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With the recent quieting of the geomagnetic field, resulting in K values of 0's and 1's, along with a positive-going DST value, the broadcast band on Wednesday and Thursday night was much more vibrant than it has been in several weeks.

Being located on the eastern shoreline of Mayne Island, the direction towards all of the U.S.A. is over many miles of saltwater, so my main interest is in domestic / U.S.A. DX.

Wednesday evening netted two new states on the BCB ... Kansas and Indiana, for states #27 and #28 respectively, both heard on the Perseus SDR and my 10' x 20' amplified loop.

KWOD, on 1660KHz, identifying as "The Business Channel", was logged during a short top-of-the-hour fade-up at 0600z (10PM local time). Their night power is listed as 1,000 watts while their day power is 10,000 watts.

KWOD - Kansas courtesy: https://www.google.ca/maps

KWOD Towers courtesy https://www.google.ca/maps

The transmitter site is located in the middle of a quiet residential district of older homes ... on all four sides.

I shudder to think what RFI problems those living in the adjacent homes must suffer when they are on daytime power!

WSLM - Indiana courtesy :https://www.google.ca/maps

WSLM, on 1220KHz, was also logged at 0600z, during a two-minute fade-up and in the middle of the local weather report.

Interestingly, the station's night-power is listed as "82 watts", which, judging by the readability of their signal, was not the case. Perhaps the engineer just 'forgot' to switch from their daylight power of 5,000 watts!

Their phased antenna array puts their main lobes, due east and west, so evidently I was catching the northern edge of their pattern.

courtesy: https://www.google.ca/maps

See what you can hear their during the short recording made of  the "Country WSLM" weather report





I have yet to check last night's recordings to see if conditions have held-up for two night's running ... more later if so.

It seems that if I'm not chasing down noisy power poles or hunting for drifting wireless headsets, both of which have tried their best to tax my 6m reception this past year, I spend several hours each year chasing down delinquent noise generators!

I spent yesterday afternoon searching the neighbourhood for the source of an annoying and disruptive 120Hz hum. Testing my patience for about a week now, the AC buzz has been ripping-into my usually quiet LF reception, disrupting efforts to participate in the latest CLE (189) listening event. Although conditions have been poor, as usually occurs during these events, the signal-shrouding AC hum has made the event a real struggle.

I had been hoping that, whatever the source of the suddenly-appearing interference was, it would disappear as quickly as it had arrived. I had first noticed it several weeks ago, but it would always go off around bedtime and often was not there at all in the evenings...but the past week it has been there 24/7.

Yesterday I had finally had enough and with Sony 2010 in hand, along with its built-in ferrite bar antenna, I tuned the radio to 630m and started walking around the neighbourhood.

The first thing I noticed was that the signal was being propagated along the overhead powerlines and it was difficult to get a direction of the true source...all nulls pointed to the closest line. Walking to the north, the signal gradually became weaker and reversing direction to the south produced an ever-increasing AC hum...progress! I eventually found a corner where the QRN peaked, and walking in all directions from that point saw the noise diminish...getting warmer!

There were four possible homes here that could be the cause of the problem. I spoke with three of the four homeowners, all of whom seemed genuinely concerned about the source. They all let me into their homes and, with radio in hand, look for the source of the (by now) loud buzz. None of the three homes seemed to furnish the nasty noisemaker.

House number four was unoccupied but was, I was told, up until about a week ago. Venturing on to the property, the S9 buzz started to climb and by the time I had reached the porch, the Sony was on the verge of self-implosion...getting very hot now! A knock on the door confirmed that nobody was home but...behind the curtain, there it was...a floor lamp was turned ON!!

With the source now located I could now breath a little easier but unfortunately could not hear any quieter. Hopefully the owners, who go back and forth to the mainland frequently, will return soon and that LF will once again sound as it should.

What could be screwed into that floor lamp? I'm betting on a poor-quality or about-to-fail CFL bulb.

