(From The LOWDOWN, December, 1997) "The LF Notebook" The Mailbag, News and Comments About LF Radio, Etc. John H. Davis, Box 367, Warm Springs, GA 31830 - E-mail - lwcanews@aol.com -Web http://members.aol.com/lwcanews/ [ ONE PICTURE ACCOMPANIES THIS ARTICLE: ] http://frodo.bruderhof.com/longwave/notebook/n57pic1.gif One hundred twenty-two meters above ground, workers on the preceeding page prepare for the anticipated WWVB power increase to 40 kW. (Regrettably, this full-page image is too large to include in the file archive. The original form of the picture is available at the WWVB Web site. Check the LF Utility Stations Page of the LW Home Page for the URL.) According to the NIST Web site, that could possibly take place on or near December 25. Having both transmitters and antenna tuning networks to test, engineers expect some interruptions in WWVB service during the month of December. These outages, and the latest status reports, will be posted on their Web site. The most thorough way to get all the time and frequency information is at http://www.boulder.nist.gov/timefreq/ or get outage info directly at http://www.bldrdoc.gov/timefreq/vboutage.htm . As of the most recent update I obtained, the old WWVL antenna (which operated on 20 kHz until that station's shutdown in 1972) has now been refurbished. Nearly a twin to WWVB's tower, it will transmit the 60 kHz time signal in early 1998 while the current 60 kHz antenna is rebuilt. Then, sometime in mid-year, both antennas will be driven together to achieve a higher antenna efficiency. Antenna work has involved new insulators, guy wire inspections, replacement of the 20 kHz tuning helix with a 60 kHz variometer, and rebuilds of a switching matrix and dummy load. (The latter two items, like the transmitters, came from surplus.) Open wire transmission line is being replaced with 50 ohm Heliax. Beacon Bits Quite a few short who-heard-whoms and tidbits about beacon changes this month, so I've collected the shortest ones here. Of course, there are also plenty of longer messages in the Mailbag section. But for now... Paul Cianciolo (PC) hears TH, and began doing so in early October... Beacon MIN has been copied during its BPSK mode intervals in such diverse places since October as Quebec (926 miles, by Bill de Carle, SOLAR) and by Dave Riley (1A) in Mass... MIN in turn has been copying STLMO's BPSK interval--this mode certainly equates to DX!... If you notice a new ID here, it's because Bill has replaced 2IQ with a solar- powered version; hence, SOLAR; suggested GRAB setting is GRAB 6:5... A new MedFER, USC, was first copied by Dave Riley; he also copies MPK... The Periodical Shelf The December QST contains an interesting project, "A Computer Keyboard CW Encoder," by Ron Alspaugh, W6NKS, which rivals commercial CW keyboard products. This one uses a pre-programmed 87C751 microprocessor and a standard computer keyboard. Some features are a bit limited by comparison to commercial gear (such as only two 25-character message buffers), and no source code is available (you have to buy the chip from the author). The low cost is a big offsetting advantage. While it may now be a little late to find a copy, the November Popular Communications contained an extensive article on LF and VLF by Joseph Cooper, VE3FMQ, in which the LWCA was prominently mentioned. Missing In Action It's always embarrassing to have to admit misplacing things, but it's no big secret that it sometimes happens to yours truly, especially with mail received just after one column is sent out, but still quite a while before the next one is prepared. I'm having to admit defeat on an item from a few months ago, from a member who had a suggestion for using harmonics to find NDB sites; and a more recent card from one of our California correspondents with several beacon updates. Fortunately, we received at least some of the same information from other sources, but I apologize for the mishap and hope both of you will write again. Thanks! On To The Mailbag -Dexter McIntyre (dmcintyre@worldnet.att.net) has a couple of call sign changes for us this year. "ZIA 189.050 beacon is history. Due to call change from WA4ZIA to W4DEX, I have decided to use NC for the LF beacon ID. It is operating with same equipment and seems to have normal signal strength at a monitoring point 50 miles away. I am receiving the Iceland broadcast station on 189.000 very strong here in North Carolina. I can move to any frequency in 1 Hz increments, so if anyone thinks there will be a problem with