Ocean buoy deployed using 20 meter band WSPR
r55...@gmail.com
Hello HamSCI members,
A buoy I built as part of my support as a mentor for the Mt Carmel High School (in San Diego) was just deployed 280 km west of our coast. It is transmitting on 20 meters WSPR under my KQ6RS call sign. I added a picture of this buoy on my QRZ page. It can be tracked on wsprnet.org and for more details at https://aprs.fi/#!call=a%2FKQ6RS-2&timerange=604800&tail=604800 A second “dummy callsign” encodes sub grid square position, battery voltage and temperature. I launched a buoy previously in July 2020. However, it failed seven days later, possibly due to antenna support fatigue or a boat strike. The expected battery life is six months. I hope it survives the marine environment for that long.
Randy KQ6RS
Daniel Twedt
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Dr. Nathaniel A. Frissell Ph.D.
Congratulations, Randy! That is great. Good luck with the experiment!
73 Nathaniel W2NAF
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Gerry Creager
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Robert McGwier
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r55...@gmail.com
That is correct, it is a free-floating drifter, moved by the wind and currents. It contains the same board Bill Brown WB8ELK builds for WSPR balloons. We went with Bill’s balloon payload because of immediate availability, and our desire to test the seaworthiness of our buoy design now. We have been kicking around ideas for what we would like to include in out own electronics, but nothing has been built yet.
One feature of this design is it is made entirely from Schedule 40 PVC pipe. There are no penetrations through the pipe. So, it should not leak unless it gets hit by a boat or snaped by a big wave. The antenna is monopole, just a wire inside the pipe above the water line. The counterpoise is the ocean which we capacitively “connect” to by lining the upper portion of the pipe below the water line with copper tape. A ground with no penetration to leak, no metal to corrode. The PVC between the copper tape and seawater creates a large capacitor with only a few Ohms of reactance at 14.1 MHz.
Randy KQ6RS
From: ham...@googlegroups.com <ham...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Robert McGwier
Sent: Friday, March 19, 2021 12:49 PM
To: ham...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [HamSCI] Ocean buoy deployed using 20 meter band WSPR
Yes I think this is the one deployed by the educational activity mentored and sponsored by KA9Q/
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