Talk:WSPR (amateur radio software)

To-do

• Improvents for this article could be: insert links, a more general introduction for broad audience, some nice pictures and a entry point on how to get started 2A4Fh56OSA (talk) 09:18, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

WSPR - WSJT

What is the difference? --Hans Eo (talk) 12:34, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

This is just a guess: WSPR is the name for the radio protocol, WSJT is the name of the inventor's software that implements the WSPR protocol. -- anon

Meanwhile I translated this article into Esperanto and therefore came to this page and read your guess. No, both are different programs. Now two articles exist, which explain both. --Hans Eo (talk) 13:30, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

I know nothing about Esperanto, but I am a radio amateur familiar with WSPR and WSJT. WSJT is a computer application developed by K1JT, Princeton Nobel Laureate Joe Taylor and associates. WSPR is one of many protocols WSJT can decode. "Anon's" guess above is correct.2002:6167:78C9:0:0:0:0:1007 (talk) 22:25, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

WSJT_(amateur_radio_software) has a more detail. Does wikipedia need both articles or should they be merged? -- Yae4 (talk) 15:42, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Spam

British sotabeam dot whatnot had the audacity to spam the page with a link to some entirely superfluous WSPR related product they sell. Is there a way for WP to sue the crap out of them?80.187.101.95 (talk) 06:05, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Not only is there no way, there's no need. Maintaining the integrity of our articles is what we do here. And in fact, the example you cite is mild misbehaviour in the extreme. On worse days we deal with actual bad-faith editing, i.e., entry-steading, wiki-stalking, and intentional vandalism. In contrast, this incident was a simple case of (possibly good faith) NPOV. Laodah 06:54, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

MH370

I don't really know how to wikipedia but I made an account because I wanted to ask why the psuedoscientific MH370 claims are being stated as fact? I and most of other the radio amateurs I've talked to about this think that claiming to be able to track planes with WSPR is complete nonsense. I know that it was reported as true by news organizations so it's definitely notable enough to be included in the article. But I'm really hoping someone could change the text to be more agnostic to whether the claims themselves are true. Because they're not, and claiming that a skywave in the ionsosphere is like a laser tripwire or whatever terminology they use is misleading and doesn't reflect reality. I know original research isn't allowed but hopefully in a talk page I can at least discuss why this is wrong. Feel free to delete if it's not allowed, but I will be sad if you keep the misleading info up. I'm not trying to get my back of the envelope math into the article, I just want to add "According to so-and-so" before all of the misleading claims.

Anyway, here's my "original research". :)

If memory serves, the paper published about this technique makes no restrictions on the altitude of the planes it can track, and I believe it claims to be able to track any plane. For that to be true, the total energy of the WSPR signal would need to be spread out vertically from the ground to about 30000 feet or 9km. If you do the math, the width of the hypothetical "laser tripwire" model of a WSPR signal doesn't end up mattering too much because unless the plane is traveling right along the great circle arc between the transmitting and receiving stations, it's not actually likely to remain in the "laser tripwire" for even a single complete WSPR transmission. But for the sake of argument let's just assume the width is 3 miles/5 kilometers, and that the airplane remains in that zone for the entire two minutes a WSPR transmission is happening.

Assuming spherical airplanes, the area the airplane is capable of occluding at any given moment is approximately 31400 square feet or 2826 m^2. Unfortunately, the total cross-sectional area that the hypothetical laser tripwire occupies is 475200000 square feet, or about 45000000 m^2. The power loss represented by the occluded area of the WSPR signal would be about 0.00028698 dB. This is a really small difference, and in fact the algorithm described in the paper actually completely discards small differences like this as "noise". But that's the signal they're after, at least if radio physics worked the way they want it to, which it tragically does not.

Ellenhp93 (talk) 02:03, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Ellenhp93 TBILLT (talk) 13:20, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

See reference https://mh370.radiantphysics.com/2021/12/19/wspr-cant-find-mh370/ TBILLT (talk) 13:23, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Is there anything we can do about this? It's really, really stupid that the article doesn't call it out as psuedoscience. We're talking about 0.00029 dB path loss differential optimistically when the aircraft crosses the the beam, and his software explicitly discards data like that as noise. The guy is supposedly an engineer and he refuses to acknowledge this. Wikipedia shouldn't just parrot his insane claims, even if they are "notable". Ellenhp93 (talk) 20:03, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

I think this entry should be removed, as it has been debunked. https://dk8ok.org/2021/12/06/mh370-and-wspr-aircraft-scatter-on-hf-a-critical-review/

As Ellenhp93 says, there is reporting in mainstream sources so it is a notable topic. Does anyone have reliable sources that refute Richard Godfrey's claims? I found [1], [2], [3], [4] which dispute or question Godfrey's claims but the perceived reliablity of these sources is in a lower league than the ones currently citing the material in the article. ~Kvng (talk) 15:32, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Please see https://web.archive.org/web/20220221112332/https://dk8ok.org/2021/12/06/mh370-and-wspr-aircraft-scatter-on-hf-a-critical-review/

And https://web.archive.org/web/20220221112057/https://mh370.radiantphysics.com/ 194.230.145.148 (talk) 08:34, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

These are both WP:BLOGY ~Kvng (talk) 15:54, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Just like the entire MH370 section.