the broadcast carrier let me know. All reception reports will be appreciated." -Lyle Koehler (LEK, MIN, K0LR; Aitkin, MN; k0lr@emily.net) this month has been involved in getting Tod Olson, K0TO, back into the LF beacon hobby. Tod's new beacon IDF is now operating continuous BPSK on 189.600 kHz. "Unless it self-destructs or gets wiped out by a storm, it should be on a 24 hour, 7 day schedule for the next few months. The BPSK identifier is IDF(space) with a run length of 4, MS100, ET1. Tod uses the Idaho Falls location as a sort of vacation home. He is back in Minnesota now, and probably won't return to Idaho until after the holidays. In the meantime, only Mother Nature or Murphy will cause IDF to shut down." The signal has been getting out nicely, too. From an early message: "IDF is about 925 miles from my location in central Minnesota. Conditions were fair on LF last night; at 0300 CST when I re-started the TRACE mode I made a brief check with the loop oriented north-south and heard SAM, OK and TEXAS, all difficult copy through the QRN. The antenna at IDF is probably far from optimum but it's encouraging to get even a couple of hits on the first try. What are the chances of finding the same pattern in random noise? I don't know, but it's extremely low. Hats off to Bill de Carle for the features of COHERENT 7.3 that make it possible to find a signal without staring at the screen all night!" On Nov. 16, Lyle reported, "LowFERs KRY and ARK are back on the air. Both were identifiable here in central Minnesota through heavy QRN at 0600 CST today. Also heard were TEXAS (184.480), SAM (189.190) and IMG (188.780). The COHERENT trace file showed that BPSK beacon IDF from Idaho Falls peaked between 0700 and 0710 CST. We seem to be getting some good LF propagation. Now if the QRN would just give us a break --" (Hmm. Sound familiar?) On November 17, LowFER BA was "putting in a good signal this morning just after 0600 CST. BOB came up out of the noise and QRM a few minutes later. Also heard: TEXAS, ARK, IMG and SAM. No sign of KRY; perhaps the propagation window had already closed by the time I tuned to his frequency." -John Reed (KA5QEP; jtreed@poncacity.net) finds that the MedFER band is starting to open up. "On 17 Nov I heard STLMO and MIN clearly. This morning (18th) I also heard both, but not as well as yesterday. Reception was with 100' noise reduced wire on two receivers, Harris RF590 and Eddystone 958/3. Best reception was on Eddystone 150 Hz filter. The Harris also has a 150 Hz filter, but has more ringing due to steeper filter edges. Reception was by the old fashioned method (ears). My receivers and computer don't get along too well. Too much RFI. I need to work on that problem." -Frank Cathell (TSN, Tucson, AZ; Fcathell@aol.com) reports, "No LowFER beacons being heard from Tucson. M is off the air (antenna down, according to another report-Ed.), PLI is no longer regular and new powerline carriers are everywhere. WM is the only Medfer being heard on 1696.2 kHz. My own TSN beacon is being regularly heard in the San Diego, L.A. and Lone Pine, Calif. areas. Medfer D near Denver is off permanently. Medfer A near Quartzite is also off." -Kirk Wines (A, KC6ASA) comments on that latter fact in his beacon update. (Note in the contact list that he has a new mailing address this year, too.) He had been operating A as an unattended solar-powered beacon near Quartzsite, AZ, for a year or more on 1645, but KXBT's return to 1640 made it impractical to continue. The broadcaster's sidebands at night "create substantial QRM many kilohertz above and below its center frequency throughout the western U.S. On November 1, Frank and another friend traveled to Quartzsite. We observed that A, which had been modified to operate 24 hours, was still in operating condition, although a corroded solar panel connection prevented the battery from receiving a full charge and caused the transmitter to shut off at 3 AM. We dismantled it and brought the components back to Tucson." It may be recommissioned on another frequency in the Tucson area, but is off for now. Kirk recently experience short-skip conditions while monitoring TSN from about 13 miles distant, with long-period QSB showing up. -Darwin Long (DJL; DJL4LOONS@aol.com) advises us of his winter operating schedule for DJL. "DJL had been off the air the first week of Novenber due to, believe it or not, a lack of bad weather. Here in southern California, we had no rain for almost eight months, and a coat of dust and dirt built up on the