DGPS Logs 22 to 23 July 2017

[ChrisSmolinski]

This started as a short project to record a few hours in the daytime, to see what I could pick up. I decided to let it run overnight. Pretty lame results for a little about hours, roughly 1400z on the 22nd to 1500z on the 23rd. No west coast stations. You can see the decode rate actually went DOWN as it got darker, due to all the t-storm static.

I'll record again on the 31st to watch Reedy Point go bye bye, but probably not seriously again until maybe sometime in August. It was August 2016 when I first started working on Amalgamated DGPS.

Those stations with just a few decodes are probably legit because they generally occurred within a few minutes of each other. Another reason why you really do need to decode the entire band to catch these super brief openings. I'd love to figure out how to write a parallel version of this for NDBs. It's tough since they use barbaric CW, and for US stations the CW tone frequency is almost on top of the carrier frequency for the adjacent channel (who at the FCC thought that was a good idea??), off by just 20 Hz.

Fake DX:
2        001  001  001  286.0 200  Semikarakorsk?                 Russia               47.543   40.876   8,538  38  
8        643  686  687  309.0 200  Ken Saki                       Japan                35.142   139.685  10,883 330


Real (But lame) DX:
Count    ID   ref1 ref2 kHz   Baud City                           Country              Lat      Lon      km     Deg
2        936  332  333  319.0 200  Point Escuminac, NB            Canada               47.075   -64.8    1,278  46  
2        940  338  339  315.0 200  Cape Race, NL                  Canada               46.661   -53.075  2,076  60  
3        919  308  309  306.0 200  Cardinal, ON                   Canada               44.783   -75.417  579    12  
4        925  320  321  313.0 200  Moise, QC                      Canada               50.202   -66.119  1,443  32  
20       937  330  331  298.0 200  Hartlen Point, NS              Canada               44.583   -63.45   1,238  60  
100      927  316  317  309.0 200  Lauzon, QC                     Canada               46.821   -71.165  920    29  
106      939  326  327  295.0 200  Partridge Island, NB           Canada               45.239   -66.056  1,085  52  
125      830  100  101  296.0 100  Wisconsin, Point WI            United States        46.708   -92.025  1,444  308
165      935  334  335  312.0 200  Western Head, NS               Canada               43.993   -64.67   1,124  61  
183      831  102  103  298.0 100  Upper Keweenaw, MI             United States        47.233   -88.628  1,257  316
186      942  340  341  288.0 200  Cape Ray, NL                   Canada               47.636   -59.241  1,671  52  
246      814  028  029  293.0 200  English Turn, LA               United States        29.886   -89.947  1,608  231
628      809  018  019  289.0 100  Cape Canaveral, FL             United States        28.467   -80.554  1,292  196
979      929  312  313  296.0 200  St Jean Richelieu, QC          Canada               45.324   -73.317  693    24  
2087     926  318  319  300.0 200  Riviere du Loop, QC            Canada               47.762   -69.606  1,073  31  
2989     839  118  119  322.0 100  Youngstown, NY                 United States        43.239   -78.972  427    338
4925     808  016  017  314.0 200  Card Sound, FL                 United States        25.442   -80.452  1,619  193
5351     827  244  245  312.0 200  Tampa, FL                      United States        27.85    -82.543  1,414  203
9829     799  044  045  290.0 200  Penobscot, ME                  United States        44.453   -68.776  858    49  
14454    777  218  219  304.0 200  Mequon, WI                     United States        43.202   -88.066  1,002  296
17160    778  192  193  292.0 100  Kensington, SC                 United States        33.491   -79.349  723    198
26554    838  116  117  319.0 200  Detroit, MI                    United States        42.306   -83.103  590    301
27350    806  012  013  289.0 100  Driver, VA                     United States        36.963   -76.562  307    173
28121    771  196  197  294.0 100  New Bern, NC                   United States        35.181   -77.059  503    181
30453    792  136  137  297.0 200  Bobo, MS                       United States        34.125   -90.696  1,367  247
38904    803  006  007  293.0 100  Moriches, NY                   United States        40.794   -72.756  378    70  
39906    772  198  199  306.0 200  Acushnet, MA                   United States        41.749   -70.889  561    64  
45622    844  094  095  324.0 200  Hudson Falls, NY               United States        43.272   -73.542  489    35  
59094    804  008  009  286.0 200  Sandy Hook, NJ                 United States        40.475   -74.02   266    70  
64766    870  170  171  309.0 200  Reedy Point, DE                United States        39.569   -75.572  121    97  
75774    847  058  059  301.0 200  Annapolis, MD                  United States        39.018   -76.61   82     158

[skeezix]

You have some nice strong stations that tell the tale of woe from thunderstorms & can easily check if your system is working well. But aside from that, those are uninteresting.

The Mequon pattern is interesting- it comes in highly variable. And it was coming in better than Youngstown that's roughly half the distance away. Could be Youngstown's power or pattern direction. Or something.

[ChrisSmolinski]

The Mequon pattern is interesting- it comes in highly variable. And it was coming in better than Youngstown that's roughly half the distance away. Could be Youngstown's power or pattern direction. Or something.

Yes, the patterns are all very interesting. Sometimes I will notice several stations from a given area produce more decodes (or fewer) at the same time. Nice way to see general propagation effects.

Youngstown gets QRM from the CW of a NDB on 323 kHz from DC.

[jFarley]

The Mequon pattern is interesting- it comes in highly variable. And it was coming in better than Youngstown that's roughly half the distance away. Could be Youngstown's power or pattern direction. Or something.

Youngstown gets QRM from the CW of a NDB on 323 kHz from DC.

Would that be GTN?  I was not able to log that at all last season, not for lack of effort.

Barbaric CW...not taking that bait...

[ChrisSmolinski]

The Mequon pattern is interesting- it comes in highly variable. And it was coming in better than Youngstown that's roughly half the distance away. Could be Youngstown's power or pattern direction. Or something.

Youngstown gets QRM from the CW of a NDB on 323 kHz from DC.

Would that be GTN?  I was not able to log that at all last season, not for lack of effort.

Indeed it is GTN, Georgetown. A constant pest here. Maybe you were getting QRM from a DGPS station 

[ChrisSmolinski]

Barbaric CW...not taking that bait...

Barbaric from an automated decoding point of view. I need to deal with variations in sending speed (WPM), repetition rate, and actual transmitted frequency. All of which are probably different for each beacon, and worse, not constant. Maybe the modern beacons are pretty stable, but I am imagining there's a few that have something like a spinning wheel to send the CW  I'd also make a joke about using an LM555 timer IC, but I like the 555. Best IC ever.