on the QRSS mailing list, if more than one instance of QRSSPig can be run on a single Pi. How about a $50 dual frequency grabber ?
2 comments:
Just found this post. Yes, more than one QrssPiG can run on a single Pi, each with its own rtl-sdr dongle.
A single QrssPiG instance can even grab 2 different frequencies that are close enough to fit inside the bandwidth of a rtl-sdr dongle.
Thank you Martin.
I was actually thinking of using 2 (or more) audio sources simultaneously with QRSSPiG. - or, alternatively running two or more instances if the program, preferably under the same user ID. Is that possible, too ? Probably referring to different config files.
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