"The Notebook" The Mailbag, News and Comments About LF Radio, Etc. (published in January, 1996, LOWDOWN) John H. Davis, Box 367, Warm Springs, GA 31830 -E-mail: johnhdavis@aol.com -Fax/Answering Machine: (706) 672-0964 -Longwave/Part 15 BBS: 706/672-0360 We seem to have made it through the holidays and into a brand new year. Congratulations and best wishes to all! No SEA LowFER beacon yet this year, but I do have the MedFER back on for as long as I can persuade it to run. A serious shortage of construction time continues, but I hope to have something interesting to report in that regard next time. The former site of the SEA LF antenna was converted into a Christmas decoration this year. I figured to use the rigging in the trees to hoist a twinkling star into the winter sky, but Hurricane Opal took down some of the branches formerly used for that purpose. So it was back out with the bow, arrows (aluminum shaft, very light, with no point), fishing line, and nylon twine. Finally got the ropes in place and all the lights plugged in, just in time for a severe thunderstorm! No problems with the star, fortunately, and it was a pleasant change from the regular lights. Much good information came in this month, and we'll have some carry-over again, it appears. Keep it coming, though! I believe we'll skip some of the semi-usual departments this time, and go . . . Straight Into The Mailbag... - Bernie Pridgeon (YD, K4QYD; Port St Joe, FL) on December 9 heard RED, WI, BA, "also FB station on 183." RED is a regular there, and Bernie heard WI about the same time last year, but BA is a rarity in Florida. His receiver is Yaesu FT-890 with an LF Engineering upconverter, driven by a 2-foot homemade loop antenna. It's a mobile installation, courtesy of his truck. - Lyle Koehler (LEK, MIN, K0LR; Aitkin, MN) reports, "This morning (December 10th) the temperature is up to -11 F and the winds are 10 to 15 mph. A big improvement over the last couple of days." (Naturally. Someone up there sent us a big chunk of that arctic air the same weekend, thus diluting it for Minnesotans. -JHD) "0KVL, YB, LEK, BK, SAM and RM were all operating continuously during the past week and a half, and ART has been on from about noon to late evening. YB, BK, LEK and ART have computer message-generating capability and there is a daily round robin of short message exchanges to keep me entertained on days like this." " LEK and XJ had their first QSO of the season on December 7th. LEK has also had real-time QSOs with YB and BK. Last weekend Bruce and I were having trouble communicating with 100 watts on 75-meter SSB, so we got on LF and had a solid hour-long CW rag chew." "New beacons heard for the first time this season are OK, BWY and MEP. BWY was solid copy until mid-morning on Thanksgiving day, and almost all day long a few days later. I'm getting BWY on about 185.6 kHz and MEP on 188.5. (The readout on my receiver is only good to 0.1 kHz.)" No luck hearing Max Carter's BPSK signals, though. Lyle heard the tape Bill Bowers made of BK and LEK on a weekend trip to the Kansas City (see Bill's letter) and was exceedingly impressed. "STLMO and 0KVL have been readable almost every night on MF. I also hear IE fairly consistently, and D is in there about once a week. While trying for VA on November 29th I heard strong modulation coming through the narrow filters. It was our long-awaited broadcast station testing on 1660 kHz with country-western music and a 20 dB over S9 carrier. A preview of things to come." "This morning between 0500 and 0515 CST we had the best MF conditions I've heard this season. STLMO was pushing the meter up to S4, and I also heard IE, D, PX, ABC (1643.5) and VA." -John Lyman (TAL, Tacoma, WA) is another experimenter whose LF activity now includes computers. "I was not terribly active in the radio hobby this year ; we had a baby boy in April and that pretty much blew away my time for quite awhile...Anyway, what brought me back was getting a computer this year. I suddenly discovered zillions of ways that I could combine the two to open up new doors I never experienced before. It's almost like I've discovered the hobby all over again. I would like to hear from anyone who wants to share ideas for utilizing a computer in the radio hobby. Especially LW. I don't seem to hear much about how computers can enhance the LW hobby." John's interests extend to weather and the Internet. You can check out his home page at http://pages.prodigy.com/WA/tacomawx/tacomawx.html. -Mike Staines (WA1PTC, Rochester NH) has a Web home page also, and this one includes some Part 15 info. It's at http://bluefin.net/~mike/hobby. He recently bought the former XMGR beacon and plans to run it from New Hampshire. While listening recently, "I was tuning across the Lowfer band, moving from TH to find DCH, when I came across a CW station where none had been before. It was sending numbers. 