Typical WSJT High Speed Meteor Scatter QSO

It has been over a year now since my first contact on WSJT meteor scatter. I now take them for granted, but will try and describe the typical contact using this mode. I hope this will help anyone trying to get started. This is assuming you have read the WSJT manual that came with the program and have installed the program and set it up.

Clicking on “Monitor” You should be seeing a new noise pattern appear in the display every 30 seconds and the “Rx Noise:” at the bottom should be near zero (0). A -1 or +1 is Ok. If you are not getting the near 0 db noise then you will need to troubleshoot your hookup and/or sound card settings. All PSK interfaces I know of should work with tweaking your sound card settings. One item to try would be in WSJT, click "Setup" & then "Adjust RX Volume Control". You will need to play with the setting til you get it right (near 0 db when in "monitor"). You will also need to make sure your transmit audio is correct. One can play with these settings by also clicking "Setup" and "Adjust TX Volume Control". I like to set mine to just high enough to have full power out of the rig (Clicking on "Stop" & "Tune A" in WSJT to put out a tone to adjust by, click "TX Stop" when done. Do this in a dummy load or at least ID after doing this ! Your soundcard is likely like mine and you will have to experiment greatly with these settings til you get them right. Jot these down when you do. Then press “Stop” to get out of monitor mode.

Bring up your web browser and Make sure your info is entered into www.pingjockey.net by clicking “meteor scatter chat/scheduling” and then on “update user details” and completing this. Click on the back button and refresh to go back to the chat page. At this point don’t worry about Hot A or Hot B, Freq, Record, Play, Decode, Erase, Tune A B C D, Zap, Defaults, W, S, ST, Tol, QRN. I do not mean to make light of these but we are attempting our first qso. These have useful functions which you will want to know later.

¨ Bring up the WSJT program and www.pingjockey.net chat board. I usually bring both up with WSJT near the top of my screen and PJ near the bottom for convenience.

¨ Find someone on PJ that is QRV on the band you operate and that is between about 500 and 900 miles (the easiest range for meteor scatter). Dont be shy, these folks are hungry for new people to work. You may want to let someone find you by typing on PJ (in the white blank): "QRV 2&6 mtrs" (assuming you are setup for both of these bands)and hit Enter on your keyboard. Your call and grid will appear out to the side if you put your info correctly in PJ as described above.

¨ Should you hook up with someone, Type on PJ (assuming I am the QRV station above) “AF4O run 2mtrs on FSK441 ? “ to inquire if they would like to run an attempt with you.

¨ I will reply something like “Sure ______ hows 144.105, me 1st, st’s ok ?” To decipher this: ____ = your name or call or both..... 144.105 = the frequency in USB that we will try our qso attempt......me 1st = I will run the first 30 seconds of the sequence and you will run the 2nd 30 seconds of the sequence.........st’s = single tone messages ok (check the st box on wsjt). (More on single tone messages in the WSJT manual)

¨ Put my call in the “To radio:” box on WSJT and hit click “Lookup”. If my grid does not appear enter it manually in the “Grid (6-digit): box(Grid beside call on PJ). Then click on “Gen Std Msgs”. This will insert the station you just entered into the "To Radio" box into the messages at the left of WSJT.

¨ Turn your antenna if its a beam to the “Az” setting as indicated on the WSJT program.

¨ Make sure your “TX First” box is unchecked since I am first, remember ? Make sure the "ST Msg" box is checked, We are running Single Tones, remember ?

¨ Click “Auto is OFF” and it will change to ON. Now we are going. A typical qso will average about 20 minutes but 10 to an hour is not uncommon. Do not discuss any qso details on PJ during the attempt. If you get tired of trying or have to leave then let the other station know on PJ and the qso attempt can be terminated. During the attempt I like to check my power output, computer audio output setting, swr, etc when transmitting my 30 second intervals.

¨ When in the Receive 30 second intervals, Listening to your receiver audio you will often hear the “pings” (Assuming you have your computer not hooked up thru the speaker output, YUCK, I like to hear whats going on and besides the lower level output of the rig is cleaner for the soundcard). MultiTone (Calls and Calls/Report or the first 2 messages are always multitone no matter the ST setting) Pings sound like a split second burst of buzzing noise. You will soon get to recognize the difference in sound from say a lightning burst, power line rfi, or your air conditioning cutting on. Of course if there are no meteors then you won’t hear anything. Best times typically are early mornings and late evenings. The st’s usually sound like a short note of a flute. In brief: Calls and Calls/Report messages are multitone (buzzing noise) & flute sounding st's are report (R26, etc), RRR, and 73

¨ You should now be sending our calls (the first message, Tx 1) on the 2nd 30 seconds of each minute. If you receive the calls then change to message 2. Change messages you are transmitting by clicking in the small circle just to the right of the message. If you receive the calls plus report (26, 27, etc) then send message 3 & so forth. When each rrr are received then the qso is officially complete although I like to also send 73’s unless the qso is really long. A complete MS qso is Calls, Reports, and RRR (rogers). Now you may discuss the qso on PJ. Click “Auto is ON” to turn off.

¨ Congratulations. Not that much to it when you get use to it. As with anything else, it takes just a bit of practice.Enough time to sip coffee or eat sunflower seeds as I sometimes do when attempting a qso. When you get use to the basic qso, there are other activities going on like Random times. These are times when unassisted contacts are made. The most popular seems to be between 1400z and 1600z saturday mornings. Check PJ and the yahoo high speed meteor scatter reflector ( a good idea to subscribe to this)

¨ If you are not successful at Meteor Scatter after a few tries then you might want to find someone close by that is QRV on WSJT and try a JT44 contact to test your station. This mode is excellent for direct, tropo, or even EME(earth moon earth) contacts. If your station works with JT44 then it should work with FSK441 if the meteors are flying. FSK441 works poorly direct or none at all, it was not designed for continuous receive but for split second bursts. Also, if you are an unfortunate soul like myself and have experienced power line rfi then you might have to wait til this calms or get the power co to fix (See my Power Line RFI article on this site). WSJT will copy thru the noise sometimes but it sure is better with a quiet noise floor! Another thing, this is weak signal work. Minimal stations will work and often quite well but the better your station the better your chances of success.

¨ Please EMail with any suggestions to this article or comments. I wrote this after remembering my confusion first getting started with the neat mode of ham radio.

I am not a writer.So if this sounds confusing, please read other articles and do a little study on the mode. I think you will be glad you did with all the fun to be had. 73 Chuck AF4O