THE LF NOTEBOOK #47 (From THE LOWDOWN, February, 1997) The Mailbag, News and Comments About LF Radio, Etc. John H. Davis, Box 367, Warm Springs, GA 31830 - E-mail - johnhdavis@aol.com - Longwave BBS - 706.672.0360 -World Wide Web http://members.aol.com/lwcanews/ Where were you when the satellite went dark? I've been celebrating a new tradition for almost four years now. On the second or third week of every month, just when it's time to assemble this column, one or more catastrophes of varying importance occur at work. Usually, it's just some time-consuming deal that makes me sweat the deadline and lose a little sleep. But this time it's a doozie! On Saturday, January 11, Telstar 401... the two year old satellite upon which Georgia Public Broadcasting, PBS, and a score of other users sorely depended...vanished. Gone. No transponders, no telemetry, no nothing. Quite literally, lost in space. At Warm Springs, we've been responsible for relaying programs to sites in the southern two-thirds of the state. It kept us alert, although-- praise be--we haven't had any major propagation or equipment complications. The next few days, when I should be printing this out, will instead be tied up with aiming all our dishes at a newly acquired transponder. (And, just to put the icing on the cake, I broke a toe last night.) Anyway, I hope you'll forgive the column being unusually short for this time of year. I think I got the time-sensitive stuff in, and we should be back to normal next month. Meanwhile, I'm sure Bill has plenty of other good material for this issue. *Southeastern LowFER Mini-convention. John Hoopes (JDH, AB4MS) and David Jones (NR, AD4NR) visited Todd Roberts' (ABC, WD4NGG) QTH on Hilton Head Island, SC, January 4. The quiet site, adjacent to a salt marsh, provided the perfect spot to test a number of receivers, and demonstrate Todd's MFJ DSP audio filter. Apparently, Hilton Head was the place to be on the first Saturday in January, because the afternoon was spent outdoors, under a big live oak tree, with the radios set out on a picnic table. The "Hoope Loop" was the antenna, and worked well with David's receiver, according to Todd. Beacon JDH was the reference signal source. Thanks to David for his e-mail, and Todd and John for on-air discussion afterwards. Any time a group of longwave experimenters get together informally this way, feel free to tell us about it. A note from one or more of the participants would be most welcome, providing us all with a sense of the LF activity in your area. *Ken Cornell, Silent Key. We are sorry to report the passing of one of the foremost contributors to our hobby, during the first week of January. It would be impossible to list all his projects and publications here, but most of you will already be familiar with many of them. Ken was always curious about natural phenomena, and always seeking practical ways to build high performance radio gear at home. In a very real way, he stood for the experimental ideals on which our whole hobby is based. Biographical data is believed to be on its way to headquarters, and may appear elsewhere in this issue. The Mailbag for February -Mauno Ritola (ritola@kareltek.fi) e-mailed from Finland to see if we have anyone who keeps track of LW broadcasters. "If so, I'd be grateful to get reliable information about Siberian stations and their local programs." E-mail if you can help. -Ed Phillips (ed@alumni.caltech.edu) reports on what may be a new beacon in the Southern California area. "Dale Cabell, N6AQQ, has a very quiet listening site near Lake Elsinore, and is doing a good job of hearing LF signals. He reports hearing a new signal on 181.5 kHz, which sounds to me (from what he played over the phone) to be sending "i i i i i i" (dit dit dit dit) about 40 times a second. Don't know if you have any other reports on it or not. I took a listen here this morning (very noisy) and think I hear it about 181.493 kHz, but not sure." -Kevin McWilliams (kevinm@infinity.ccsi.com) is author of the SbFFT DOS-based spectrum analysis program for weak signal detection, mentioned in K0LR's letter last month. It produces spectra and filters simultaneously, allowing the use of as many as six filters concurrently. It produces graphics and permits use of filters as narrow as 1 Hz. The program is available on Simtel at: http://www.