13006
North American Shortwave Pirate / UNID 6925 AM 0051 UTC
« on: August 20, 2012, 1306 UTC »
Signed on with some instrumental rock music, just above the noise floor, off at 0103z.
Shortwave Pirate Radio In North America And Around The World, And Other Signals That Go Bump In The Night
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13007
North American Shortwave Pirate / Blue Ocean Radio 13860 USB 2125 UTC
« on: August 19, 2012, 2127 UTC »
Sign on with ID, into the "Banana Boat" song. Tough copy, but bits and pieces are audible.
13008
North American Shortwave Pirate / Voice of Captain Ron Shortwave 13860 USB 2025 UTC
« on: August 19, 2012, 2027 UTC »
Weak, very rough copy under some local QRM. Not even S1 here.
13009
North American Shortwave Pirate / Hard Tack Radio 6925 USB 2347 UTC
« on: August 18, 2012, 2352 UTC »
Heard what sounded like an Irish song, then the "The Yellow Rose of Texas" at 2352z. S8 to S9 signal.
ID at 0007z. The audio during all of the IDs was very low volume, compared to the music.
ID at 0007z. The audio during all of the IDs was very low volume, compared to the music.
13010
European Pirates and Private Stations / Radio Spaceshuttle 15840 USB 1555 UTC
« on: August 18, 2012, 1601 UTC »
Very weak, signed on about 1555z.
13011
North American Shortwave Pirate / Radio Ga Ga 6925 USB 0424 UTC
« on: August 18, 2012, 1437 UTC »
SDR recording catch, first noted at around 0424z, with an ID at 0428z. Fair to good signal. "Wipeout" at 0438z. ID and off at 0455z.
13012
North American Shortwave Pirate / UNID 6915 AM (with a lot of drift) 0238 UTC
« on: August 17, 2012, 1453 UTC »
Robert Palmer "Addicted to Love" for a bit, then some audio hum, the carrier drifted a kHz or two during the short transmission, off at 0240z.
Back on at 0249 with "Addicted to Love", audio cutting in and out, carrier off and on a few times, and again drifting quite a bit. Off 0251z.
Someone testing? I've noticed this carrier (on for short periods with a lot of drift) earlier today, and last night as well.
Back on at 0249 with "Addicted to Love", audio cutting in and out, carrier off and on a few times, and again drifting quite a bit. Off 0251z.
Someone testing? I've noticed this carrier (on for short periods with a lot of drift) earlier today, and last night as well.
13013
North American Shortwave Pirate / Possibly Toynbee Radio 12 Aug 2012 6925 AM 0505 UTC
« on: August 14, 2012, 2113 UTC »
I think this was Toynbee, based on a tip that he was on 3 times this date I checked my SDR recording files.
Came on with OM saying (I think, hard to tell) "Hello, I am taking channel control" then into some hard rock music? Sounded like the same OM at the end, after the music, but hard to tell. Off 0510z.
Recording: http://hfunderpants.com/mypics/Toynbee08122012_0505.mp3
Came on with OM saying (I think, hard to tell) "Hello, I am taking channel control" then into some hard rock music? Sounded like the same OM at the end, after the music, but hard to tell. Off 0510z.
Recording: http://hfunderpants.com/mypics/Toynbee08122012_0505.mp3
13014
Spy Numbers / 6855 AM 0300 UTC V2A Cuban Attencion Station
« on: August 13, 2012, 1349 UTC »
SDR recording catch.
Callup 37611 41041 54366. Off with three finals at 0342z.
Very poor quality audio. Pedro is slacking off again.
Callup 37611 41041 54366. Off with three finals at 0342z.
Very poor quality audio. Pedro is slacking off again.
13015
Equipment / RFI pickup problem with an interesting solution
« on: August 12, 2012, 2146 UTC »
My skyloop antenna picks up RFI - what appears to be harmonics from various switchmode power supplies. The pickup is not incredibly strong, perhaps -110 dBm during the daytime, when the noise floor is around -120 dBm. At night, it isn't noticeable, since background noise levels swamp it. But it's noticeable on the SDR waterfalls, and is annoying. Since the antenna goes around the yard, with the house in the middle, one thought is that it is picking up junk radiated from inside the house. Another is that the interfering signals are traveling down the coax shield. The skyloop is fed with coax running to a balun.
I tried several things:
First connecting a better ground to the incoming coax where it enters the shack. Not only didn't this help, but it usually made the RFI worse.
Next I tried putting lots of ferrite on the incoming coax. At first I thought I was getting somewhere, after putting about 20 clamp on ferrites on the coax, the RFI was pretty much eliminated. Unfortunately, so were all signals on this part of the spectrum. Apparently I made a notch filter. There was also little effect on other frequencies.
