HFU HF Underground
Loggings => HF Beacons => Topic started by: Seamus on August 15, 2009, 0500 UTC
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Having just moved into a new QTH (upstate SC), I have been installing a new antenna: 400 feet of wire, about 40 feet up into the trees. Hooked it up today to test it out, and WOW! I'm like a kid in a candy store (or a ham in a radio store), amazed at every new signal this thing pulls in. Spinning the knob and fishing for some beacons tonight, I found:
(http://www.rthtg.net/beacons/new_antenna_01.jpg)
Pike 78 (pretty sure that's the one), MO, OK, and - just barely peeking through the noise - A.
A has been in and out a bit as I type this, but it's sort of making the trip, so I'll include it in the bunch.
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Boy your doing well...
do you actually hear them with your ear of does a computer
hear them?
The Pike 78
has a unique signature which is relected
on the screen...very cool...
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They're mostly buried down in the noise, but I'm making them out by ear after a minute or two of listening (and knowing what to expect at a given frequency, thanks to the "cheat sheet" on the website). The computer's analyzer helps a lot with locating them, as I can see that they're there visually before I can actually make sense of what I'm hearing down in the hash. I may think that I hear a beep or two around a spot on the dial where I expect to find something, but looking at the waterfall gives me an idea of what that frequency has been doing over the last few seconds, so I can spot trends better and figure out if there's really a beacon down in all that mud, or if it's just my ears playing tricks on me.
I'm new at this whole low-power beacon thing, so I figure it's just training for hunting entirely by ear later on.