insulators by the end of October. When the fog or dew at night set in, the antenna began shorting to the support masts as the wet residues on the insulators became conductive. I have improved my antenna system to include double-insulated tophat supports with a wax-coated plastic disk in between them to prevent shorting when wet. The new setup should resist this effect, and has already proven to work very well in heavy rain. With this new setup, I can now operate the beacon rain or shine, so my operating schedule has now changed to simply 24hrs, 7 days." The signal is now much stronger, according to listeners in the West. "Had to go on a business trip to Tandy Center in Ft. Worth, TX. in mid-October. Along with me I brought my collapsable 4-foot loop and LF receiver. Compared to southern California, the NDB band there is "jam- packed", over 70% of the frequency slots occupied by some sort of NDB carrier between 200 and 429 kHz. At night, it is even more of a challenge there to DX distant NDB's with all of the local signals. Bill Cantrell's TEXAS beacon was (obviously) LOUD and CLEAR there in Ft. Worth. Bill Bowers' OK was also very audible, day and night." -Dave Holland (DCH, PX; dav3yay@shore.intercom.net) says, "PX (1639 kHz) is back on for the season. I've added more top loading to the beacon antenna, so we'll see how it works out. Had a good summer here, with lots of sunny and low noise weather. Did a lot of BC dxing on the beach, enjoying the sun and sea. Frank Cathell, (K3YAZ, TSN) from Tucson AZ., was here for a few days, of course we talked radio. He and I grow up together, our calls are only one letter different." On Nov. 5, Dave added, "Have gotten lots of reports in so far, with my two different antenna tests. Either there's good condition, or a lot of early listeners. A number of reports I have received were from folks just getting into the LF and MedFER hobby. That's good, we need some new blood." -Tom (Doc) Gruis (D; Des Moines; donnatom@netins.net) writes from Polk County, Iowa, that "presently the antenna is poor but plans are to get a better one up very soon since the "real" DX season is about to start. It is at a frequency divided down by 24 from the 80 meter range. Seems pretty stable even with temperature change. It is located in an insulated room in the garage - although I only turn on the heat in cold weather when I occupy it. Des Moines must have one of the weaker aero NDB signals since I rarely see it reported in LWCA listings. It is on 344 KHz. For this reason, even with slightly under a watt, there is a second harmonic trap across the output (of D), and the 350 KHz second harmonic is way down." -Jacques d'Avignon has a correction to his new address, which is 248 Towerhill Road, Peterborough, ON K9H 7N1 (Voice: +1 705 750 1636, Fax: +1 705 750 1637; E-mail: monitor@rac.ca). He also has news about Canadian LowFER and MedFER regulations online. "A few weeks ago, Jean-Marc Huneault VE1FTL pointed me in the proper direction to find the Canadian regulations concerning the Lowfer Beacons in Canada. This might be of some help to possible users north of the 49th." The regulations are in Industry Canada document RSS-210 Issue 2. The site can be found at: http://spectrum.ic.gc.ca/acts/engdoc/index.html . Look under Regulations. Jacques and a few other LF-minded individuals went to "DX camp" this fall. (Sounds better than your average summer camp to me!) The Mohawk Valley DX Listerners Club organized a DX camp for the weekend running from Friday afternoon, November 7, to the morning of November 9. It was held at Bratingham Lake, 6 miles east of Hoseville, in the Adirondack Park. "The location is very quiet, and last year we could listen to BBC 198kHz on the loudspeaker. The setup was simply a Sony 2010 and Q-Stick Plus. Antenna as long as 3000 ft have also been used with a lot of success. The QRM level is extremely low." Microwave ovens, electric razors, computers and such were declared "illegal" within the compound for the duration of the weekend. Kevin Carey also attended, as did Howard Mortimer. Howard adds that the location is also near Lowville, in upper NY state. (Great name for hosting a LowFER event.) Howard also sent a sample of his ZWI QSL, which we'll show in a future issue, though black-and-white won't do it justice. Jacques later sent this followup report: "We scanned the low band very actively but heard nothing at all on both nights. The QRN on the band on Friday was horrible and was much better on Saturday, but nothing was heard. The