The one on the left is the actual bulb that I removed from a crawlspace, about four years ago, three houses away. It had been creating the same sort of buzz, only louder, as it was much closer. It was not emitting any light whatsoever yet continued to generate noise as well as present a real fire hazard. The house occupants had left it switched 'on' in order to discourage the local otter population from making a winter home in their crawlspace. Somewhere along the line the bulb had failed and started generating large amounts of AC hum.

This one was tough to find, as even several blocks away, it was very loud. It seems that power lines make wonderful LF antennas. I had to make a map showing signal strengths at many locations to find the source... my neighbours have since given me a key to their house, just in case it happens again!

So...what do you think is in house number four?

Those of you following my blog will know that I spent some time this fall designing and building a large rotatable loop for LF and MF (BCB) work. So far the loop has met my expectations and is working well. In spite of several strong storm blasts from the southeast (70-90km), the lightweight PVC frame has shown little desire to grab the wind and destroy itself. For anyone seeking a simple and inexpensive method of mounting a rotatable loop or Flag type of antenna, I believe this mounting system would be excellent.

Over the past few weeks I have logged several new catches on the BCB with three of the highlights shown below. The two stations on 530KHz are both from Cuba...Radio Rebelde at 1Kw (Gauntanamo) and Radio Enciclopedia at 10Kw (Villa Maria). Note how the propagation this night almost puts the two signals, from opposite ends of the island, on a level playing field.

  
At the other end of the band, the Caribbean Beacon on 1610, from The Valley, Anguilla, has been making regular appearances with a strong signal as well.


A nice domestic catch was one-kilowatt CJEU, Radio Jeunesse in Gatineau, Quebec, operating on 1670KHz.

DXing the broadcast band was one of my very first radio activities, starting around age eleven.
I vividly recall my excitement after catching WBZ-1030 in Boston, MA on my little 5 tube AC/DC radio and loose-coupled longwire. I had been hoping to catch an ID from them after listening for them for several Saturday nights! I even managed to get a QSL for my wall, similar to this one, shortly after the big event.

It's great getting back to my radio "roots" although DXing on the BCB has changed so much over the years, with fewer stations regularly identifying and no longer signing-off at midnight. Using the Perseus SDR has also made catching idents much easier, with the ability to record the entire band for hours at a time...or as long as one's hard-drive will allow.

10' x 20' LF Loop

As is usually the case, conditions deteriorated rapidly as the CLE weekend approached. Conditions varied throughout North America as those listening from the south-eastern regions of the U.S. reported much better propagation than those further to the northwest. Friday night appeared to be the best of the lot but all three nights were very much less than stellar.

The three-night event produced a total of 39 NDBs, with a couple of surprises.






DD UTC    kHz     Call       mi   Location
----------------------------------------------------------

22 05:00  370     YBV        1169 Berens River Apt, MB, CAN
22 06:59  370     OUN        1611 UoOk Westheimer Apt, OK, USA
22 05:00  371     YK         211  Yakima, WA, USA
23 09:00  371     PUR        1629 Marshall, MO, USA
22 05:00  371     ITU        558  Great Falls, MT, USA
22 05:00  371     GW         1946 Kuujjuarapik, QC, CAN
22 05:00  372     ZPA        824  Prince Albert, SK, CAN
22 05:00  372     YCO        1340 Coppermine, NU, CAN
22 05:12  372     FPN        675  Petersburg, ALS
22 07:00  373     TF         1191 Pueblo Mem Apt, CO, USA
22 05:00  373     MF         444  Table Rock, OR, USA
22 05:00  374     LV         776  Livermore, CA, USA
22 05:00  374     EX         190  Kelowna, BC, CAN
23 09:00  374     EE         1319 Forada, MN, USA
22 05:00  374     BOD        942  Bowman, ND, USA
24 09:59  375     PSN        1854 Palestine, TX, USA
22 05:00  375     FS         896  Fort Simpson, NT, CAN
22 10:59  375     DW         1629 Owasso, OK, USA
22 07:00  375     CP         900  Casper, WY, USA
22 05:00  375     BD         803  Moose Jaw, SK, CAN
22 07:00  376     ZIN        3326 Matthew Town, BAH
22 07:00  376     YAG        1345 Fort Frances, ON, CAN
22 13:59  376     PVQ        1690 Deadhorse, ALS
22 06:59  377     EHA        1350 Elkhart, KS, USA
23 06:59  378     ZFA        1000 Faro Municipal Apt, YT, CAN
22 05:00  378     OT         381  North Bend, OR, USA
22 10:59  379     ZEG        526  Edmonton Intl, AB, CAN
22 05:00  379     YBE        945  Uranium City, SK, CAN
23 12:59  379     IWW        1360 Kenai, ALS
22 09:00  380     OEL        1297 Oakley, KS, USA
22 05:00  380     GC         899  Gillette, WY, USA
22 05:00  382     YPW        86   Powell River, BC, CAN
22 05:00  382     YE         686  Fort Nelson, BC, CAN
22 12:59  382     JNR        1731 Unalakleet, ALS
22 12:00  382     GRN        1522 Guerro Negro, MEX
22 05:00  382     AW         75   Marysville, WA, USA
22 06:59  383     PI         658  Pocatello, ID, USA
22 05:20  383     CNP        1146 Chappell, NE, USA
22 05:00  384     3F         792  Ile-a-la-crosse, SK, CAN
-----------------------------------------------------------------