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/msdos/hamradio/sbfft12.zip and can also be found through the Longwave Home Page. Kevin says, "SbFFT has allowed me reach over 20 dB further into the noise to recover signals than I could with standard amateur equipment, and I feel fellow LowFERs might like to use it." -Steve McGreevy (vlfradio@triax.com) sends greetings, and word of his new Web site..."lots of sound files and photos now enhancing this subject matter!" Find it at: http://www.triax.com/vlfradio/index.htm The new site is quite attractive. (The old Netcom Web page is still available for a while longer, but does not include graphics.) A reminder: Steve's old e-mail is not in use, because toll calls are needed to access Netcom from his present QTH. To reach him, use the Triax e-mail address, above. -Lyle Koehler (LEK, MIN, K0LR; Aitkin, MN; k0lr@emily.net) mainly uses his Emily Net e-mail address now because the Juno service has discontinued its 800 number, and they still don't have local access where Lyle lives. He reports: "I've been working on a portable LF analyzer that will measure RF resistance, inductance and capacitance over the 100 to 300 kHz range. A simple version of the circuit has already proved itself useful in determining how much inductance was needed to tune the MIN LowFER antenna." He hopes to have a write-up for The LOWDOWN soon. "The weather isn't cooperating with antenna measurements right now. By the time I get the snowshoes strapped on, my fingers are too cold to work the knobs on the analyzer -- HI." "Conditions on LF don't seem to be as good as in the last few seasons. Maybe I'm just not listening at the right times. The only new logging has been TEXAS, who was barely detectable in the early morning hours on January 4th; then solid copy on both January 6th and 7th." (See Bill Cantrell's letter, below, for more details.) "Other LowFERs heard during the past month were KRY, YHO, SAM, IMG, ARK, TH, RM and OK. With the loss of ZL (in the Dec. 23 storm; see "Top End"), the only MedFERs heard recently have been STLMO and D." "Here's a tip for those who want to do some casual mobile MedFER listening: Car radios manufactured during the past several years will tune the expanded portion of the AM band, and are usually pretty sensitive. The most important thing is that they allow you to get away from power-line noise. However, without a BFO it takes a pretty strong CW signal to be detectable on an AM radio. Recently, while checking for the signal of my MedFER beacon MIN, I used an old trick to add a "poor man's" BFO to the car radio. You just take an AM transistor radio and tune its dial to a frequency that is 455 kHz below the signal you're trying to hear. For example, to hear MIN at 1642 kHz, the car radio is tuned to 1640 and the transistor radio is tuned to 1187 kHz. There's enough radiation of the local oscillator signal so it can be heard easily in another nearby radio. By moving the transistor radio around in the car, the strength of the 'BFO' can be varied to give optimum reception of the MedFER CW signal. The BFO won't make the car radio into a very good CW receiver because the car radio's bandwidth is so broad, but it definitely improves the CW sensitivity." -Bruce Koehler (BK, YB, W0BK; aa0yb@juno.com) says both BK and YB beacons are still down. "With all the cold weather and snow, it's hard to get motivated to go out and assemble an antenna. I do have the BK keyer running, sending the windspeed and temperature readings at Shell Lake, at audio frequencies. The keyer is connected to an audio oscillator and the speaker is near my answering machine. The answering machine has a room monitoring feature, so I can call up and hear my keyer." A new amateur call sign graces Bruce's wall. "I sent in for a vanity call under gate 2, and managed to get my first choice, W0BK." Congratulations! He reports the Shell Lake cabin has been raised safely above the water level and sided with vinyl ("so I won't have to paint"). The shack has been relocated to the new downstairs, "and I have a temporary bench made of 2x4's laid on top of unopened packages of fiberglass insulation batts." "The LF receiving loop finally got re-connected last weekend. I listened a little on Saturday night, but the static crashes were pretty bad. All I could hear was LEK, MIN, and SAM. I tried again on Sunday morning, and got a signal strength comparison between LEK and MIN. Both were strong, but LEK was about 2dB stronger than MIN. I really want to hear BA sometime, and I hear he's stronger this year. My problem is that at good times like 4:00 AM it's hard to get up, put on a coat and go outside so I can get into the basement to listen to LF. Someday we'll have an inside stairway to get downstairs at the cabin. I still hope to get a beacon running before the end of the season..... All I need is some warmer weather and some motivation." "I renewed my membership last month, and signed up a friend, Oyvind Iversen