Radio - LF/HF to Microwaves

I am often running a Grabber on some Band and Mode or other. My interests are too varied to dedicate my efforts to Meteors, 8.27KHz, 474KHz, ZEVS, Sferics, LF, MF, HF the list goes on.
What I could do when monitoring VLF is use the same Computer to provide a QRSS Grabber on any HF band, something I haven't done up to yet.

I have also given a Toshiba Satellite Pro 4600 Laptop its last escape from the grave. The thing has hardly been used, looks brand new but is so ancient it is as slow as a snail. I tried to palm it off on the XYL, installed the first ever release of Ubuntu and Puppy Linux but the thing just can't cope.
So I have installed a minimised version of XP with Argo, WSPR2 and the necessary peripherals this can run as a Grabber or WSPR RX 24/7 on request, its much quieter than a desktop with the fans raging and less current consuming. Last night it survived an overnight run.
It's not perfect, it likes to generate its own little descending pulse on the trace every so often but its adequate.
One last thing that enables reliable Grabber operation is my new, never drop out, Wifi Router, it was hardly worth leaving a Grabber on overnight when most likely the Web would disconnect 3 seconds after I went to bed.

Here is the G3ZJO HF QRSS Grabber location. QRSS GRABBER

It won't be one of those wonderful full time Grabbers for the reasons stated but a I will fire it up in response to a Message to Knights QRSS or QRPlabs Groups, there are many new QRP / QRSS stations coming via the latter efforts.

The RaspberryPi has re introduced the desire to do a bit of programming here. Whether I shall actually replace my PIC controllers with a Pi set up I am not sure, there are some advantages but the PIC is lower current consumption for sure.
I had never programmed in Python so we have been having a bit of fun.

I used a Humble board to build a self powered buffer to the outside world.

The RaspberryPi is the DDS Generator with Fractional Divider you didn't know you had and very stable at that.
My PIC system needs to be Frequency Modulated I can't modulate the DDS so I modulate a Crystal Oscillator, they drift so, so does my signal, not much but too much for WSPR15.

PE1NNZ has added WSPR15 to WsprryPi. I ran WSPR2 with my 100mW PA, G6AVK did not decode my signal. I arranged for a test with WSPR15 and bingo.

2013-04-02 21:00 G3ZJO 0.475814 -32 0 IO92ng +0 0.001 G6AVK JO01ho 127 79
2013-04-02 20:46 G3ZJO 0.475814 -31 0 IO92ng +0 0.001 G6AVK JO01ho 127 79
2013-04-02 20:30 G3ZJO 0.475814 -31 0 IO92ng +0 0.001 G6AVK JO01ho 127 79
2013-04-02 20:16 G3ZJO 0.475814 -30 0 IO92ng +0 0.001 G6AVK JO01ho 127 79

My signal at G6AVK in SpectrumLab.

This is in fact the most spectacular thing I have seen WSPR15 achieve on MF, the 127Km path was quite steady with little flutter or QSB so this test was a bit like a lab test, it produced lab type results.
As I have said before given realistic MF propagation WSPR2 seems to have the advantage over WSPR15.

QRP tests continue using the Pi and 1Watt PA, this I am driving with a FET driver which will also drive my 10Watt PA if want to go Power Mad.