Out of Sync: WSPR, GPS, and the timing of meeting people
If there’s one thing amateur radio teaches you, it’s the importance of timing. Whether you’re zero-beating CW signals, tuning your antenna just right, or aligning schedules to catch that rare DX station, everything boils down to when and how you act. Recently, I’ve been wrestling with timing in two very different ways: one in my radio adventures and the other in my life.
Let’s start with the radio side of things, because I’m sure that’s what you’re here to see. My QRP Labs QMX+ is an incredible little transceiver, but I’ve had a love-hate relationship with using it for WSPR (Weak Signal Propagation Reporter). If you’re not familiar, WSPR is all about sending super-precise, low-power signals to map out propagation conditions. Sounds great, right? Except WSPR demands accuracy—we’re talking down to the half second at least—to reliably commence transmissions precisely.
And let me tell you, trying to keep WSPR on track without GPS is an exercise in frustration. I found myself constantly fiddling with my computer’s NTP settings and triple-checking the QMX’s timing. Even then, it was always a gamble whether my transmissions would be heard or lost in the ether. It felt like trying to run a race while wearing shoes a size too small—doable, but unnecessarily difficult.
The idea was simple: make a cheap, portable beacon that could transmit WSPR signals from anywhere. The execution, however, was far from straightforward.
The Si5351 was an amazing piece of kit, generating RF frequencies with precision I’d only dreamed of as a beginner making Colpitts oscillators with parts from other amateurs. But the problem was, once again, timing. Without a GPS to keep everything synchronized, the Arduino was constantly drifting off-frequency. I managed to get it to transmit somewhat reliably after hours of tweaking, but the results were never perfect. Some stations heard me, others didn’t, and I could never fully trust the setup. Still, it was a fun experiment that taught me a lot about the intricacies of timing and stability in RF systems.
And here’s where life loops back into the story. Recently, she and I were talking—minutes after my last blog post about the TS450 went up—and the topic of timing came up. She’s one of my closest friends, probably the person who understands me best. And while it’s clear we’d be great as more than friends someday, she made a point that hit me harder than an overdriven transistor (yes, that’s a reference to the great transistor killing of last week). She said something along the lines of “It’s not that we need more time, it’s just that the timing isn’t right.”
That one sentence pulled everything into focus. Life right now—high school, exams, homework, the lot—is chaotic. Neither of us has the bandwidth for anything more than what we’ve already built, and honestly, that’s great! Just like my WSPR beacon, we’re a work in progress. The foundation is there, and we know it’ll work beautifully when the time comes. But for now, the clock’s just a little off, and not even a $75 GPS module can change it between us.
So, I’ve learned to embrace the waiting game, both in life and in ham radio, and I’m very content with it all. I’ll probably end up adding a GPS module to my QMX+ at some point because even I have my limits with timing frustrations. But for now, I’m happy experimenting, learning, and occasionally screaming into the void when things don’t work.
In the end, timing really is everything. Whether it’s a WSPR transmission finding its way across the globe or two people figuring out their place in each other’s lives, the best things can’t be rushed. They’ll happen when the time is right. And until then, I’ll keep soldering, experimenting, and taking my time on the ride.
73,
Daniel