Then someone suggested grounding the coax at the balun. So I drove in a ground rod, and got some wire to connect from the shield connection of the coax at the balun to the ground rod. Again, the RFI got worse if anything, not better.
I was monitoring the results while outside, using SdrDx which can stream the waterfall over wifi. I have an iPad client app I wrote that displays it. So I can tweak the antenna outside while observing the effects, no need to run back and forth between the antenna and shack.
While doing this, at one point I had the grounding wire attached to the balun, with the balun back up in the air, but the other end of the wire was not attached to the ground rod. And... the RFI was GONE. Or pretty much gone, it was still faintly visible, but had been heavily attenuated. The wire is about 30 ft long, I have not measured it. This is pretty close to a quarter wavelength at 6900 kHz, where I was observing. However, the RFI is pretty much eliminated over all of HF above about 4 MHz or so (there isn't an exact frequency where it appears again, but it starts to in the lower 4 MHz region).
I am not sure why the addition of the wire helped, but the improvement is substantial. If it helped over a fairly narrow frequency range, where it was a fixed fraction of a wavelength, I might be able to come up with some theories, but it helped over much of the HF band. For reference, the balun is fed with 100 ft of RG6 (TV type) coax.
I tried several things:
First connecting a better ground to the incoming coax where it enters the shack. Not only didn't this help, but it usually made the RFI worse.
Next I tried putting lots of ferrite on the incoming coax. At first I thought I was getting somewhere, after putting about 20 clamp on ferrites on the coax, the RFI was pretty much eliminated. Unfortunately, so were all signals on this part of the spectrum. Apparently I made a notch filter. There was also little effect on other frequencies.
Then someone suggested grounding the coax at the balun. So I drove in a ground rod, and got some wire to connect from the shield connection of the coax at the balun to the ground rod. Again, the RFI got worse if anything, not better.
I was monitoring the results while outside, using SdrDx which can stream the waterfall over wifi. I have an iPad client app I wrote that displays it. So I can tweak the antenna outside while observing the effects, no need to run back and forth between the antenna and shack.
While doing this, at one point I had the grounding wire attached to the balun, with the balun back up in the air, but the other end of the wire was not attached to the ground rod. And... the RFI was GONE. Or pretty much gone, it was still faintly visible, but had been heavily attenuated. The wire is about 30 ft long, I have not measured it. This is pretty close to a quarter wavelength at 6900 kHz, where I was observing. However, the RFI is pretty much eliminated over all of HF above about 4 MHz or so (there isn't an exact frequency where it appears again, but it starts to in the lower 4 MHz region).
I am not sure why the addition of the wire helped, but the improvement is substantial. If it helped over a fairly narrow frequency range, where it was a fixed fraction of a wavelength, I might be able to come up with some theories, but it helped over much of the HF band. For reference, the balun is fed with 100 ft of RG6 (TV type) coax.
13016
European Pirates and Private Stations / Borderhunter Radio 15475
« on: August 12, 2012, 1557 UTC »
QSY here around 1555z. Pretty good signal!
13017
North American Shortwave Pirate / Radio Ga Ga 6925 USB 0512 UTC
« on: August 12, 2012, 1427 UTC »
Signed on with "Night Moves". ID at 0516 "Radio Ga Ga, Pirate Shortwave", then "Her Strut", "Southern Cross".
Fair signal overall, sometimes coming well above the noise level, then fading back down.
Perhaps your 0530z UNID, Lex?
Fair signal overall, sometimes coming well above the noise level, then fading back down.
Perhaps your 0530z UNID, Lex?
13018
North American Shortwave Pirate / UNID 6925 AM 0506 UTC
« on: August 12, 2012, 1423 UTC »
SDR recording catch. OM talking, couldn't make out what he said, into a song, OM talking again, then off at 0510z.
13019
European Pirates and Private Stations / Border Hunter Radio 6210 AM 0050 UTC
« on: August 12, 2012, 0102 UTC »
Coming in nicely. Blondie Heart of Glass at 0102z.
13020
North American Shortwave Pirate / UNID 6850 AM 0030 UTC
« on: August 12, 2012, 0032 UTC »
Just signed on. Hearing what sounds like bluegrass type music? Very strong, S9. Also heard some Beatles later on.
6849.993 to be precise.
The transmitter went off and on several times during the transmission, perhaps an op testing?
Seemed to go QRT at 0105z. Nothing noted after that.
6849.993 to be precise.
The transmitter went off and on several times during the transmission, perhaps an op testing?
Seemed to go QRT at 0105z. Nothing noted after that.
