AmateurRadio.com

One CLE Target - 'VR'  266KHz / Vancouver Int'l Approach

How time flies. For you low-frequency buffs, another challenge awaits. From CLE coordinator Brian Keyte (G3SIA) comes the following reminder:




"Our February Co-ordinated Listening Event will soon be here.
We'll be hunting for normal beacons in two contrasting frequency ranges.
One range also gives the possibility of hearing several amateur beacons.
As always, first-time CLE logs will be extra welcome.

Days: Friday 20 February - Monday 23 February
Times: Start and end at midday, your local time
Frequencies: 260.0 - 269.9 kHz
plus: 440.0 - 1740.0 kHz

Many of us should be able to hear beacons in both ranges, though Europe
only has a handful in the '260s'. From 440 onwards, Eastern Europe and
North Africa have several beacons and some regular UNIDs and some NDBs
can be found among Europe's Medium Wave Broadcast Stations.

Many of us are within range of some of the amateur beacons on frequencies around 470 kHz and 500 kHz - we'll be listening for ANYTHING OPERATING IN BEACON MODE, preferably with normal speed Morse.
(We ask operators who sometimes use QRSS, PSK, WSPR, etc., which need
software to receive them, to PLEASE CHOOSE THE SIMPLER MODE during
the CLE so that we shall all be able to receive and report them).

Send your CLE log to the List, preferably as a plain text email
and not in an attachment, with CLE191 at the start of its title.
Please show on EVERY LINE of your log:

# The full Date (or Day no.) and UTC (the day changes at 00:00 UTC).
# kHz (the beacon's nominal published frequency, if you know it)
# The Call Ident.
 
Other optional details, Location, Distance, etc., go LATER in the same
line (or in footnotes). Any extra details about UNIDs, especially strong
ones that may be near to you (maybe their approximate direction, etc.)
will help us to discover more about them. As always, please make your
log useful to old and new members alike by including your own location
and brief details of the equipment and aerial(s) you were using.

I will send an 'Any More Logs?' email at about 18:00 UTC on Tuesday
evening. From it you can check that your log has been found OK.
Do make sure that your log has arrived at the very latest by 09:00 UTC
on Wednesday 25 February.
I hope to finish making the combined results on that day."


These listening events serve several purposes. They:

• determine, worldwide, which beacons are actually in service and on-the-air so the online database can be kept up-to-date

• determine, worldwide, which beacons are out-of-service or have gone silent since the last CLE covering this range

• will indicate the state of propagation conditions at the various participant locations

• will give you an indication of how well your LF/MF receiving system is working

• give participants a fun yet challenging activity to keep their listening skills honed

Final details can be found at the NDB List website, and worldwide results, for every participant, will be posted there a few days after the event. If you are a member of the ndblist Group, results will also be e-mailed and posted there.

The very active Yahoo ndblist Group is a great place to learn more about the 'Art of NDB DXing' or to meet other listeners in your region. There is a lot of good information available there and new members are always very welcome.

If you are contemplating getting started on 630m, listening for NDBs  is an excellent way to test out your receive capabilities as there are several NDBs located near this part of the spectrum.

You need not be an ndblist member to participate in the CLEs and all reports, no matter how small, are of much value to the organizers. 'First-time' logs are always VERY welcome!

Reports may be sent to the ndblist or e-mailed to either myself or CLE co- ordinator, Brian Keyte (G3SIA), whose address appears above.

Please...do give the CLE a try....then let us know what NDB's can be heard from your location! Your report can then be added to the worldwide database to help keep it up-to-date.

Just a reminder about the 630m crossband activity night this evening. There have been two updates to the plan. VE7SL will start one hour later than originally planned and John, VE7BDQ, will be listening on both 160m and 80m QSX frequencies for callers.

The frequencies will be:

• VE7SL TX 473.00KHz QSX (listening) 1808KHz (160m) and 3535KHz (80m)

• VE7BDQ TX 474.00KHz QSX (listening) 1813KHz (160m) and 3532KHz (80m)

John will operate from 0200Z (1800 PST) - 0700Z (2300 PST) while I will start one hour later. Both stations will call several CQs at the top of each hour segment, at full eirp,  and listen for any callers on the specified calling frequencies.




The last time this was done, transcontinental contacts were completed ... hopefully conditions will continue to co-operate and propagation will be good tonight.

This past week,  Les Rayburn (N1LF), compared his yearn for the start of spring baseball to the late spring return of summer VHF openings, with this delightfully nostalgic post to the VHF reflector.

