NOTEBK21.TXT -- from The Lowdown, December, 1994 -- "The Notebook" (The Mailbag And Dialogue Section) News and Comments About LF Radio & Other Experimental Topics John Davis, PO Box 367, Warm Springs, GA 31830 Fax/Voice: (706) 672-0964 E-mail: johnhdavis@aol.com Longwave/Part 15 BBS: 706/672-0360 The year's most festive holidays are upon us now, and I hope you will be able to enjoy them to the fullest with your family this season. You've probably been caught up in the shopping rush, but (hopefully) there has been time to finish up the necessary projects for the winter season. Your columnist has driven halfway across the continent for a family gathering, covered two juicy trials for the paper, and handled the usual third-week-of-the-month catas- trophe at WJSP. That means this column is a bit hurried, so I hope nobody has been left out. And, the SEA (LF) antenna hasn't quite reached its final form, but I'll work on that again as soon as this is safely on its way to HQ. Mother Nature has been very generous to West Georgia in November, with mild, mostly dry weather in which to enjoy what's left of the fall colors. There have been storms to the west, though, keeping QRN up...and the vicious tropical storm Gordon, reeling around the Carribean, Gulf, and Atlantic like some cartoon drunkard for the last few weeks. Thanksgiving here looks to be dry, but seasonably chilly, so maybe that will ease us into a normal December pattern. We have a fair number of letters this month, but most of them are directly related to our recent feature material topics, so I've used them in those sections. That left the Mailbag looking a little slim. So, send your news. We'd love to have it for the New Year's issue and every month, for that matter. Lightning Flash Our Cosmic Connection feature is one that's being postponed for further work, but there's one bit of news you'll want to check out on your own this month. Mark L. Langenfeld (P.O.B. 1497, Madison, WI 53701-1497; FAX 608/ 258-4258) tells us to take a look at the December Scientific American. The Science and the Citizen section has an interesting item on upward discharges. It notes, in part: "Red sprites and blue flashes were recently found to live above some thunderstorms - although pilots have been reporting the luminous phenomena for many years. The red flashes appear for only a few thousandths of a second and can extend upward for 60 miles; the blue jets appear atop storm clouds and can rise for about 20 miles. The first color images of the activity were taken by researchers at the Dan Osborne Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks." If you have on-line capability, you may also want to check the Scientific American section of America Online. Your columnist recently downloaded a video clip of the UAF work, and it is truly fascinating. A broad area of blue light appears above the storm over the course of a few frames (whether this is some form of corona, or reflected light from lightning inside the cloud, is not clear). Then suddenly, a red blob, rather like an upwardly stretched balloon, abruptly pops into existence for a single frame and disappears. This was what they called a sprite. The "blue jet" in the video clip starts up from the top of the clouds while intense lightning is going on below. This discharge begins as a bright bubble, resembling a mushroom pushing its way up through the soil. It stretches upward into a tubular shape over the next couple of frames. Then (to extend the mushroom image) it seems to burst open at the upward end as if discharging spores. I have a graphics file of the "sprite" that I wanted to use this month, but the magazine's reprints and permissions department has not responded to my request yet. (AFTERWORD: Having finally received the magazine, I can see why they never bothered. That graphic and a short caption were the ONLY thing they had about it in print!) At any rate, Mark goes on to say: "Have been following your lightning thread in 'The LF Notebook' with interest. It's long been my belief that sporadic-E is intimately related to thunderstorm-induced ionization, and I am unabashedly pleased to see that others are taking this ball and running with it. I may have a citation to an interesting (scholarly) article published some years ago by a couple of Canadian researchers that might be interesting from a historical perspective. I'll see if I can dig it out. Oh, and congratu- lations on finally snagging some whistlers. It's a thrill, isn't it? I've had very good luck with my WR-3 by keeping track of the solar/geomagnetic indices. I'm batting almost 100% on whistlers, dawn chorus or both when the geomagnetic field is at active to storm levels." Thanks, Mark, and continued success! Ham Band Followup Last month's discussion of efforts for an LF ham band continues with a further folloup from Bob Magraw (2401 Gladiator Drive, Fenton, MO 63026). Bob says he is passing along information from the column to David Sumner at the ARRL, and he also wants to mention that he did not mean to alienate or exclude non-ham users of 1750 meters. In fact, he says "if I were to pen (the rules), I would certainly leave the non-ham experimenters as they were. In fact, because this band is so very unique, I would be in favor of communica- tions authorized between ham and non-ham stations. If this were to become a 'shared' ham band, then the definition of shared should be expanded." This strikes your columnist as a very interesting concept. The FCC has long held the distinction between licensed services to be rather rigid, and the distinction between licensed and non-licensed services to be almost sacred. It would be interesting to see if the FCC and the NTIA could expand their thinking enough to give serious consideration to such a proposal. Who knows? Arctic Circle Research Project