Raspberry Pi QRP TX Shield for WSPR And Improvements

On an impulse buy at the Hamvention I picked up a QRP TX shield from the TAPR booth. I've wanted to try WSPR mode on the Raspberry Pi for a long time, but couldn't convince myself it would be worth it. Regarding another purchase, I have a panadapter working on the the Icom 7300, but it needs some improvement, see below.

TX Shield

The hardware (QRPi Board) is easy to install and the software, WsprryPi, is even easier to install in my opinion. WsprryPi will run from command line, but it is a simple matter of copying and pasting the command and letting it run several transmissions. Easy enough for a newbie like me on the RPi.

See this PDF.

YouTube player

I had some initial problems with WsprryPi running and shutting down WIFI on the Raspberry Pi, but that has been resolved with the addition of an external 7" LCD touchscreen.

YouTube player

At this time WsprryPi is running 5 transmissions every hour on 20 meters. The command is run as a cron job. Easy enough to do with a simple GUI app. The app is GNOME Schedule and it's an easy package install.

The antenna is a coax attached to the TX shield going to a 34' wire in my office. It does pretty well for only 100mW and the transmissions are spotted all over the US and even in Canada. I'd like to put this outdoors some day and get some DX. Then it will really be worth the effort!

To make the hardware a little more secure, I used some silicon to hold down the TX shield. Silicon is also dabbed on the coax to keep it in place.

tx shield

Icom 7300 Panadapter

At the end of the last video you'll see the Icom 7300 and HDSDR running as a panadapter. The hardware is a Inrad RX7300, Mini Circuits Splitter and a cheap RTL-SDR dongle. There's a better SDR on the way, but it won't arrive for a week.

I'll be making improvements on the panadapter setup, so look for a video in the near future.

What do you think about a panadapter on the IC-7300?

Thanks for coming by, please comment below, 73 and good DX. - Rich, K0PIR

Sources:

See this PDF.

GitHub

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K0PIR

I'm an Amateur Radio enthusiast. I love the hobby and experimenting with radios, antennas and software. On my YouTube channel I upload videos on the Icom 7300 and Icom 7610 along with Ham radio software programs. I hope to inspire people to try new things in Amateur Radio.

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Tery
5 years ago

I also picked up one of the TAPR shields as well as a 7” screen and case to match. I am using a GPIO header spacer to get the QRPi shield off the heat sink of my Raspberry Pi.

I noticed in FLDIGI there is a hardware PTT option to use GPIO pins for PTT. Have you or anyone else tried to use this to transmit other digital modes from a GPIO pin? Would that even work?
Terry/KM4YMW

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