It occurred to me this morning that being a VHF operator is a lot like being a baseball fan. It was warm and sunny here yesterday, and this morning the air has that first touch of Spring in it.

Sure, there arestill cold days ahead--but you just have that feeling that we've turned the corner on Winter. The days are getting a bit longer, and the sun doesn't set quite so early anymore.

And like baseball fans, we start to look forward to those first
rumblings out of the Spring league.

For me, that means the confident voice of August, K5HCT. Nothing heralds
the arrival of the season like those first faint signals and the
familiar refrain..."Here Comes Texas!". This is nearly always the first
call I hear in the season, and the last remaining on the band at it's end.

In my boyhood days, I loved listening to baseball on the radio at night.
Those far away places, and the crack of the bat---mixed with the static
and pops of Summer storms. It was like a magic carpet that could
transport me thousands of miles away...The rest of the year, I still
enjoyed tuning the dial during the overnight hours--maybe listening to
the Herb Jepko Nightcap show from Salt Lake, or Larry King---but radio
wasn't the same without baseball. And those months between the World
Series and Opening Day were the longest of the year.

All these years later, things haven't changed much. I still love
listening to baseball on the radio---but now while waiting for opening
day, I find myself turning another dial...listening hard in the static
to see if I can hear that faint signal on the calling frequency. A deep,
rich, confident voice calling "This K5HCT, Here Comes Texas!".

Somebody press play on that MP3 player or I-Phone---cue up Don Henley's
"Boys of Summer"...I'll hum along and wait for Spring.

--
--
73,

Les Rayburn, N1LF
121 Mayfair Park
Maylene, AL 35114
EM63nf

630m to HF Crossband

Since getting the new 630m band (472-479KHz) here in Canada, one of my favorite ways of promoting interest in the new band has been 'crossband' activity ... that is, transmitting on 630m while the other stations transmit on a predetermined HF (QSX) frequency, usually on 80 or 160m. There are many amateurs in the U.S. who are interested in getting the band as well as many Canadians that are interested in getting on the band and the crossband activity usually generates a lot of interest. Both myself and John, VE7BDQ, have enjoyed making several crossband contacts this past winter and will once again be soliciting crossbanders this coming Saturday evening.

Our plan is to operate from 0200Z through 0700Z, (1800-2300 PST Saturday). Beginning at the top of the hour, we will both be calling CQ on CW and listening for any callers on HF. CQ's will continue until there are no more callers and will begin again at the next top of hour time slot. This should allow for a wide variation in propagation and the possibility of eastern contacts as the evening progresses.

The frequencies will be:

•  VE7SL TX 473.00KHz QSX (listening) 1808KHz (160m) and 3535KHz (80m)

• VE7BDQ TX 474.00KHz QSX (listening) 1813KHz (160m)

It is hoped that as many stations as possible will give a listen for us and be able to call on one of the HF QSX frequencies. Both John and myself will be running at the maximum allowable eirp for the duration of the activity.

If you have not had a look for any 630m stations, hopefully you will take the opportunity this coming Saturday night ... you really do not need any special antennas for receiving on 630m. Many of the stations that I have worked on crossband have been using HF dipoles for low-noise reception.

I'll be promoting this event on several of the reflectors and groups that I regularly enjoy and I also invite you to pass the word on to others. Please watch the blog for further updates.

See you Saturday I hope!

Regular readers will likely recall  my early January blog describing the sudden and very unwelcome appearance of a severe noise problem badly affecting my LF reception. I had spent an afternoon D/F'ing the noise source (which was being radiated via the local power lines), only to discover that the residence in question was not occupied ... and has been vacant for the past seven weeks as the noise continued.

The culprit

Yesterday I noticed that the home was once again occupied and this morning, with radio in hand, I paid visit. It seems that the part-time residents had been spending the past several weeks in Hawaii and had just returned to the house to check up on things. I explained to the owner what I believed to be the problem and, as suspected, it was a CFL light ... a particularly noisy one. Turning the light on and off quickly verified the culprit light and swapping the bulb out for a different one produced no observable noise, as was the case for one that had been left switched-on in the living room.

Whether the offending bulb was just a poorly designed one, a very early manufactured model or one that was about to fail, I do not know ... but I am amazed at the strength of the QRN (and QRM) that the bulb was able to produce at such a distance, about ten properties away!

CFL Crud on LF

The owner was very concerned that he had unknowingly caused a problem and was very apologetic, as I have found with similar situations in the past.

One of the worst was also a CFL bulb that had actually burned-out and was located in a nearby (three properties away) crawl space. When finally traced, the bulb was heavily charred and had partially melted at the base, yet was still producing an ear-shattering level of crud right into the HF spectrum.

