QRSS R & D Grabber - G0FTD - Whitstable - JO01MI

May 2019. The QRSS scene continues to have fun. W6REK and OK1FCX have livend up the grabbers with some animated antics and TV style test cards. Examples of their work are here, take note also of the Youtube links for more fun. This years Sporadic E season is starting and if it was anything like last year then we should see some amazing multihop E's. QRSS and WSPR make 3 to 5 hops visible to us now, unlike SSB where signal strengths for 2 hops is normal. WATCH THOSE GRABBERS FOLKS !  Vernon VE1VDM managed to observe multihop E's from the UK last year.. Such opening are rare and can happen at any time, so you need a lot of patiience and a transmitter and receiver / grabber running for many weeks to catch one. But it's worth it.

My YAPI project for the Raspberry Pi has steadily grown. As of 11 May 2019 I have added QRSSPIG version 0.6.1 plus other radio based utilites such as QSSTV and a mini reference library of socuments. At the moment it included bandplans, worldwide HF/6m beacon lists and ITU Radio Regulations. (More to come).

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February 2019. My Raspberry Pi image YAPI (Yet Another Pi Image) now includes a facility to send QRSS via pre-made audio files to your SSB rig. Courtesy of Radovan OK1FCX.  There is also some desktop shortcuts to assist with creating a QRSSPIG RAMDISK as well as some other useful stuff. Also an on screen keyboard and minor system improvements have been made for minimalist systems. The link for the Raspberry Pi image is here.

December 2018. I made an attempt  at a group newletter for QRSS enthusiasts. My editing software kept crashing, and I was not 100% happy with the results but despite this everyone still like it (I am still baffled). Here it is - 74 Magazine

There is no current grabber activity from me. This may change but I'm concentrating on providing good QRSS signals instead on 3 bands. In the meantime, this site will remain a simple site with a few links for now. There may also be some occasionally useful files in the other directory that are of general purpose, and not QRSS related. I am a  regular user and collector of the numerous cheap Chinese VHF / UHF handhelds. Some software for them is included here. I might also indulge in QRSS Grabber DXpeditions witha GPD Pocket PC and receiver in the near future. UPDATE - August 2018. I am experimenting with QRSSPig grabber software and it works very well. I am conducting feasability tests for a 600m band grabber. QRSS does not seems so prevalent on this band, existing grabbers are poor. Over the coming months, especially winter time I shall see if enthusiasm amongst the 600m band improves. If not then I wont bother.

Radovan OK1FCX, a keen QRSS'er and software man has written a small script file for use with WGET. I have tested it on my Linux Mint 18.3 machine as a once off an it seems to work. You need to right click the properties and make it executable. The idea is to add it to a crontab and let it run automatically. Both end user and QRSS grabber compendium operators could adapt it accordingly. It also ensures that .jpg gets correctly added to each filename, unlike my own wget script file, that adds a serial number to each grab. Thanks Rad ! 

A new experimental grabber compendium is being tested by Henry W6REK. This compendium has a unique feature of combining the days grabs and turning them into an animation. You can see the website here - http://yak.net:7899/

The following text below comes from Eddie G3ZJO who has been working with QSL.NET to make sure that grabber files are passed without undue delay to the outside world. So when you use your grabber software, e.g. Argo or QRSS Pig, Lopora etc you MUST use the following filenames.

There have been some changes at QSL.net recently. Your Grabs uploaded are  not being updated properly on your Grabber. This is due to the caching of all files on the Server. The team at QSL.net have come up with a solution. The filenames used must  have a special EXCEPTION. This can't be done for individual files so we have agreed a standard set which should prove adequate for all users.  All you need to do is to change your image file name to one of the following in the range :-