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sambhu.git@gmail.com
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Engineer by profession and a teacher by passion.
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A WSPR BEACON
Arduino UNO R4 WiFi

A WSPR ( pronounced as whisper ) beacon is a very low power radio transmitting beacon that sends out a very short message including the call sign of the operator and his grid square which is basically his location. Now this signal will travel very long distances according to the propagation conditions and will be captured by receivers located at various places. These receivers will decode and is uploaded to a WSPR reporting web service. By going into the website, the transmitting station can see where his signals has reached. Usually cross continent communications are possible just with few milliwatts of power due to the encoding and decoding technologies used.

1. The advantage of the project is that one can understand about the band conditions and can choose to operate on a band that WSPR signal was able to reach the maximum distance range.

2. It also tells how efficient the transmitting antenna and other associated components are. If your signal is able to reach far means you got a really tuned and efficient antenna as well as the feeder line.

3. It is really a fun to watch your signals coming out of a solar powered or battery operated beacon is able to reach the other part of the world.

For the signals to be picked up by the receiver, the transmitter should be activated at exactly the same moment a receiver is listening for a signal. This is made possible by synchronizing the transmitter and receiver with an accurate clock. In this project, the beacon relies on NTP clock for updating the RTC. When ever the beacon comes in range with an access point, it updates the time in RTC for perfect sync.

In order not to handicap the beacon while operating in the field where therebisbno internet facilities, an onboard gps gets the accurate time base for synchronization. It also gives the information about the location data that is also a part of the transmitted message.

Apart from controlling gps module, connecting to wifi for getting data from NTP servers, the arduino is supposed to control an SI5351 clock module that generates the carrier signal for communication and also it take care of the charging of LI ION battery whenever solar power is available.

This project can be made a headless one since we have a BT/ WiFi module onboard. The UI can be a web page that can be accessed with a mobile phone or tablet since a browser application is something that is present in almost all portable devices. Necessary configuration like the band selection, calibration of the oscillator, output power, knowing yhe status of the onboard battery etc can be known/ modified from this web interface. This wil help to scrap off a display which would otherwise be a necessity thereby reducing the power consumption. This is really helpful while taking the device on a field trip. The device is pretty much a standalone one and needs connectivity only when a configuration is required.