too. Oyvind has a cabin on a hill near Hayward, WI, which would be a great location for a LF beacon. He's also in a nice quiet location for listening. I've been bugging him to put up a beacon for a while now..... Welcome to the LWCA, Oyvind!" -Mike Staines (Mike@nh.ultranet.com) writes, "Hello, all. And a Happy New Year to you and your families. Just a quick note that, after a miserable start, the bands here seem to be picking up a little. The ground seems to have frozen enough that WA (Andover, MA - about 40 miles away) has finally started coming in pretty well. Today was the first time that I copied it well during the day. Bill has quite a nice setup in his back yard and I had an chance to visit him and his family recently." A wave file of Mike's WA reception (containing a message to "Dave") can be found at: ftp://www.nh.ultranet.com/pub/m/mike/wa.wav It is about 400K in size. -Bill Cantrell (TEXAS; cantrell_bill@macmail1.fwrdc.rtsg.mot.com) passed along two excellent reception reports of his TEXAS beacon. It was copied by Leonard Engstrom in Leslie, AR, on Christmas Eve, with a RST579 signal report. Then, on Monday, January 6, TEXAS was copied in Aitkin, MN, at 950 miles! On the previous Saturday morning, between about 3:30 and 4:00 AM CST, Lyle Koehler detected a faint signal that sounded like TEXAS. "Actually I could pick out the call letters at times, but after listening to static crashes through a narrow filter long enough, you can make it sound like anything you want to," Lyle noted in a message to Bill. Other stations heard at that time were KRY, YHO, SAM and OK. The next morning saw noise levels over S9, so reception was hopeless. But Monday morning morning was different. "At 0430 the LowFER band sounded dead except for ground-wave signals from SAM and IMG. No trace of KRY, YHO or OK. However, TEXAS was easily identifiable, and was even producing an S meter deflection of an S unit or so above the noise level." Subjectively, he reported it as RST 359. The signal was readable on Lyle's IC-751A with a modified DSP-59+ audio filter, as well as on a home brew receiver with built-in active audio filters. In both cases the audio bandwidth was less than 20 Hz. The narrow bandwidth wouldn't have been necessary to bring TEXAS out of the noise, but there were fairly strong carriers very close to the frequency. His receiving antenna is an 8-foot loop about 60 feet from the shack, with a remote tuned home brew preamp. -Cliff Buttschardt (HDO, K7RR) forwarded a message from Bill de Carle (VE2IQ) with the subject heading "e-mail by candlelight." Bill was among 200,000 people without power for several days in some of the less urbanized areas of Quebec, around January 5-7. Cliff remarks, "Now here is a real experimenter! When the power failed here I did the same thing using batteries, but at below zero temperatures, this is a real accomplishment. More support to him. I expect he might hear the 187.65 Khz beacon if the power stays off until dawn in Eastern Canada." (Your columnist admires Cliff's restraint in not going for the obvious pun of "more power to him," but I make no pretense of having such self-restraint. -- JHD) Bill's message included the following story: "Local utility says 200,000 people without power and they have 80 crews out working around the clock. I drove all around today and no sign of any crews anywhere around here! Today I shoveled a ton of snow to get at the door leading to crawl space under house, and managed to extract an old Honda 300 watt generator which hasn't seen service in years. Of course it wouldn't start. So I brought it inside the house and placed it next to the wood-stove for an hour to warm it up, and after removing the sparkplug and squirting some methyl hydrate into the cylinder, the old thing coughed to life. Three hundred watts isn't much, but it runs my computer (booted up first time) - plus a single 60-watt lamp bulb right next to the keyboard so I can see what I'm typing, hi!" "Bell Telephone's batteries ran out. They brought in a portable generator and hooked it up to their switching station in Morin Heights and service was restored - but every time they refuel the thing they cut the phone service everywhere in the 226 exchange! The temperature is supposed to get down to minus 15 degrees C tonight, but I have plenty of dry wood so I'll survive." A few days later, I contacted Bill directly to see what he had managed to copy during the outage. Although power line noise was completely gone, he reports "lots of deafening static crashes. I was listening for WA on 187.5 - heard some Morse code way in the background most of the time but it was too weak and