WSPR 2.0 - Propagation Tool

WSPR (Whisper) stands for 'Weak Signal Propagation Reporter' and I seem to have heard a lot of people talking about it recently. I must admit to not having the slightest bit of interest in it, thinking that it was "just another digi-mode" and "why do we need another digi-mode?", but that was before I read up on it.

Joe Taylor K1JT has released version 2.0 of WSPR and so it is cropping up on blogs and as news items everywhere. It looks like an interesting tool and so I thought to myself I would download the program and see what all the fuss is about. I have not got it up and running yet so I cannot really comment other than to say follow the links and do some reading.

My plan is to use my Yaesu FT-817 as I already have the data cables, this mode as it only requires minimum power and my 817 is usually sat idle in between SOTA activations and Raynet exercises. Hopefully in a couple of weeks I can let you know how I am getting on.

WSPR 2.0 is available for Ubuntu Linux (versions 8.10 and later), Debian 5.03, and other Debian-based 32-bit Linux distributions as well as Windows and I believe it is possible to download and compile the source code for other operating systems including Mac OS.

WSPR 2.0 can be downloaded from
http://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT/wspr.html

WSPRnet
http://wsprnet.org/

Note: I found the download link extremely slow until I set my browser to text only and it came up instantly. The actual download was no problem.