MF/LF OPERATING: Life Below the AM Broadcast Band
Plus, a West Virginia 630-meter portable operation by WA3ETD that was temporarily postponed by COVID-19 and amazing very low power results on 2200 meters for NI7J
This month I want to briefly discuss the mode that simply would not die, WSPR-15. Following its addition to the WSPR-x software package in 2013 (arguably the predecessor of WSJT-x), it quickly fell out of favor with developers, which led to its removal from subsequent software releases.1 Since its removal, WSPR-15 has garnered a cult following with numerous approaches developed to generate and decode signals that in some cases included using very old software releases that contained the mode to elegant script-based command lines approaches to accomplish the task. These efforts culminated in at least one new world record and long-haul receptions that would likely not have been possible with the mode’s faster counterpart, WSPR-2, also known simply as WSPR.
The point that I hope to make in these brief paragraphs is neither technical nor comprehensive. A simple search engine query will bring up many pages of details of the recent exploits of amateurs who sought to use the mode on the air. Instead I want to make readers aware of what is going on with this mode, some of