Reader Michael Kumle (I hope I have the spelling right; PO Box 1574 Stn. A, Kelowna, BC V1Y 7V8) has a project in mind to investigate LF ducting effects: "My intent is to launch a balloon north of the Arctic Circle and compare the received signals with signals received by ground stations." The target date is the longest day of the year, June 21, in either 1995 or 1996. Michael says he's interested in suggestions from other readers for different types of experiments to be done at about the same time and location. "Some of the equipment would have to be purchased in the U.S., some to be modified, and others to be built. To set this up, I would need some help in the U.S., but all cost of equipment is carried by me." Anyone interested can write him at the address above. Signal Relaying You probably thought there wasn't much left to say about signal relaying, didn't you? Surprise! Actually, it should come as no surprise that Mike Mideke would have worth- while thoughts on the subject. Mike says most of his stuff is still packed up, but I suspect that won't last long, because he also says "my new location shows some signs of being useable way up the mountain at the extreme edge of the 160 acre property I now occupy." "Signal delivery via 'twisted pair' is not out of the question, but, due to the steepness and serious brush, it would be an awful job, and likely unacceptable to the landlord as well. So how about a hybrid system? Use a radio link without worrying about making it any broader or cleaner than needed to get an idea what's happening at the receiver. Place the recorder at the receiver and use radio control to turn it on and off when the 'fuzzy link' shows activity worth recording." That would certainly remove a lot of the constraints on trying to get a top quality signal back to the shack, and increase the possible equipment and band choices. Mike says his first science project at the new location is likely to be an earth current monitor. "Being practically atop the San Andreas fault at th e epicenter of the Loma Prieta quake (I suspect really close to where Anthony Fraser-Smith chanced to have his ULF monitor prior to the quake) it seems likely there is a good chance that geo-electrical activity will be interesting." LORAN As a Frequency Source R. D. Marchant (e-mail: 100331.1050@compuserve.com) observed our discussion a couple of months ago on using LORAN for a frequency standard. He notes: "A few years ago, I was tasked with getting time and frequency standards in operation for the laboratory where I worked. LORAN-C was the recommended method, and I spent considerable time looking into the require- ments. Commercial equipment was quite expensive, and does not give the information directly. It is possible to get very accurate time though (+/- 1 microsecond)." "Some Lowfers seem to be interested in generating very stable signals, and it can be done using the method you suggested. However, it doesn't require a computer, or most of the circuitry given in the CQ article." "Since the pulses are all on the same frequency (100khz), and you can generally hear several transmitters at once, the first problem is to separate them. If you want to know your position, it gets a little hairy. If your purpose is to synchronize a beacon, the design is much simpler. You only have to gate your receiver on when the desired transmitter transmits. This is normally done by triggering the gate with a generator at the pulse repetition frequency (in my area, 12.5HZ). If all goes well, you then have a fairly clean train of pulses coming out of your receiver IF. This signal can then be fed to a PLL which in turn provides a reference for your synthesizer." "For my own shop, and for the laboratory, I decided to use the timing signals on 60KHZ instead. The signal is very loud, and available over most of the northern hemisphere. (WWVB in the U.S., and GBR over here.) The receiver was a simple superhet with a one KHZ IF. You can hear the IF directly. Again, the IF output is used as a reference for a PLL in the synthesizer." Bob notes that there is a handy IC in Europe for standard time applica- tions. "A standard frequency station on 77.5KHZ broadcasts from Germany and the IC is used in clocks that reset themselves when they go wrong. The clocks sell for about $75 and come in a number of shapes and sizes. There is even a watch that resets itself from the VLF signal. Whether that IC can be adapted to use the 60KHZ signal needs to be looked into." All Keyed Up We also have more followup on beacon keyer ideas this month. From Lyle Koehler comes this word: "I meant to call your attention last month to the 'CW Stamp' identifier article in the October issue of QST. I expect you've already seen it. The 20-character capacity and $21 price tag for the kit (postpaid, complete with programmed ROM) makes it look like an attractive solution for LowFER beacons." Also, David W. Johnson (WA4NID; email: djohnson@acpub.duke.edu; packet WA4NID@KB4WGA.NC.USA.NA) has continued his research into keyers. "I found one offering from HCE (Houck's Communications and Electronics, 717 N. Allegheny St., Bellefonte, PA 16823; 800-544-8450; 814-355-7648; FAX 814-355-8896) for $11.95. This is a single-chip (PIC16C54) IDer with 4 MHz resonator. You provide some other circuit components (resistors, caps, etc). You must tell them what you want programmed on the chip, and it comes with schematic showing how to hook it up for continuous operation (looping of the programmed message). The trouble with this one is that the output was audio. I really tried hard to convert it to on/off keying using a simple transistor circuit, but no luck. It seems the output voltage of the audio varies a lot over the ID cycle, making it hard to set the bias on the transistor to provide proper keying. I'm thinking of trying an