Past Longwave Messages - Feb. 1998

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• Subj: QRS V1.16
  Date: 99-02-26 03:06:13 EST
  From: rik strobbe fys kuleuven ac be (Rik Strobbe)
  BR>Please find attached the newest version of QRS (1.16) (see LWCA Library page). As you will see there are a lot of new features.
  Slow-CW has become rather popular on 136kHz here in Europe. So far I have heard (or better said, seen) stations from the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Finland and Italy and Belgium in this mode (best DX over 1600km).
  So far I managed to work about 40 stations in 10 different countries, most in 'normal' CW but also some real nice DX in slow-CW.
  My stations: a homebrew 450W TX (4 x IRFP350) and a inverted-L antenna, 13 meter high and a 26m 'topload' (actually 4 parallel wires each spaced 80cm).
  Unfortunately I live in the middle of a small forest, the antenna is completely surrounded by trees. So even with 6 galvanized iron rods 2.5 meter deep in the ground (all rods spaced about 20 meter) and about 120m of galvanized iron wire interconnecting all these rods I still got stuck with a 120 Ohm 'ground loss'.
  So I estimate my ERP to about 130mW in normal CW and about 75mW in slow-CW (as I have to reduce the RF power in that mode to 250W to avoid overheating of the coils in the LPF).
  73, Rik ON7YD
  Villadreef 14   B-3128 Baal   BELGIUM     (JO20ix)

• Subj: Radiobeacon DUA at Durant OK
  Date: 99-02-23 18:30:49 EST
  From: jwright sosu edu (John R Wright)
  If you like really fresh news, try this: It is approaching 5:30 PM, Feb. 23, 1999, (CST) and I just came in from the airport. While I was there I noticed Larry Nolan fiddling with some new yellow boxes on the concrete pad where the old DUA NDB shack once stood. He had just turned the new unit on and tuned it for a good antenna match (the new beacon cost about $8,600, not the $15,000 I heard of from the original quote), so DUA is again keying its 25 Watt transmitter on the same frequency slot. When I left to write you this letter, Larry was on his way to the hangar to get to his plane and flight-test the signal. From there he will notify the FAA at McAlester that the beacon is up, so if you read your e-mail in the next 30 minutes or so, you probably learned about DUA before the FAA did! I verify by radio that the signal is there.
  73s,
  Rick Wright

• Subj: TEXAS/OK BPSK reception
  Date: 99-02-22 18:26:15 EST
  From: bhkoehler mmm
  At Shell Lake, WI Sunday morning 2/21/99 just after 4:00AM CST, I was hearing OK in CW mode very well. I tuned to TEXAS at 189.700 and could hear the BPSK signal so I decided to fire up COHERENT to see if I could get TEXAS with no grab. Within a character or two of starting SYNC, TEXAS started printing across the screen. At 4:30 I switched back to OK and captured his BPSK signal with no grab. Then, I switched to LEK and captured his BPSK signal too. Now I have a TRACE file with TEXAS, OK and LEK all received with no grab setting. If TEXAS had been sending CW, I'm sure I would have copied that as well. At about 5:15, I was still able to hear OK in CW, but just above the noise. An hour earlier, his CW signal was 3 S-units above the noise. No other LowFER DX was heard, but BRO, LEK, SAM and RM were there as usual.
  73, -Bruce W0BK/BK

• Subj: BPSK reception of TEXAS
  Date: 99-02-17 18:57:24 EST
  From: bhkoehler mmm
  On Saturday afternoon Feb. 13 I tuned to TEXAS and set up COHERENT to record a trace and block file. Sunday I analyzed the block file with COHPLAY and found several GRAB and SYNC conditions that gave hits on TEXAS. I was outside playing in the snow most of Saturday so I never saw TEXAS print in real time on the screen. The best settings were something like GRAB 6:81 and SYNC 600 which gave around 380 hits on TEXAS. Not bad for daytime reception from Texas to Wisconsin.
  73, Bruce BK W0BK

• Subj: lowfer reception
  Date: 99-02-15 21:54:59 EST
  From: k2hug home (Don Pomplun)
  Some years ago, I put an active whip up on the roof for lowfer reception. I used it with my previous ICOM rig. Both have since gone.
  My question is whether the lowfer reception is likely to be any good with my new IC706. If so, what antenna would be preferable?
  TNX
  Don K2BIO