This particular frequency range (370-384.9kHz) is a tough one for me, since my local pest signal, 'AP' is on 378kHz, smack in the middle of the listening range. 'AP's antenna is just .4 miles (2100') from my antenna and its signal is about 60db over S9.... Very loud!

AP to me...Courtesy: https://www.google.ca/maps/

The new 10' x 20' rotatable loop continues to work well. When pointed towards the east, it offers significant nulling of AP's signal and when carefully aligned to the deepest null-point, reduces the signal by almost 30db...but still leaves a very strong signal.

Using this 'deep null' position, I was (somewhat surprisingly) able to log another Canadian NDB (ZFA  Mayo Airprt, Yukon Territory) on the same frequency as AP. The ident-tone modulation frequencies are separated by 10Hz (408Hz vs 418Hz) which was enough to allow the very narrow ~3Hz Perseus filtering, combined with two notch filters, to reveal the 'ZFA' identifier between the 'AP' identifier. Listen for the weak 'ZFA' ident after the loud keying artifacts of 'AP', when they are transmitting just a steady tone.



The other surprise was the logging of 'PVQ' in Deadhorse, Alaska, way up on the extreme northern slope oil fields.

Courtesy: https://www.google.ca/maps/

My last reception of this beacon was in March and conditions usually have to be very quiet, geomagnetically, to hear it at all. The coronal-hole streaming of this past weekend, putting the damper on LF propagation, makes this path very unlikely and surprising! See if you can hear the weak 'PVQ' identifier during its short appearance early on Saturday morning:


CLE organizer, Brian Keyte (G3SIA), reports 51 participants worldwide and over 2100 reception reports. All reports have been added to the RNA/REU beacon database.

As well, Brian will be publishing all results on the NDB Information page shortly.

All-in-all CLE188 was another enjoyable event....hopefully conditions will be better by this time next month and if you did not participate, maybe you will give it a try next time!

It's always interesting to use one of the many 'audio viewing' software programs, such as 'Argo', 'Spectran' or Spectrum Lab, driven with receiver audio, to dig deep into a section of the spectrum using very narrow bandwidths. The narrower the bandwidth becomes, the greater the signal-to-noise ratio, increasing sensitivity in effect. The use of digital signal processing software can create the extremely narrow milliHertz  filtering needed to view signals buried deep in the noise...the deeper the search (20db, 30db or more into the noise), the longer the time needed to build up the visual display of signals that would be far too weak to detect aurally.

Recently, rather than using Argo to view a slice of spectrum I set up the Perseus waterfall display to have a deep-look at 1240kHz. This is one of the broadcast-band's 'local' channels and one that BCB DXers refer to as a 'graveyard channel'. Almost all stations on the various graveyard frequencies run a maximum of 1kW day and night. According to the Medium Wave List, there are presently 166 stations in North America operating on 1240kHz...one of the reasons that 'DXing the graveyards' is so interesting.

