Bob (ZL1RS) has just set up a pair of phased beverages on his farm near Aukland and has been monitoring QRSS signals on 13.55 Mhz. from the U.S. for the past day or so. He has already resolved 4 or 5 U.S. hifer signals and we are quite surprised at the level and quality of the transmissions. Both Bob and I (Jim Sorenson - W3BH, Saxonburg, PA) have been monitoring amateur High Altitude Balloons on 30 and 20 meters over the past year using WSPR and WSJT and have been receiving decoded reports from as distant as 11,000 miles with the balloon beacon transmitter only running in the neighborhood of 30 - 50 Milliwatts.
If you have equipment to produce a QRSS signal on the 13.55 Mhz hifer band, put it on the air and see if Bob can hear you. He will email you back the results and he can also receive in WSPR if you want to give that a try as a beacon.
If you are looking for a good reasonably priced beacon transmitter kit, go to Hans Summers' QRPlabs - https://shop.qrp-labs.com/ for his $29 Ultimate 3 QRSS/WSPR kit. I've built three of them so far and they work great and support a number of other popular digital modes as well. I have no financial interest in QRPlabs, BTW. It's just good kit, as they say.
If you want to see what others are doing with WSPR, go to WSPRnet.org where you will find hams and SWLs from around the world sending in WSPR reports for posting on maps and tables. It's a great propagation study tool.
To see what Bob is doing at the ZL end for receiving and whom he has heard on 13.55 over the the past 24 hours go here:
http://www.qsl.net/zl1rs/bev.html
We can always use more balloon monitors when they fly. Go to Habhub (http://habhub.org/) for more info about that.
Regards to all,
Jim
Jim SorensonSaxonburg, PA