K3LR Report de AF8A and KD8OXT: Station relocated, WSPRDaemon up, magnetometer down

[Kristina Collins]

Hi gang! Reporting from K3LR with some updates. Gary, cc'd, did most of the work. Thanks to Tim K3LR and Sandy DL1QQ for hosting. Had a wonderful visit with the Grove City College ham club.

Hardware

We mapped, disassembled and reassembled the hardware in the Mouse House (if you know, you know) which is newly renovated. We found it to be palatial and well-illuminated, perfect for our purposes. Gary brought a table to set everything on (and bolt everything to, in the case of the common mode choke).

It was necessary to switch over from WiFi to Ethernet, which the computer handled automagically. Thanks to all who sent tips for that.

Gary dug the trenches and buried the cables. I was in a Zoom meeting during this time, and was no help at all. Say nice things to Gary.

The magnetometer is down. The cable is suitable for direct burial. Gary cut it since the run is now much shorter, but we did not have a second RJ45 connector to replace the one on the Pi side. Gary is also planning to find/print an enclosure for the Raspberry Pi and hat. 

Gary applied antioxidant compound to the joints of the HF antenna. That cable has also been cut down, but its connectors were successfully replaced. 

Software

Gary and I are not enormously well-versed in the software. Rob AI6VN and Phil KA9Q helped with this part by phone - thanks, guys! 

Here are some magic words that Rob gave us to run in the terminal, and which I don't want to lose track of.

wda: Shortcut to run WSPRDaemon

wdln: Shortcut to read WSPR spots to the terminal window

We experienced an intermittent failure of the USB connection to the RX888. KA9Q helped debug from Pacificon. Running lsusb in between unplugging the station and plugging it back in was helpful. After a few tries it became visible as "Cypress Semiconductor Corp. RX888mk2". A bit nervous at experiencing this intermittent failure, but we don't have another cable on hand and it's working as I type this. Still, keep it in mind in case it happens again. 

Notes and Next Steps

We took photos for the purpose of composing a HardwareX paper with this station as the exemplar. A new USB3 A to B cable might be a good idea to replace the potentially buggy one currently connecting the RX888. And of course, a new RJ45 connector is needed to restore the magnetometer to working order. 

[Tolboom, Ryan]

Great work, everyone. Congrats!

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[Gary Mikitin, AF8A]

Thanks to all who contributed ideas or took our phone calls (voice calls, no less!) today.  And something just hit me….

I think we might want to wait for a new & improved magnetometer configuration.  The rumor mill is saying it will eliminate the R Pi entirely…the data collection will occur on a PC (hopefully, the same BeeLink that is running the RX888).  One less computer/OS/power supply to make RF noise and fewer cables to manage.  Optimism….

Note to file:  Direct burial cables are great for their intended purpose…but they have their own, very specific connector requirements.  That’s where I failed today…I had RJ45 connectors and an installation tool, but neither worked in our application.

73 de AF8A

[Ward Silver]

These are always more exciting installations than one would expect. Great resilience and use of resources by the team! Strong work.

73, Ward N0AX 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hamsci-psws/26f887e7-1617-4680-9085-4ad8dc5e1de2n%40googlegroups.com.

[Gary Mikitin, AF8A]

Thanks, Ward.  I had my Honda Passport half filled with things "we might need" and yet we needed what we didn't have.

More photos are on this Google Drive - scroll all the way to the bottom for the October work.  Kristina may have more to add.

- Gary

On Friday, October 10, 2025 at 10:40:13 PM UTC-4 xxxx...@gmail.com wrote:

These are always more exciting installations than one would expect. Great resilience and use of resources by the team! Strong work.

73, Ward N0AX