optoisolator next. Greg at HCE was really nice, and gave advice, but lately I haven't been able to get through to a person on their phone line. Greg said that he could program a chip differently to provide on/off keying instead of audio, so I may just take a chance and send another payment with a reminder of the type of keying I require." "Another keyer I've tried is the one I received in response to sending $34.95 to Hugh Bunn (Route 11, Spring Lake Drive, Spartanburg, SC 29302) after reading his article in CQ, March 1991, p. 48-51. The keyer is supplied as a kit with chip (PIC16C54; preprogrammed according to instructions you must supply when ordering), PC board, and associated other parts. This one gives the proper on/off keying, but doesn't repeat. I think I can get it to loop by using a 555 timer circuit, but this is another project waiting to be completed! By the way, Hugh is apparently the owner of 624 Kits (171 Springlake Drive, Spartanburg, SC 29302; 803-573-6677) and sent along their 1994 catalog. They offer some other things of interest to us Lowfers: audio filters, audio filter/ amp combo, Lowfer recceiving converter, and even a Lowfer transmitter (all kits). I was a bit disturbed by the appearance in the catalog of a beacon IDer kit, which is presumably the same as the one I ordered, for $24.00!" "Finally, a keyer that really works, and works well: the Morse Messenger from Scott Edwards (Scott Edwards Electronics, 964 Cactus Wren Lane, Sierra Vista, AZ 85635; 602-459-4802; FAX 602-459-0623). Send your beacon ID message and $12 for the chip (PIC16C54 again!) and $5 more for a nice PC board. Scott sent some nice notes and schematics. I supplied a few parts from my 'boxe de la junque'. This thing actually has eight messages on it! This makes it pretty flexible. I found out about it from the article by Scott in 73 Amateur Radio Today, June 1994, p. 46-50. This is the IDer now being used by my Medfer beacon XP." Special thanks go to Dave for such a thorough job in checking out so many different keyer kits. This should be a real help to a lot of us. On To the Mailbag > B. A. (Bernie) Pridgeon III (YD, KQ4YD, PO Box 104, Port St. Joe, FL 32456; tel. 904/227-1234) announces the commissioning of his beacon YD on 187.5 kHz. Word got here after the beacon list was printed, so please take note that there is one more beacon on the air than listed this month. The transmitter is located in White City, a small town north of Port St. Joe, and is an LF Engineering TM-2. The antenna is a 40 foot top hatted vertical, with a substantial ground rod and six 50-foot radials. The grid square is EL79. Bernie says YD will be on 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and he hopes someone will be able to hear it. From his QTH, he hears RED consistently at a distance of 20 miles, but hasn't had any luck yet with other LowFERs. Hopefully, that will change this season. Bernie has been a member about six months and enjoys the Lowdown. He has also checked into the Longwave/Part 15 BBS. (The BBS now supports 9600 baud-- or at least it does for most people. At higher speeds, not all modems are as compatible as one would hope, and Bernie may be in that situation. We will try to figure something out there. For most folks, instructing their modems not to negotiate compression protocols seems to take care of it. Others have to stick with 2400 baud.) > Glen Swiderski (W, Buffalo, WY) left word on the answering machine of an unknown station sending seemingly random Morse characters on 179.5 (a later message indicates 176.9; I'll try to reach him and clarify this before next month). He says it's a pretty good signal, with some QSB, and wonders if anyone has an idea who it is. Drop this column a line if you can help. > Bill Thomas (AL, KC9AL, 810 Selma, St. Louis, MO 63119) reports AL should be back on the air now. He hasn't had much luck with reception yet. "Still very noisy here in the midwest." > Brice Anderson (BA, IE, Lancaster IL) reports an increase in reception, despite the noise. As of the end of October, he was hearing YHO and MS every day. TH came in from New Jersey at least once before the end of the month. In November, YHO and MS continue as regulars, with KRY very weak at RST 119, and 8LXJ with a good signal. Brice's own LowFER, BA, is being heard in Ohio, by YHO and 8LXJ. Other beacon news, via Brice: Carl, TH, reports DCH, GIR, and JPH are on the air. Bill, WA8LXJ, has had 8LXJ on from the Morrow, OH, QTH and will soon have a beacon from the new farm in southeast Ohio on 184.72 kHz. From the farm, he has heard BA, KRY, YHO and TH. Brice says his yard work should be finished soon. Then he can lay down the rest of his radials...several thousand feet of them! His new LF antenna is up, and we will have details and a photo of it in the January column. > Lyle Koehler (LEK, Aitkin, MN) reports: "Although a mild autumn is a welcome thing in Minnesota, it doesn't do much for LowFer DXing. So far the QRN has wiped out any sky-wave signals at night." "Yesterday at about 5:40 PM local time, I heard KRY for the first time this season with a barely readable signal. Other than the BPSK transmissions from MAX, KRY is the only non-local signal I've heard." "RM has been on the air, but has been missing for the past few days. 0KVL is back full-time with a rebuilt transmitter after taking a lightning hit last summer. ART is still on an intermittent schedule, and BK is on full time. I haven't heard from Sam Eastey regarding his plans for SAM this winter." Lyle passes on this summary of listening reports: -He has heard 0KVL, ART, BK, KRY, MAX and RM. -ART hears BK and LEK. -BK hears ART, LEK and his own beacon BK (Shell Lake, Wisconsin) at his suburban St. Paul location; and from the Shell Lake QTH he hears RM and LEK. > Season's Greetings, everyone. Til next month, 73!