RSA Aurora RST

PoLo - Issues & Ideas
1

Dear PoLo team,

yesterday I got very lucky. I was able to make two 2m CW Aurora QSOs during my SOTA activation :partying_face:

Screenshot_20260322_211102_PoLo
Screenshot_20260322_211102_PoLo1080×1676 292 KB

As always, I was using the amazing PoLo app for logging, but when I tried to type “52A” into the RST field, I found that the RSA rapports are not supported.

This will probably only be relevant for a very small number of QSOs logged using PoLo, but at the same time, I think it would not be that much effort to change the restrictions of the RST field to allow logging RSA rapports.

I checked out the repository before, but I was not 100% sure. I will leave that to developers that are very familiar with the code.

Best 73s and thanks for this great app
Thomas DF7TR

2

Thomas, this is the first time I hear of “A” in signal reports. Do you have more details? are there any other variations?

3

Hi Sebastian, in fact this is quite a special case.

The point is that aurora propagation distorts a signal so much that the tone T can no longer be judged in the usual sense. Due to the Doppler effect, the signal becomes broadband, called Doppler spread, resulting in a noisy, scratchy sound. However, the rhythm is preserved, which still makes a CW QSO possible, but instead of sending a rapport like 599, 59A is sent.

This is part of the German exam questions and the special rapport is explained on 50ohm.de in German here: 50Ω Lernplattform für Amateurfunk

This will definitely only be relevant to the very smallest number of PoLo users! But as I got extremely lucky to make an aurora QSO while being outdoors, I just wanted to ask.

Best 73
Thomas DF7TR

4

Awesome.

I’ve fixed this and it will go out as part of the next release.