'Oh, no... Not a 'numbers' station on these freqs' I thought. Well, it turned out the station was really sending: PLS CALL 5084755221 over and over. So, I called it. Turns out that a guy named Bill Ashlock in Andover, MA (about 45-50 miles from here) set up his own transmitter (a 555 timer, hi-q cap and a ten turn pot). He is running a 40' antenna with a 35' tophat. Currently, he is on 186.4 +/-. Go figure ! It was a lucky catch. I was his first confirmation as he had just commisioned it for the season." -Bill Bowers (OK; Davenport, OK) says MEP and ARK are coming in there afternoons and about midnight. On a recent trip to Kansas City, "I was able to copy LEK and BK loud and clear. This is over 450 miles, so they are putting out an out-standing signal. I still have not been able to hear them in Davenport, but I expect to." -Pete Smith (Z, K7ZTM; Layton, UT) says Z continues full time. As of early December, they were still having warm weather, allowing for further antenna work. He would appreciate finding a source of RF ammeters for 1 amp or lower currents. The beacon presently sends the letter Z (chosen for easy copy) at five second intervals. -Richard D. Palmer (370 South Avenida De Las Sabinas, Green Valley, Arizona 85614-4701; e-mail: PalmerRD@aol.com) is primarily interested in aero beacons, but has been listening for beacon Z at Pete Smith's request. He hadn't heard it at the time of his report. However, he did hear MedFER A on 1644 KHz (LSB of 1645 KHz) November 30, 1995 at 1205 UTC. "The transmitter is about 250 miles from my location. Although I listened again several times it has not been heard to date (14 Dec). I have about an S6 noise level on this band so it takes a pretty good signal." The operator of A, Kirk Wines, described the beacon in a confirmation letter to Richard: "...the transmitter broadcasts the character A in CW Morse code at a rate of once per second. The transmitter is located in an uninhabited region near Quartzsite, Arizona and is solar powered. To conserve energy, the transmitter only operates during hours of darkness, drawing current from a 12 volt rechargeable battery. During daylight a photocell turns the transmitter off. The Transmitter uses a 4011 CMOS NAND gate crystal oscillator which is gated to produce the morse code character A. This drives an IRF510 final output mosfet which draws a D.C. power input of 100 milliwatts. The output from this semiconductor is fed to a ten foot vertical antenna, on top of which is mounted a five foot radius horizontal capacity hat. Directly beneath this top hat is a six inch diameter top loading coil which tunes the antenna to resonance. The ground system consists of five 150 foot radials radiating away from the base of the antennaalong the ground in a symetrical pattern in addition to a five foot ground rod placed in the earth next to the transmitter." -Robert Laney (RL, Herndon, VA) writes: "Finally got RL on the air. After a week in sunny Arizona and the week before busy at work, I got the antenna up to its final height. Loaded it up and all seems to work well. Have to complete the connections on the weather-proof box for the coil and amp and it will be on the air 24 hours per day. Hope to complete these details in the next few evenings. Only 2 months behind my estimate. Oh well, I may have beat the snows." (Just barely.) -Bob Confrey (EDJ) may not be on the air just now, but has been busy. "I am doing some ULF (<50 Hz ) monitoring with a ULF receiver that was described in the GEO-MONITOR about a year ago designed by Larry Grant. All seems to be working, but I am not sure if what I am seeing is actually the geo-magnetic field or not. I seems like anything that moves within 100 feet of the pick-up coil is detectable. One time I thought I was actually seeing something ended up being a bird feeder hanging on a branch on a nearby tree slowly swinging in the breeze! I have not weather proofed the coil as yet so I can not leave it outside full time. It is also quite sensitive to temp changes and the loop preamp needs to be offset zeroed at the beginning of each monitoring session. I will tell you more about these activities in the future." -Bart Prater (VA) QSYed his MedFER this month, as reported in the Top End column. On the receiving side, his LF catches in late November included WI, TH, KRY, ZIA and NI (still sounds like TEI, he says). On MF: ABC, GDY, PX, LC, and his first reception of MPK, on a 1947 Hallicrafters SX-42 ("same model as me"). In mid-December, he was also hearing STLMO and MIN plus most of the earlier ones. -A Top End logging from William Hepburn (35 Lockwood Rd., Brampton, ONT L6Y 4T7), relayed by Robert Montgomery: 1620 WNYB218, Glen Ellyn, IL TIS, 11/21 at 0830. NRD 535D receiver, home eavestroughing antenna (rain gutter). -Scott Reynolds (3SCO) reports his beacon was down recently for repairs, but should be back on by the time you read this. -Brice Anderson (BA, IE) has kept close watch on our favorite band(s) as they opened up for the winter. In early November, he was only reporting LowFERs YHO and WI, and MedFERs MIN, ABC, VA and STLMO. By November 13, neither band was yielding up additional stations in eastern Illinois. However, LEK was hearing BA and IE by then, and YHO heard BA. Barely two weeks later, though, the LF band was opening up nicely. Brice was also hearing KRY, LEK, and TH. On MF, PX was added to Brice's list. Broadcasters on LF were very strong, and 160 meters was opening to Europe by 4 PM. About that same date, Brice reports Walt (WI, W3WI) was hearing KRY, JDH, NI, YHO, and ZIA. And ZIA was reported to be hearing TH and WI. The most recent (mid-December) report from Brice notes "TFQ is on weekends with good signals. Both XJ and I hear him. ZIA is on at nights... XJ hears him but I don't yet. KRY has booming signals this year, 24 hours. XJ has had two QSOs with BA." And, Brice heard new beacon BOB on 187.8 with a 439 signal on December 8. On MF, PX was then the strongest signal, with STLMO a close second, and MIN, VA, and ABC still being heard. -David Jones (NR, Columbus, GA) has his beacon on this month from his home. High noise levels in town mean no QSO plans this year, but David gets fine reception opportunities by driving to quiet spots in the countryside. The abandoned power line on his farm provides other opportunities. As of December 2, "I heard ARK and NI. WI and JDH are heard during midday from my car from any quiet location. Algeria, France-inter and 183kHz were strong last weekend too. I talked to Bernie Pridgeon at the Dothan hamfest today. His YD is on and he says RED is on." "I have arranged the coupling coil on my beacon as a spiral. This seems to be the preferred way for Tesla coils, although I suspect the coupling (primary) coil is uncritical. Anyway the resistance is now much lower than the number 26 wire wrapped around an 8 inch form. The material of the pancake coil is silvered-copper half-inch strap. Since I haven't learned the math describing a single-tuned magnetically coupled circuit, I plan to experiment with it. I can at least imagine that it increases the output. It sure is pretty. The antenna secondary coil is decorated for Christmas with seven flashing neon lights (my power meter and resonance checker). I hope it sounds as nice as it looks. I would like to know more about the coupling arrangement in English words if you know of such. Antenna textbooks are too academic." David was able to hear his beacon on a trip to a computer show in Perry (central Georgia); "John Hoopes of JDH can hear me during the daylight but not at night." And a fascinating but scary note: "Just before the eye of the hurricane struck the coast, I managed to be recording sferics directly under a rotating thunderstorm. I called up the radar observer at Birmingham to confirm this. He had issued a tornado warning on the basis of rotation. I even noticed a tendril of corkscrewing scud rising from the treeline. I believe that the very clear and pure whistlers I recorded occurred within milliseconds of the local lightning. I cannot, however, prove this. I was convinced at the time that I was listening to whistlers originating from right above me." -Dexter McIntyre (ZIA) has bumped his beacon up 50 Hz to dodge a PLC. He reports receiving or working the following beacons with dates, times and RST as noted: 26 Nov. - TH 559 @ 18:30 EST; 29 Nov. - KRY 579 @ 22:39 EST; 10 Dec. - QSO with XJ 579 @ 22:20; 11 Dec. - QSO with WI @ 22:00; 12 Dec. - VA 539 @ 17:16, NI 559 @ 17:19, TH 559 @ 21:20, BA 339 @ 21:40. Good work! -Steve McGreevy (RR, San Rafael, CA) uploaded a revised schematic of the McGreevy BBB-4 whistler receiver to the Longwave BBS, including corrections to capacitor values. I believe we mentioned before that his VLF article was going to be read on HCJB. He updates us on this: "I don't know when Richard McVicar is going to read my VLF Story. Haven't heard back from him yet as to the actual date. Seems to be put off by at least a month, since we originally thought it would be read toward end of November. Looks like sometime in January now, I suppose." -Carlton Davis is particularly interested in getting on the air below 9 kHz. "Since the FCC Part 15 rules and regulations do not cover frequencies less than 9 KHz, I would like to run a very high power beacon on 8 KHz or less. I was thinking of building a MOSFET switching power amplifier or a high power oscillator. I would like to run 1 KW or more. Does anyone have any experience in this region?" You can reach him through the Longwave BBS, or send him a note in care of this column. -David E. Crawford (Gainesville, FL; decrawf@nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu) heard these MedFERs in early December: ABC 1643.5 Hilton Head, SCA @ 2355 running CW loop '510.5 KHZ BCN ON AIR DE ABC ... GUD LUCK FLA DXPEDITION DE ABC...' Fair signal on 1643.5, none on 1677.5, no CW noted on 510.5 at several checks, but I have severe power line noise on latter; did hear some weak RTTY centered around 510.6 at 0500....1639 PX, Berlin, MD @ 0021, "poor readable peak w/ CW ID, slight delay between P & X, seemed to be a longer message also but couldn't copy." -Ron Barlow (N4GJV, Cleveland NC) has had only a little time for listening this year, but has still managed to bring in ZIA, WI, NI, KRY, and XJ thus far. He was planning, as I suspect many of us are, to devote some of his holiday time to that worthwhile pursuit. Footnotes. You may have noticed I didn't include many addresses with beacon operators' letters this time. That's because of the contacts list in this issue. My apologizes to the folks I've had to postpone until next month. Their items are well worth your attention. In particular, a number of operators have sent excellent descriptions of their stations, and we'll have additional information on digital modes and more discussion of LF ham band matters. It all ought to make good reading on a cold winter's night. Til then, 73. - - -