Saturday, December 15, 2018

More MSK144 tinkering

Well since the Geminides are still in vincinity I decided to try MSK144 once more. I finally found a dutch WSJT manual with some tips for MSK144. This manual tells that the IARU Region 1 MSK144 frequency is 50.380MHz from 18 nov 2018. 50.280MHz is the Region 2 frequency. But since that is programmed into the software (yes you can remove it or change the frequency) everyone is on 50.280MHz. It is also advisable to read about MSK144 in the WSJT 2.0 manual (Chapter 8.4)

It seems that my earlier "half " QSO with S58P was really a lucky shot since I did reply to many yesterday evening but never got any reply. Although my signal was certainly reflected as you can see in the map.

PE1BVQ Hans, who is more experienced with meteorscatter, suggested I really should make a sked with someone on the KST chat. Random MS is almost impossible.

However, I saw a few dutch stations like PA2REH and PA4VHF making contacts. I didn't see them on the KST chat and they responded on a CQ I saw as well. So, it should be possible. Although I might need more power and my 5 element yagi back on the tower...

It is a interesting mode when a meteorshower is nearby, However it costs a lot of time and effort to make a QSO. This might be interesting for me when I got retired.



1 comment:

Hans said...

Hallo Bas, bij random CQ geven is de kans klein dat iemand jouw signaal oppikt want er zijn geen vaste frequenties, behalve dan 144.370, maar daar houd niet iedereen zich aan.
Wil je zekerheid dan is een bericht op ON4KST toch het beste. Uiteraard heb je voor MS een horizontaal gepolariseerde antenne nodig. Met een vertical mis je gewoon een hoop en er is een "gentleman agreement" dat 2m ssb altijd met horizontale polarisatie werkt. De hams met verticale polarisatie missen dus een hoop. Dus op naar een x-elements yagi. Prima zelf te bouwen met een gamma-match. Succes, 73 Hans, PE1BVQ