With this in mind, I recently took a mid-afternoon listen. Just one station was audible to my ear, likely one of the stations to my south in Washington state. Centering Perseus on 1240kHz, the waterfall was set to display a ~50Hz slice of the spectrum...1240kHz +/- 25Hz. The screen below shows the display, ranging from 1239.976kHz to 1240.024kHz. After letting the waterfall visual display slowly build up, it revealed 26 separate carriers. The remaining signals, although propagating to my location, were too weak to be detected aurally.

26 midday carriers visible on 1240kHz

Checking the MWList once again, it shows only 11 stations to be within expected daylight groundwave distance from here...Washington, Oregon and B.C. Evidently there is some mid-afternoon skywave involved or I am seeing some extended groundwave from Idaho, Montana and California. MW List shows a total of 27 possible candidates, assuming extended groundwave, so it would seem that most of them are making it here in daylight.


The screen above was made approximately one hour after sunset (looping E-W) and shows the same 25Hz slice centered on 1240kHz. There are ~70 carriers visible by now, with most of them fading. Some transmitters appear to be rock-solid while most exhibit a cyclical drift, no doubt the result of some form of crystal temperature stability attempt. I'm guessing that the rock-solid ones are using more modern synthesizers for frequency generation.

Listening on 1240 during this period reveals a boiling cauldron of audio, mostly unreadable until one station fades-up and becomes intelligible for a short period before fading to be replaced by another. Sitting on this frequency at the top-of-hour identification time can often catch a few idents with careful listening.


Even comparatively empty 540kHz reveals 22 different carriers, the only audible one being CBK in Watrous, Saskatchewan, the brighter trace at 540.002kHz. The one at the right looks as if it may have just come on the air for the evening. It's possible that many of these are low powered traffic information stations (TIS) running at 10 watts.

The weekend CLE event described in an earlier blogpost provided the first real opportunity to put my new LF loop to the test. Actually, it has already passed the most important test...surviving a large 60+ mph windstorm, while I was away on a short vacation. Unfortunately, a 60' Douglas Fir, just a few feet from the loop, blew completely down...thankfully, over the bank, in the other direction. Cleaning it up will take a few weeks but should provide some good firewood as well as exercise.


Before leaving, I tied the end arms of the loop down just in case it might get windy, but it seems that the light PVC frame does not produce the same windage as my large wooden 10' loop frame.

Beacons logged over the three-night event:

As Murphy would have it, and in spite of the low amount of solar activity, LF/MF propagation has been very poor since getting my new 10' x 20' loop in place. The few front-to-side nulling checks that I have done, have produced results varying from around 20db to 30db, depending upon the signal. I suspect the depth of null is also affected by the signal's arrival angle but there is still more to learn. The pattern seems to be very close to that of a typical circular loop...the classic figure-8 pattern illustrated below as shown on the Wellbrook data that came with my ALA100LN preamp.

Courtesy: http://www.wellbrook.uk.com

More typically, the null is around 21-22 db as shown on this test while listening to the ground wave carrier of the YZA ndb (236kHz) located in Ashcroft, B.C., about 150 miles to the NE. As expected, the null is fairly sharp and the front / rear lobe, fairly broad.


One short check at dusk, produced nice signals from  CJBC, the French-language station in Toronto. The past few nights it has been very strong but with a strong echo effect. I wonder if there is more than one CBC outlet here (860kHz), such as a low-power repeater, causing the echo.


At the same time, while still fairly light outside, WCCO in Minneapolis had a nice signal just before sunset.


No matter how poor conditions become, it seems that the Hinchinbrook (Alaska) ndb, 'ALJ' (233kHz), is always strong....looping north.

Courtesy: https://www.google.ca/maps

My apologies for the video quality. If you know of any software available for making full-screen Perseus video captures so that I might improve my technique, please let me know. Presently I am just capturing them on my I-Pad which leaves a lot of room for improvement.

Hopefully conditions will only get better as the season progresses and I am able to give the loop a good workout....before it gets too windy!