The Desert Whooper

[Desert Whooper]

I'm on an extended campervan trip, to wherever my fancy takes me. I've been doing very little SW listening, but did catch Gendarme (which I will report elsewhere) and DW, on my little Belka-DX portable receiver, with the set top whip.

I'm in Coconino National Forest, a few miles north of Flagstaff, AZ, from where I logged DW, at 0010z on 4/21/2022. Weak sigs, but no QSB and perfectly copyable.

Thank you Dave! We appreciate your wonderful reports!

[Desert Whooper]

The DW beacon is being thoroughly baked again!

Battery was 13.1 volts
Outside temp was 101 degrees
Inside temp was 117 degrees
Solar panel current was 113 milliamps

[Desert Whooper]

Sharing old photos

Transmitter development, crystal oscillator and 200 mW stage


Controller development, basic analog meshed with a microcontroller


The DW Team

[syfr]

Great fun to see the DW protos , after hearing it on the air for so long. While I've never been able to log it from the east coast, I've always heard it during trips to the central coast  and of course via the Kiwis up in the bay area and Utah.

Thanks for providing a great deal of fun for us weirdos that enjoy listening to things that go beep in the night (and day)

[syfr]

Out in the yard here in the central coast of CA and DW is sounding good on the Belka DX with nothing more than the 20" telescoping whip.

Great job from down south!

[syfr]

Just did some listening from the back patio here in Santa Barbara County, and DW is whooping in here nicely on nothing more than the BELKA DX and it's 20" whip.

[Desert Whooper]

Thank you Syfr!! We appreciate the compliments and are quite proud of our little temperature sensing beacon's success.

The DW Team

[Teotwaki]

Is DW off the air?

I heard it last night at 10 PM with normal telemetry
BAT  13.1   oTMP  81  iTMP  87  PV 1

Nothing heard this morning.

[Teotwaki]

Must have been propagation chicanery!

I just heard some very weak whoops on the home radio and then tuned to it on KFS and caught telemetry

BAT  14.0   oTMP 89  iTMP  96  PV   5

[stendec]

Is everything OK with the DW beacon?

Normally DW is S5 to S7 almost anytime of the day using the KFS or KPH SDRs (almost anytime - except for late at night when the foF2 NVIS critical frequency drops below 4 Mhz). However for the past 4 or 5 days DW has been barely audible or not heard at all. Maybe just a whisper at best and not strong enough to copy the telemetry. I can hear the other Mohave Desert beacons and the Coast Slider just fine.

Could be just the propagation chicanery that Teotwaki mentioned. Any other recent DW reports?

[mark-n-nut]

I agree that it had gotten weaker.  But tonight it is back to its normal signal levels here.  Bravo to the engineering crew.

73

[Teotwaki]

I’ve also had trouble receiving it at home. Just happened to check KFS Omni and had it at S7 at 18:21 pst

Bat 13.1
OTMP 64
iTMP 74
PV 1

[stendec]

Yes, it was back to S9 on the KFS SDR for awhile today, but then went back to just a whisper this afternoon. Now (at 0150Z) it is abruptly going from S9 down to S2 mid-whoop - or even mid-character! DW may have an intermittent connection in its PA, or its antenna system.

[Teotwaki]

Signal strength seems to be normal for the last four or five hours. Currently S8 on KFS SE

Bat 13.0
OTMP 65
iTMP 72
PV 1

[Desert Whooper]

DW had been suffering severely low output. We finally made the long drive & hike and brought repair parts to cover the most likely failure types. It turned out the antenna balun was bad. DW has been enduring very high VSWR all these weeks! 

Will pry open the old balun soon