MEDFER band was also scanned actively on both nights and nothing was heard on Friday. On Saturday night (Sunday UTC) we heard the following: 03:00 UTC PX on CW 1.639 MHz 03:45 UTC A1A on CW 1.644 MHz "We also heard "interesting" signals on 1.640 and 1.680 that seem to come from the Dallas airport. The listing being read was of arrival gates. These intercepts were made Sunday (UTC) around 03:00 to 04:00 UTC. At 03:05 the beacon MER was also heard on 1.685 MHz. Other interesting signals were also heard on 1.630. Two ladies reading the time continuously. But do not set your watch by what they say: the time is 51 minutes fast in one case, the other is also wrong but we could not make out exactly the time difference. All weekend we also heard a Spanish speaking broadcast station that is supposed to be in Miami. They had a very good signal." The equipment used was a R8 with a 1500 ft antenna, and a Sony 2010 with a Q-Stick Plus and a tomato stake antenna. He adds, "anyone interested in the 'tomato stake antenna' should refer to Monitoring Times, April 1996, page 15, 'Magic Wand Antenna'. With the magnetic storm in progress and possibly the QRN caused by the storm off the East Coast, conditions were not the best. We also tried to do some whistler listening, again the QRN was so high that it was not a very productive session. Only one loud whistler was heard. On both nights we did look out for Northern lights, but nothing was seen in spite of the forecast of auroras." "Kevin, Mort and I also did some exploring to try and find the site of the GWEN transmitter near Remsen. Well, we found out that the site had been vacated about one year ago. The tower has been taken down but the fences are still up and are used to keep the present residents inside. The new residents are cows. They did not offer any information and really look ill at ease to be photographed inside such a plush enclosure!" -Johan Bodin (SM6LKM; sm6lkm.jbeab@swipnet.se) e-mails from Sweden about the shutdown of Omega. "One of the Omega transmitters, located in Norway, was very strong here. Whistler listening without a lowpass filter was close to painful. When the Omega system was shut down by the end of September, there were still some beeps in the air on 11.905, 12.649 and 14.881 kHz. I think it must have been the Alpha navigation system. Now, these beeps seems to have disappeared also! The first strong signal I hear now is Greenwich (I think) on 16 kHz. Anyone who knows what happened to Alpha? Maybe the Alpha operators were inspired by the Omega shut-down!?" -Stephen P. McGreevy (RR; vlfradio@triax.com) passes along word of another friend. "Mike Mideke visited this area for a month, leaving on Nov. 1st. He's mainly doing large-format photography and some color 35mm work. Not much radio listening aside from shortwave and some occasional natural radio casually. We had some nice short hikes into the base of the eastern Sierra and a couple nice breakfasts at one of our local cafe diners here." Steve has been copying N quite well. It is running at Carle Bumpus' vacation home in the Sierra foothills about 200 miles away to the north-west of Steve's QTH. He's also listening on LF these days. "The two Lowfers audible here are PLI and IZJ, with PLI being audible in the daytime too. Tons of PLC's in the band here. The medfer band sounds interesting with that ecclectic mix of TIS stations on 1620, 1650, and 1680 along with the broadcast stations and a few beacons - a fun band to check out every night when I'm up the hill at my VLF site." -Peter Bobek (DJ8WL/DA0LF; dj8wl@jpl-gw.w6vio.ampr.org) sends results of LF ham band test transmissions in Germany. "From Oct. 27th - 30th, 1997 DJ8WL has been using the callsign DA0LF running tests on 137.1 kHz in CW. About 50 reports were received indicating hearing/not hearing DA0LF." "The greatest distance covered was about 200 km/125 miles. ERP was approx. 40 ... 50 milliwatts. Antenna used: inverted L for 160m (!) tuned to resonance with a loading coil of 3.6 mH. Conditions seemed to be rather poor during the week, since previous tests made in August this year brought reports from stations about 360 km/215 miles with the same equipment/power used. Further testing will be done before the end of 1997 to provide as much info as possible to hams in Germany and EU since the German PTT most likely will make 135.7 - 137.8 kHz available to hams shortly." The October tests used A1A keying at approximately 5 WPM), consisting of "VVV TEST DE DA0LF DA0LF". Reports can be e-mailed to the address above, or may be sent either via packet to dj8wl @ db0gv.