• nanoVNA-Applications

Vorläufig / Preliminary, work in progress

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nanoVNA Applications

In order to not extend my main wiki page nanoVNA not too much, I have split off the applications.

WSPR Audio Filter

In order to improve the sensitivity of my ham radio WSPR (digital mode) reception, I checked the incoming audio signal with an DSO, and found very much noise on the signal. The WSPR reception works under normal conditions up to 3000 km distance, but I thought it could be improved by an audio filter.

I looked first with the DSO to the audio output of my F850 transceiver, at the 20 m band (14.0956 MHz). See the screenshot below, left.

Then I inserted a 3 KHz Cauer Low Pass Filter in series, and measure after the filter. See the screenshot below, right.

In order to see what it does in the spectrum, I run a DSO FFT, see below:

Filter design

For the filter design I used the very good Windows program Elsie.

I wanted as few as possible inductors in the schematic. The filter type Cauer was selected because of the steep stop curve, with few parts. The following parameters must be defined for that filter:

• ELSIE menu: Design

  • Topology -> Capacitor-input lowpass

  • Family -> Cauer

  • Bandwidth: 3K
  • Order: 5
  • Input termination: 600 Ohm
  • Stopband width: 6 KHz
  • Stopband depth: 35 dB

See the schematic of the calculated design below on the left.

Because I wanted to build the circuit with E12 series parts, I tried to find good matching values for the components, see on the right.

For the measurement with the nanoVNA with 50 Ohm impedance I added a resistor of 510 Ohm on bothe sides with a SMA female connector, to match the 600 Ohm impedance of the filter.

See the ELSIE calculated plot of transmission and phase on the left. On the right with the edited component values.

Now comes the reality test with the nanoVNA, see below the S11 transmission and phase values from 1 to 20 KHz. Usually the nanoVNA Firmware starts from 50 KHz upwards, but with a different firmware this was lowered to 1 KHz. This is a compromise, but better than nothing.

Filter board

The inductors (chokes) are bought at Ebay, the capacitors are SMD 0805, all soldered on a Perf-board.

I have also measured the used chokes with nanoVNA, see below.

WSPR reception

It looks like an reception improvement.

It has also to do with the sun light. The whole distance must have day light, see:

• From WSPR Spot Database

Timestamp -- -- -- Call -- -- -- MHz -- SNR Drift Grid - Pwr Reporter RGrid -- km --- azimut
2020-04-28 07:20 VK3QN 14.097200 -19 0 --- QF22 5 -- DL5FA -- JO40cb 16336 306 Australia, Melbourne

• See the Day and Night map, date adjustable

Then later in the early afternoon the window to the USA opens:

Timestamp -- -- -- Call -- -- -- MHz - SNR Drift Grid -- Pwr Reporter RGrid -- km - azimut
2020-04-28 14:42 KK1D 14.097158 -21 1 --- FN31vi 1 -- DL5FA -- JO40cb 6012 51 USA, New York

• See the Day and Night map, date adjustable

Links WSPR

1. Program for digital communication WSJT-X

2. Weak Signal Propagation Reporter (WSPR) explained

3. Gute WSPR Erklärung

4. Weak Signal Propagation Reporter Network, WSPR Map, Database

5. QTH locator show on Google map

6. Day and Night map, date adjustable

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-- RudolfReuter 2020-04-29 08:17:09

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