A Raspberry Pi as a WSPR beacon

Thanks to the Southgate Amateur Radio news, I've just seen that Guido, PE1NNZ has turned a Raspberry Pi into a 10mW WSPR transmitter that works up to 250MHz. Just a low pass filter and an antenna are required in addition to the Raspberry Pi and the software.

The code is available here

The Readme file at Github says the following:

Makes a very simple WSPR beacon from your RasberryPi by connecting GPIO

 port to Antanna (and LPF), operates on LF, MF, HF and VHF bands from

 0 to 250 MHz.

Credits:

  Credits goes to Oliver Mattos and Oskar Weigl who implemented PiFM [1]

  based on the idea of exploiting RPi DPLL as FM transmitter. Dan MD1CLV

  combined this effort with WSPR encoding algorithm from F8CHK, resulting

  in WsprryPi a WSPR beacon for LF and MF bands. Guido PE1NNZ extended

  this effort with DMA based PWM modulation of fractional divider that was

  part of PiFM, allowing to operate the WSPR beacon also on HF and VHF bands.

  [1] PiFM code from http://www.icrobotics.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Turning_the_Raspberry_Pi_Into_an_FM_Transmitter

To use:

  In order to transmit legally, a HAM Radio License is required for running

  this experiment. The output is a square wave so a low pass filter is REQUIRED.

  Connect a low-pass filter to GPIO4 (GPCLK0) and Ground pins on your

  Raspberry Pi, connect an antenna to the LPF. The GPIO4 and GND pins can be

  found on header P1 pin 7 and 9 respectively, the pin closest to P1 label is

  pin 1 and its  3rd and 4th neighbour is pin 7 and 9 respectively, see this

  link for pin layout: http://elinux.org/RPi_Low-level_peripherals

  The expected power output is 10mW (+10dBm) in a 50 Ohm load. This looks

  neglible, but when connected to a simple dipole antenna this may result in

  reception reports ranging up to several thousands of kilometers.

  This software is using system time to determine the start of a WSPR

  transmissions, so keep the system time synchronised within 1sec precision,

  i.e. use NTP network time synchronisation or set time manually with date

  command. Reception reports are logged on Weak Signal Propagation Reporter

  Network: http://wsprnet.org/drupal/wsprnet/spots

  As the WSPR band is only 200 Hz wide, some frequency calibration may be needed

  to ensure that the transmission is done within the WSPR band. You can correct

  the frequency error manually in the command line or adjust CAL_PLL_CLK in the

  code.

Usage:

  sudo ./wspr <callsign> <locator> <power in dBm> <frequency in Hz>

        e.g.: sudo ./wspr K1JT FN20 10 7040074

  WSPR is used on the following frequencies (local restriction may apply):

     LF   137400 - 137600

     MF   475600 - 475800

    160m  1838000 - 1838200

     80m  3594000 - 3594200

     60m  5288600 - 5288800

     40m  7040000 - 7040200

     30m  10140100 - 10140300

     20m  14097000 - 14097200

     17m  18106000 - 18106200

     15m  21096000 - 21096200

     12m  24926000 - 24926200

     10m  28126000 - 28126200

      6m  50294400 - 50294600

      4m  70092400 - 70092600

      2m  144490400 -144490600

Compile:

  gcc -lm -std=c99 wspr.c -owspr

 

This looks amazing! Congratulations to Guido and also to Dan Ankers, MD1CLV whose work led to Guido's enhancements.