In cases like these, it is often difficult to get an accurate D/F on the signal through normal means since the signal is being propagated via the overhead powerlines. Attempts to D/F the signal almost always point to the closest powerline and not to the signal source. Usually such a noise generator will be confined to your local power grid ... that is, the homes that are powered between the two large power distribution transformers in your local neighborhood. In my case, this limits the search to about 15 homes.

I have found that the best way to tackle this is to make a 'noise map' and to try and measure the noise intensity at a similar point for each property - ie. directly beneath the powerline as it enters the property. This will usually put you at the same vertical distance from the line and will give you a better noise sample that is directly (or not) associated with that property. After mapping this out, if the culprit property is not obvious, then you will at least have narrowed it down to a very few choices. Other types of noise, that can be detected into the VHF range, are probably best detected using normal D/F methods.

After bringing the offending bulb home, I Google-searched the product name and number and came up with a 'product recall' for this particular model.

"According to a Health Canada and Electrical Safety report, the lamp may overheat and melt the enclosure exposing live parts, posing a risk of fire and/or electric shock."

Apparently they were indeed manufactured incorrectly and it's just as well that it was found and removed before causing serious damage!

Once again  LF sounds as it should. Hopefully it can remain this way for a long time but with the proliferation on noise-making appliances and 'improvements', I have my doubts.

I'm the chap who looks after our monthly Co-ordinated Listening Events (CLEs).

About 70 of our NDB List members have taken part in recent CLEs - and the other 550 members haven't. Only about 250 members have ever sent a CLE log (including all ex-members), so more than 300 current members haven't.

If you are one of the 300+, do you sometimes look at our monthly CLE results and maybe find bits of them interesting or useful?

This is NOT a sales pitch to try and make you take part, welcome though that would be! However, if several 'non-CLE' Members are finding the results helpful, I would like to know whether we might improve the way the results are presented to make them more understandable and more useful to our members generally?

If you are interested, it would help me if you could please reply DIRECT TO ME at [email protected]



I will keep your reply confidential and I will try to acknowledge all replies individually - there may be just yours or there might be 100 of them !!


1. How often have you found any individual listener's CLE log of interest?


2. How often have you looked at any of the CLE combined results?

Once or twice
Sometimes
Often

3. (if any) Which results were of interest?

Tables, etc. in the Excel attachments
Tables, etc. in the CLE Archives


4. Did you find that the results needed further explanation?

Yes, sometimes
Yes, often
Yes, always






6. Have you sent your own listening log(s) to NDB List?


7. Finally, please confirm that you are one of the 300+

I've only sent 1 or 2 CLE logs




Brian Keyte

(CLE Co-ordinator)

Yesterday I had the chance to have a closer look at the two lenses recently purchased for a new portable lightwave receiver. The initial testing procedure of the page-size fresnel (actual size is 200mm x 270mm) proved incorrect and required more space than the bench top could provide. Eventually the focal length was measured as ~ 368mm +/- for an f/d, or F number, of 1.36 ... a convenient value and much better than the 'other' common fresnel page reader focal length of ~ 600mm. This jibed nicely with the recommendations given in Clint's (KA7OEI) website optical information:

"For practical reasons, it is recommended that an optical system using Fresnel lenses be designed using lenses that have an F-number in the range of 0.5 to 1.5 - that is, around 1. Remember: The "F-number" is the focal length divided by the diameter of the lens, so for an F-number of unity or one, the diameter of the lens would be the same as its focal length."

The lens was able to bring a small LED flashlight (consisting of an array of 21 white LEDs) into surprisingly sharp focus although the shot below does not reflect that due to my camera's poor focus in the darkened room.



The glass 4.5" magnifying lens proved to have a focal point of 203mm for an F number of 1.8. This lense produced an even sharper image of the same light source and may be the best candidate for the portable receiver although the larger aperture of the fresnel might not be worth counting out at this point.

The fresnel may work well for a transmitter and will likely require a small (inexpensive) secondary focusing lens between the LED and the fresnel, in order to have the LED efficiently illuminate the fresnel. The secondary should effectively gather and focus as much of the emitted LED light to just within the boundaries of the fresnel without any wasted light energy being lost to spill-over at the edges.

It would be great to have a permanent lightwave 'beacon' that one could test various receiver lenses and combinations but at present there is very little activity here in VE7 land ... although that is changing, with the interest of another local, VE7IGH (Greg) near Vancouver and right across Georgia Strait from my location. Grant has already built a receiver and will soon start on transmitter construction ... way to go Greg!