#hes.deu.eu. Peter says information about reception will be highly appreciated. -Bill de Carle (SOLAR, VE2IQ; bill@ietc.ca) says 73 kHz ham records are tumbling in the UK. His recent correspondence with John, G4GVC, revealss success copying BPSK signals from Andy, G4JNT, using BPSK. Transmitter power was nearly 200 watts, with ERP in the milliwatt range, which is not bad for a backyard antenna. John wrote: "a 'one-way' QSO took place on 72.09kHz on Sunday Nov 9th from G4JNT in Southampton to me using Coherent BPSK. Distance is 192km (IO90iv to IO92jp). Reception was weak and there were continuous loud static crashes knocking out the signal. The first test was at MS200 and ET0 with the message 'G4GVC DE G4JNT' repeated over and over." John's receiver was a TS-850S, which has now heard 7 different G stations on the band, two of whom are more than 200km distant. -Bart Prater (VA, N4ZV; n4zv@roanoke.infi.net) has a new e-mail address, and sends along "a quick and dirty little circuit that I've used for years. A simple broadband 50 ohm preamp....nothing critical. I make no claims, except to say that it's quick...and it's always worked fine for me from lowfer thru hf. I'm currently using it on my remote lowfer loop thru 100 feet of coax." (The schematic is contained in the n57pic1.gif file.) "Well, it would appear that I have been 'expanded upon' once again! First WJDM...and now, the new Spanish broadcaster on 1700. Look for VA (the medfer) on its new frequency...1673.6khz. Best wishes for a great DX/Holiday season!" -Les Rayburn (KT4OZ; Birmingham, AL 35233; 205-980-8332; les@vazda.com) reintroduces himself to LWCA members. "I used to operate lowfer beacon, XMGR in Kittery, Maine in the mid 1980s. My claim to fame may be that you guys are still using the VHF/UHF grid system, which I suggested in a Lowdown article. Working on 160-190 Khz in those days was a thrill. We all felt like pioneers. Currently, I'm living in Birmingham, Alabama. I'd like to try my hand at putting up a Medfer beacon. Any help would be appreciated. I'm looking for a good kit transmitter or even to purchase a used Medfer transmitter from a member. " -Dick Wilder (K3DI; Arnold, MD; wilder@clark.net) advises that he's not quite ready to operate a continous beacon, but will operate his LowFER on request. "I fell a bit behind and got caught in the HF contest season. My rig is VFO so I can operate throughout the band but beacon on 180 kHz. I find that frequency by zero beating one of my harmonics against an AM broadcast station. As yet, I have not selected an LF call sign; my beacon is just "QSL via K3DI" repeated." -Gary Herbst (VPMO; GARY.G.HERBST@monsanto.com) discovered LF online, and plans to have a LowFER beacon on the air by Thanksgiving Day. "I realize that a straight beacon is much simpler to home in on deep down in the noise, but I prefer to include a little telemetry data with the beacon to mix things up a bit... TX : Curry Communications CW Unit FREQ:186.890Khz ID: VPMO MODE: BPSK/CCW alternating (ms100, ET) FORMAT: A. 60 Seconds of the VPMO in BPSK/ET. B. TEMP/WIND/BAROMETRIC Data in BPSK/ET for 10 consecutive transmits. Example: -- TEMP 58 -- WIND SW 10 -- BAR 31 -- (Readings will be held static for the 10 consecutive transmits so as not to fluctuate the data and cause problems picking out the data against the noise floor.) C. 60 seconds of VPMO in CCW D. Repeat Step A" "The beacon will run from an existing solar array and 220Ahr battery storage 24 hours 365 days/yr. Location is Valley Park Missouri, just 16 miles West of downtown St. Louis and 14 Miles south of Lambert Intl. Airport. Is it just me or is LOWFER and MEDFER addictive..." -Bill Cantrell (TEXAS, WD5CVG) sent this update for the season: "On Saturday (Nov. 2) I rolled out the chicken-wire ground-plane on the TEXAS Beacon for the winter. This should result in a 6 dB improvement in signal strength. Prior to this, Lyle has already received TEXAS in Minnesota at 950 miles, so things are shaping up to be a very good season." "Color QSL cards will be sent out to everyone who receives TEXAS. It is still CW only at 184.480 kHz. I hope to be dual-mode CW / bpsk by Jan `98." -Dave Riley (1A, AA1A) writes, "Well there sure seems to be plenty of MedFer activity..!!..Have been out in the fields and workbench and had some successful CW and BPSK one ways.. Sails are rigged, Watch is set. Am QRV, QRU for simplex/duplex CW/BPSK on 1644 khz..Running at full blast (100mw) into 