Posts Tagged ‘WWV’
Solar Cycle 25, and a Life-Changing Event (Part 1 of 2)
December 17th, 2021 | 
Author: From the RAIN HamCast episode #56, 2021-XII-11 (used with permission):
When you were knee high to a grasshopper, did you undergo a game-changing experience that shaped your future career?
Here is text from the introduction:
Tomas Hood/NW7US did. Tomas has been a shortwave enthusiast since 1973. He was first licensed as a ham in 1990 at age 25.
In the mid 1990s Tomas launched the first civilian space weather propagation website, HFRadio.org, which later spawned SunSpotWatch.com. His website, NW7US has been up and running since June, 1999. Tomas has contributed to the Space Weather Propagation column in CQ magazine for over 20 years, and for The Spectrum Monitor magazine since 2014.
A product of the Pacific northwest, Tomas resides today in Fayetteville, OH. RAIN’s Hap Holly/KC9RP spoke with Tomas recently about Solar Cycle 25 and the game-changing afternoon Tomas experienced in 1973 at age 8 ( Read more about this, at his amateur radio and space weather blog: https://blog.NW7US.us/ ).
Here is the first part of the two-part interview:
Mentioned in the interview is Skylab:
From Wikipedia’s article on Skylab: Skylab was the first United States space station, launched by NASA, occupied for about 24 weeks between May 1973 and February 1974. It was operated by three separate three-astronaut crews: Skylab 2, Skylab 3, and Skylab 4. Major operations included an orbital workshop, a solar observatory, Earth observation, and hundreds of experiments.
Tomas was drawn into space weather as a life-long passion, by inspiration from Skylab, and from the hourly propagation bulletin from the radio station WWV.
WATCH FOR THE NEXT EPISODE, PART TWO
This video is only part one. The RAIN HamCast will conclude Hap’s conversation with Tomas in RAIN HamCast #57, scheduled for posting Christmas Day.
Hap Holly, of the infamous RAIN Report (RAIN = Radio Amateur Information Network), is now producing The RAIN HamCast. The results are both on https://therainreport.com and on the RAIN HamCast YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUbNkaUvX_lt5IiDkS9aS4g
KEEP ON HAMMING!
The RAIN Hamcast is produced and edited by Hap Holly/KC9RP; this biweekly podcast is copyright 1985-2021 RAIN, All rights reserved. RAIN programming is formatted for Amateur Radio transmission and is made available under a Creative Commons license; downloading, sharing, posting and transmission of this ham radio program via Amateur Radio in its entirety are encouraged. Your support and feedback are welcome on https://therainreport.com. Thanks for YouTube Technical Assistance from Tom Shimizu/N9JDI.
WWV’s New Antenna On 25MHz – QSA?
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| New Turnstile Antenna / WWV - 25MHz |
Last week's ARRL announcement regarding WWV's new circular polarized Turnstile antenna tests on their 25MHz transmitter quickly garnered my interest.
Their 25MHz signal used to be heard world-wide on F2 until it was dropped in 1977, but somewhat surprisingly, was resurrected in 2014.
I recall hearing its 2nd harmonic on sporadic-E very routinely on 50.000MHz when I first became active on 6m back in the late 60's. Back then it was also not uncommon to hear the 3rd and 4th harmonics of ship CW stations operating on 12 and 16MHz, at the very low end of 6m and just below the band edge on 49MHz.
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| 6m Prop Indicator From The 70's! |
Having not listened for WWV's 25MHz signal for several decades, I set up yesterday to see if it could be heard here in mid-summer. Using my Perseus SDR and my LF/MF inverted-L, self-resonant in the middle of the broadcast-band (gosh knows what the pattern looks like up on 25MHz!), I started monitoring just after lunch. I could detect their carrier which was very weak but steady, probably arriving on ionospheric scatter via the e-layer.
A few hours later I re-checked after hearing a few Colorado signals on 6m Es and sure enough, there they were with a fairly robust signal. It too, was no doubt arriving via sporadic-E as it was again today during another widespread Es opening from the PNW to as far south as Puerto Rico.
Here is a recording of the 25MHz signal made this morning with my Perseus SDR along with a comparison recording of their 20MHz signal, made about 30 seconds later.
There is not a lot of difference between the two and both run similar powers ... 2.5kW on 20MHz and 2kW on 25MHz. The 20MHz system uses a half-wave vertical on a 7.5m tower while the 25MHz outlet uses the crossed-dipole circular polarized Turnstile shown at the top of the blog.
Reception reports of their 25MHz signal are being sought and can be e-mailed to WWV at this address.
WWV’s New Antenna On 25MHz – QSA?
|
| New Turnstile Antenna / WWV - 25MHz |
Last week's ARRL announcement regarding WWV's new circular polarized Turnstile antenna tests on their 25MHz transmitter quickly garnered my interest.
Their 25MHz signal used to be heard world-wide on F2 until it was dropped in 1977, but somewhat surprisingly, was resurrected in 2014.
I recall hearing its 2nd harmonic on sporadic-E very routinely on 50.000MHz when I first became active on 6m back in the late 60's. Back then it was also not uncommon to hear the 3rd and 4th harmonics of ship CW stations operating on 12 and 16MHz, at the very low end of 6m and just below the band edge on 49MHz.
|
| 6m Prop Indicator From The 70's! |
Having not listened for WWV's 25MHz signal for several decades, I set up yesterday to see if it could be heard here in mid-summer. Using my Perseus SDR and my LF/MF inverted-L, self-resonant in the middle of the broadcast-band (gosh knows what the pattern looks like up on 25MHz!), I started monitoring just after lunch. I could detect their carrier which was very weak but steady, probably arriving on ionospheric scatter via the e-layer.
A few hours later I re-checked after hearing a few Colorado signals on 6m Es and sure enough, there they were with a fairly robust signal. It too, was no doubt arriving via sporadic-E as it was again today during another widespread Es opening from the PNW to as far south as Puerto Rico.
Here is a recording of the 25MHz signal made this morning with my Perseus SDR along with a comparison recording of their 20MHz signal, made about 30 seconds later.
There is not a lot of difference between the two and both run similar powers ... 2.5kW on 20MHz and 2kW on 25MHz. The 20MHz system uses a half-wave vertical on a 7.5m tower while the 25MHz outlet uses the crossed-dipole circular polarized Turnstile shown at the top of the blog.
Reception reports of their 25MHz signal are being sought and can be e-mailed to WWV at this address.