Either allow criticism in the article (which was removed previously), or remove the section completely. 194.230.145.148 (talk) 19:49, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Godfrey's background seems to be in avionics and control systems, not HF propogation. Everything he's put out with regard to this is self-published at [5]https://mh370search.com. So for the work done with WSPR, reliability can be best described as a self-published non-expert. Non-scientific media reports on it don't add to this credibility, so we are well within policy guidelines from WP:UNDO to clarify this, even if we don't have the sources to debunk it within the article. Juan el Demografo (talk) 17:51, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

• Keep. IMO, The section should be included with typical wiki-reliable sourcing and appropriate attribution of some controversial statements. There are a lot of wiki-unreliable blog type given citations above; too many to comment on all. I am not sure about wiki-reliability of airlineratings.com, but they have an Editors board, and seem to be not too bad... This[6] talks about some support for the methods, and has a great quote: “Never interrupt someone doing something you said couldn’t be done.” FYI, It also links a detailed discussion of the data and methods here[7] (wiki-unreliable blog, however). Hannes Coetzee was apparently involved in some of this, and I saw an Amateur Radio Hall of Fame nomination[8] and relevant EE and physics background in my web searching. -- Yae4 (talk) 14:34, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Oh I meant WP:UNDUE, not to revert the section completely Juan el Demografo (talk) 17:39, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

WP:VERIFY says "Even if you are sure something is true, it must be verifiable before you can add it. If reliable sources disagree, then maintain a neutral point of view and present what the various sources say, giving each side its due weight." So, similar if you are sure something is not true, or impossible. "Reliable" sources say the method is being used, and say believable people have endorsed it... If you have any wiki-reliable sources saying the contrary, then bring them. So far all I see is wiki-unreliable sources, and back of envelope estimates, which doesn't cut it; see WP:VERIFY. -- Yae4 (talk) 14:20, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

The burden of proof is not on me here as far as I'm concerned. I'm aware that my calculations aren't admissible, but I was trying to start a conversation by providing a small piece of low-quality evidence that Godfrey's techniques do not work even given his own incorrect assumptions.

Godfrey has explicitly avoiding applying his "new technology" to any falsifiable test. Can we at least acknowledge here in the talk page that that's kind of weird? It would be very, VERY easy to pull in ADS-B data anywhere in the world and test this technology in a falsifiable way. He's gone to great lengths to address concerns by his detractors but he hasn't actually tested his code, and that tells me what I need to know. It's just a shame that the misinformation has to stay on wikipedia because of the way sourcing works. I understand why it is the way it is, and I support the policies in their current form. This is just an ugly side-effect I guess. Ellenhp93 (talk) 10:24, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

• It was my understanding the method had been applied to flights over a pole to show it worked, but I've forgotten where I saw that; probably a non-reliable source, and if so it's not wiki-relevant without wiki-reliable sourcing.
• I agree this article should acknowledge uncertainty about the method, and state the predicted location was already searched without finding anything. This[9] is already cited. A more balanced statement could be made, with more doubt about the method, based on these statements: “Because it (the report) puts the aircraft in an area that we have already searched, I guess me coming in with a due diligence and a new set of eyes, we are taking a review of the data ..." and "“(But) whether it’s credible enough to track an aircraft remains to be seen,” Mr Mitchell told Sky News." This[10] looks like an OK source with some balance: ""I think the jury is still out on Richard's work, but let's hope he is onto something." and "The ATSB described Godfrey as "credible" but has not launched a new investigation." This[11] says .gov authorities completed a review of search data: "A review of search data from the original Australian Transport Safety Bureau-led search for the missing MH370 aircraft has concluded that it is highly unlikely there is an aircraft debris field within the reviewed search area." -- Yae4 (talk) 15:37, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

I've tried to clean up the MH370 section so it presents the theory in a more concise and neutral manner. This seems a reasonable compromise to me but I'm no expert. Servalo (talk) 13:07, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

I like your changes, and if anything the fact that they were made by a non-expert is probably good, because it means you probably don't have as much bias as someone like me. Thank you for taking the initiative to make it a little bit more neutral. The only source we have that's actually worth anything is non-scientific media coverage, so presenting the claims he makes should be done carefully without taking any stance on their veracity. Like a user posted above, the claims and the counter-claims are all just posted on blogs, so it's a tricky situation. But yeah, if a reader is curious they'll follow the link to the talk page and judge the unreliable sources on their own merits. :) Ellenhp93 (talk) 03:01, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

This theory is presented on the University of Liverpool website.

Enquire (talk) 08:03, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

I haven seen the documentary but the description you provided indicates they don't have results yet. ~Kvng (talk) 14:15, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Also now covered in this YouTube video on the subject. Nunchuck12 (talk) 22:40, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

References