10' antenna..ERP must be all of 1 or 2 milliwatts, but copy to over 500 mi. so far says Its gonna be a good season." Dave's transmit antenna is "(from the top) is a 2.5' microwave dish that didn't cut it on 10ghz. so now is a top hat over an old 5" dia. solid copper coil on a RF type standoff insulator.. Probably was an old high power transmitter RF choke.. From there down is 1" copper.. Then two 25' rolls of chicken wire make a local ground screen and some other copper radials and connects.. Even a half wave tuned one.." "The new shorted turn 10' dia. loop seems to be hearing much better than the 250' wire or the full wave 160m loop.. Noticed I can hear other stations 2 to 3 khz away while in beacon mode. Loop is nulled on 1A.. 1644.. intermittent beacon.. MPK, RGQ sounding good CW sigs here in FN42pb.. SOLAR and MIN captured on BPSK.. RGQ now on 1645..Real noisy on 1690 with that Miami station on 1700 really banging the mod. meter.. Doubt if I will hear STLMO.." -Pierre Thomson (RI; pthomson@bruderhof.com) confirmed on November 5 that 1A is getting out. "I listened last night at about 0240Z and after a few minutes I heard 1A in there. It was going about 12 wpm and repeating in about a 3.5 second cycle, about 50 Hz below 1644 KHz. My location in grid FN21 is about 180 miles from 1A." "Later, about 0325Z, I listened again, and it was even better. Slow QSB cycles of about 1 minute period brought the signal from "in the noise" to "armchair copy" and back down. This time it appeared to be a few Hz above 1644. ...Now, where can I find a salt water beach for MY Lowfer???" Footnotes Being nibbled to death by ducks. You've heard the expression before, but now I know what it means personally in terms of time utilization. The "days off" I took to work on this column sure got nibbled away by still having to be at work only 6-7 hours, instead of 9-10. Them ducks got teeth! Fortunately, I can get around a lot better than last month. Alas, I ended up having to trim material, which is also painful. But there's always next time! You're probably wondering about the trip down memory lane this time. (NOTE: The original article contained numerous electronics manufacturers' and distributors' logos from 1957 catalogs, books, and advertisements. A representative selection of these, in Windows bitmap form, are contained in the file: http://www.mindspring.com/~longwave/logo1957.zip ) The holiday season is an ideal time for reminiscing. Many of the manufacturers and vendors whose logotypes appear here are, or were, somewhat like family to many of us over the years. In addition, this marks the 40th year of my discovery of the Allied Radio catalog and Popular Electronics magazine. Who can tell to what extent Knight Kits and Carl and Jerry influenced the course of my life, as well as many others'? My first encounter with whistlers, for instance, was in one of the Carl and Jerry stories. At any rate, the logos of that era are happily and indelibly stamped in my memory. When I recently ran across some material from 1957, I figured you might enjoy the memories too, so I've sprinkled an assortment around the column like snowflakes. The mid- to late-50's were a graphically fascinating time. Some of the companies retained their classic logos, while others were experimenting with new typography and cleaner lines. Satellites and atomic energy inspired any number of designs. For sake of formal acknowledgment, these graphics are all trademarks or registered trademarks of, and/or copyright by, their respective owners. All rights reserved. The annual mention of Marconi and Fessenden: Although 1997 is not one of the arithmetically apt anniversaries of the great radio pioneers' feats, I always enjoy pointing out that the letter S first spanned the Atlantic in December, and I try to commemorate Fessenden's holiday AM transmissions with some little event involving my own beacon(s). This year, I haven't decided what to try yet. However, I did want to alert you that in next month's issue, I anticipate a feature piece from Dave Riley, who has been doing some radio work at the site of Fessenden's Brant Rock, MA, station, where the base of the tower, one of the guy wire anchors, and perhaps some of the ground system remain. Thus, it is significant that we open this column with a photo of a tower being readied for improved operation around Christmas this year, and close the column with a photo of a tower that was used for a memorable event on a Christmas past. Happy holidays! A merry 73 to all! - - -