• Subj: Re: LF: LF Bandplan
  Date: 99-02-16 06:24:40 EST
  From: drassew2 interalpha co uk
  To: rsgb_lf_group blacksheep.org
  (This message was "borrowed" from the RSGB LF reflector in order to offer our more experimentally-inclined readers a source of ideas on another modulation technique they might find interesting. -JHD)
  *From Peter, DF3LP
  *
  *Just to fill my memory:
  *
  *- What is "PSK31" ???
  *- Any websites about that stuff ?
  *- Why do I need a special TX ?
  PSK31 is a relatively new keyboard to keyboard data mode developed by G3PLX. Its main property is a very narrow bandwidth, being 31 Hz wide AT THE 60 dB points. This, I suspect, is narrower than most peoples keyclicks on QRS / SLOWCW. The mode has been shown frequently to give good readability where CW would barely be heard.
  Software is available both for the DSP EVM56002 and Soundblaster. In addition, I have produced even slower versions for the 'EVM runing at 8 and 1 baud specifically designed for LF use as this is the only medium stable enough for these low baud rates.
  Since the Tx waveform has a Raised Cosine shape to limit bandwidth, the use of a linear transmiter, as for SSB, is essential. Therefore a transverter approach or custom mixer / exciter is necessary.
  Everything you need is at :
  http://bipt106.bi.ehu.es/psk31.html
  The latest versions of PSK31 software, just about to be released, FOR THE EVM ONLY AT THE MOMENT give I/Q outputs from left and right channels. If these are applied to two mixers driven by quadrature local oscillators, an image cancelling upconverter can manage something like 40dB opposite sideband suppression, I am working on a suitable hardware design at the moment. Peter has also provided I/Q inputs to the DSP software so a similar approach can be used for an image cancelling direct conversion Rx for the mode. For a normal SSB exciter just one of the input and output channels is of course needed.
  Andy G4JNT

• Subj: QYV, YHO and GIR Q5 in NC
  Date: 99-02-10 22:18:50 EST
  From: dmcintyre att (Dexter McIntyre W4DEX)
  Early this morning I was awaken by a cat fight and could not go back to sleep so I went to the LF shack to check propagation. Since there were thunderstorms to the west when I went to bed I expected to hear lots of static but I found the band quiet. Quiet except for a S9 signal form QYV. 20 db above the noise with no filters! The strongest lowfer I have ever heard. I also had good Q5 signals from YHO and GIR but could not find any other beacons. Broadcast QRM from 181 to 183 khz is always strong here so I have never heard a beacon in that area of the band. Thanks cats! That was worth getting up for.
  73, Dex

• Subj: LEK report for February
  Date: 99-02-09 19:31:02 EST
  From: lyle mlecmn (Lyle Koehler)
  After a couple of very mild days, it seems like the winter season is fast coming to an end. Hard to believe that there is still more than a month of "official" winter; perhaps more than that here in Minnesota. During the past month there has not been anything spectacular in the way of LF openings. At least, not while I was listening. TEXAS, OK and of course BK were good copy on BPSK at noon yesterday, with no frame grabber. OK's CW signal was strong enough to move the S meter about 1 unit above the noise, which is unusual for mid-day propagation.
  Regards, and think Spring!
  Lyle

• Subj: Stuff
  Date: 99-02-03 13:05:28 EST
  From: hvanderbeek juno (herb b Vanderbeek)
  
  G4 is still on and delivering a solid local signal. Don't seem to note any local receiving reports and wonder if it is worth the effort. There are no failures of the equipment & I check listen to it while driving around the area. Under the right condx I hear it out to about 30 miles.
  GK is still on to the best of my knowledge. A ham in WAIMEA Hawaii about 35 miles north of my QTH in KONA Hawaii reports it is still on. While Cliff was still at sea he reported the signal 700 miles NE.
  Lowfer "G" is still not on but have hopes.
  73
  Herb WY6G