the atmospheric noise too strong to definitely say it was WA." "On the other hand I copied TH quite easily. Carl is further away and there is some sort of 1-baud FSK right around 189.36, which all means TH must be putting out a pretty mean signal!" -Pierre Thomson (RI, KA2QPG; pthomson@bruderhof.com) has added a Search feature to his Web list of Canadian NDBs. "It's still at the same URL: http://frodo.bruderhof.com/ka2qpg/ It's a word search on the text file, so you can look up a beacon by its ID, frequency, or a word of the geographic name. I'm hoping to get the very latest listing (from a pilot friend) in the next few days, so the accuracy should improve a lot." Pierre's pages are an excellent supplement to the U.S. NavAids Database. Both are available through the Longwave Home Page. -Bob Hoffswell (BOB, JN; harvey@prairienet.org) found a good excuse for a DXpedition over the holidays. "On a trip to see our kids in Holland, MI on Dec. 27, I stopped a few times to listen for BOB and BA. Using a 5 ft. whip, a Lyle K. preamp and a DX440, I was able to copy easily, but weakly, both of our beacons at a rest area about 30 mi north of Benton Harbor. That's my best DX using the portable RX, as it is about 170 mi from BOB. The next day, I couldn't copy either of us in Holland, nor did I find us again until south of Chicago on the way back a few days latter. I think 27 Dec. must have been a super LF propagation day!" "I've not heard BA for awhile until today (14 Jan.), but have heard YHO regularly at various signal levels. That's it for LowFERs here, but I'm only using my beacon antenna for receiving on a Curry Comunications transceiver." "MedFER beacon JN has been running for about 3 weeks now at about 50mW and a top-loaded 10 ft. vertical with 4 radials and a ground rod. The frequency is 1641 kHz +/-. It's temporarily here at the BOB site, until we move it to John Horton, N9RLV's place a few miles away in town." -Bill Wyckoff (KA1JHZ; 43 Cross St., Apt #1, Watertown, MA 02172) is a new member who has been picking up beacon WA, and some of the European broadcasters. "Recently put up some ham antennas and included a whip (the vertical section of an old CB 'Starduster') for the purpose of LF reception. This might sound strange, but at or near ground level here is nothing but noise (TV, dimmers, etc.). Also, the local 50 kW AM station can mess up active whips, so I've found a passive whip to be good in the past. It's up at 53 feet." "The receiver is an SPR-4 Drake (I now have two). Wish I could use my old tube LW transmitter, but no suitable antenna--not yet, anyway. Am going to try to match the whip to the receiver a bit better, and possibly add a preamp. Signal level isn't big, but S/N is, and that's what I need!" -Leroy Anderson (N8WQG; 126 Indian Lake Drive, Crystal Falls, MI 49920) found Steve McGreevy's "VLF Story" mention of the Marfa Lights phenomenon of some interest. "We have a similar thing in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan called the 'Paulding Lights.' Talking to individuals who have seen it, seems that it resembles St. Elmo's fire. I saw a lot of that on transmitter night shifts." Leroy's LF experience goes back to 1947 and early Army-Air Force LF Loran experiments at 180 kHz, plus later LF work in the Air Force. He was scheduled in 1950 to be a technician at the Air Force's 26.2 kHz station at Marion, MA. That apparently did not take place, but he did get to visit the facility at last in 1953. *Footnotes. Your columnist tuned in part of a program on the Discovery Channel in January, talking about the Marfa Lights and similar manifestations. It caught my attention, since there were famous "spook lights" in southwest Missouri, not too far away, when I was growing up. There's reason to believe such lights may result from piezoelectric geologic phenomena. I hope we'll be able to get more information for a future article, since they also seem related to ionospheric disturbances that NASA is investigating as possible earthquake precursors. Speaking of the ionosphere and future articles, would you be able to tell a sprite from an elf? Our friends at Stanford University apparently ran across elves this past summer while studying sprites over the Great Plains. These critters are milliseconds-long expanding rings of light produced in the lower ionosphere when the electromagnetic pulse from an intense lightning discharge causes heating of nitrogen gas molecules. See the Longwave Home Page, and watch for future LOWDOWN articles. Well, don't surrender to winter just yet. Stay bundled up, don't let those pipes freeze, and keep that LF news flowing. Until next time, 73. - - -