14 April 2010

WSPR on 2m, IC706 drift and aircraft scatter

A single WSPR experiment has lead to interesting observations:
  • the IC706MKiiG "as-is" is not suitable for weak signal work on VHF and UHF
  • aircraft scatter is easily observed at 2m too

The picture shows both the IC706 drift during a two-minute WSPR transmission and aircraft scatter on two airplanes (at circa 2 minutes interval, their "usual" distance on the same path).


The enormous drift was present at each transmission slot (1:4 ratio), rendering unuseful the WSPR signal. This was on 2m. A compressed drift amount was later observed on 10m as well, but the signal could be decoded correctly.

Another IC706 problem, not shown in the screenshot, was the misalignment of the device and probably some difference on TX/RX frequency too: the IC706 station had to retune 400 Hz higher to appear into my WSPR receiver window.

It's always good to know your transceiver peculiarities!