• Subj: The ZL3FJ 177 kHz LF CW Beacon; December - January 1998-1999
  Date: 99-02-02 02:05:54 EST
  From: tractorb ihug co nz (David Brown)
  The ZL3FJ 177 kHz CW beacon commenced transmission in mid December 1998 and ceased transmission on Thursday 28 January 1999. Riggers are scheduled to commence demolition of the 300 foot tower used for the antenna on Wednesday, 3 February 1999. The beacon was able to be heard over most of ZL, day and night. All active LF stations in ZL and several other listeners have confirmed reception.
  Confirmed reports from outside ZL are currently all from VK stations. There have been several unconfirmed ‘rumour’ reports from VK as well and I hope to have additional confirmed reports in the near future.
  At present the confirmed reports are from:
  1.-VK7RO, Richard Rogers, home QTH, Taroona, Tas. Report 5-4-9 late on New Years eve.
  2.-VK7ZAL/AX2TAR, Robert Milne, home QTH, Moonah, Tas. & portable, Tas.
  3.-VK3XU, Drew Diamond, home QTH, Wonga Park, Vic. Drew was using an 800 mm square loop for reception feeding an NE602 converter into a homebrew 'Computarock' 3-4 MHz receiver. Report was 5-5-9.
  4.-VK2ZTO, Steve Olney, home QTH, North Richmond, Vic. Steve was using a pc and DSP techniques to dig down into the noise.
  A quote from Steve -- My software and hardware have progressed to a point where I can search for carriers (nominally 30 minute FFT records, but can be up to about 8 hours). This typically gives me about 25-30dB advantage over Spectrogram on stable signals. His receiving setup used an indoor (in window frame actually!) loop antenna (and a ferrite rod antenna for some runs) feeding an FRG-100 with hi-stab TCXO fitted. Audio from FRG-100 via D/A converter to pc.
  5.-VK3GJZ, Graeme Zimmer, portable (on his ‘bush block’in the Latrobe Valley, a nice quiet site) near Traralgon, Vic. Graeme was using an Icom 720A for a receiver, and also a Sangean ATS909. Antenna was a long wire and a home brew ATU for both receivers.
  If there are any other reportees out there that I have not yet heard from I would appreciate if they would contact me as soon as possible, via email to tractorb ihug.co.nz or snail-mail to:- 62 Hudson St, Christchurch, NZ.
  A more detailed report on the antenna, transmitter etc is available from me on request to the above email address.
  Overall, a well worth while experiment, and I am now giving serious thought to running a permanent LF beacon setup that can also be used as a remote all-mode LF transmitter. There are a variety of specialised modes that would benefit from having some exposure here in ZL and a beacon setup along the above lines, making use of some of these modes, may provide some incentive for others to carry out some serious weak signal work.
  It is such a long distance to any other countries from here, a minimum of near 2000 km having to be crossed before we can get to the nearest neighbour, VK, so that any serious efforts to establish ‘regular’ LF communications over such distances will demand the use of such techniques.
  So the more practice we can get on real signals, the better!
  73, Dave, ZL3FJ

• Subj: Beacon NUT
  Date: 99-02-01 23:43:41 EST
  From: Lovedjl aol
  Just a brief note to inform any interested readers in the Western U.S. (and hopefully more distant) that beacon NUT, operating at 176 KHz, is finally on the air despite more than half a year of trials and tribulations. My eventual success in operation is in no small part thanks to the technical know-how of Darwin Long; all I did was stuff the board, and don't let him tell you otherwise.
  The beacon is currently transmitting my call sign at 5 second intervals, and is voice capable-I will be using it for 2-way communications with local lowfers here as soon as I find a decent input mike or radio. The whole setup is sitting in a Radio Shack stockroom in Simi Valley, thanks to the generosity of my former co-workers.
  Well, that having been said, now all you need is my e-mail address to report back to me in the hopeful event that I am "making the trip" to you, wherever you are. You can find me at: beacongal1 aol.com. Thank you for letting me waste some virtual space here on the page, and I'll be looking forward to hearing from some of you!
  Best regards
  Amy Caputi

• Subj: BK Frequency Change
  Date: 99-02-01 12:22:19 EST
  From: bhkoehler mmm
  BK will be operating 24 hours a day on a new frequency of 187.400 KHz alternating BPSK/CW with BPSK during the 1st half hour and CW during the last half hour of each hour. The BPSK signal has already been copied by Lyle Koehler in Minnesota, Bill de Carle in Quebec and Bill Bowers in Oklahoma. The BPSK ID is BK(space) so the run length is 3. Speed is MS100 ET1. CW is the same as before, about 12WPM with wind and temperature reports.
  73, Bruce W0BK/BK

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