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Loggings => HF Beacons => Topic started by: vlfradio on September 30, 2012, 1852 UTC

Title: Microwatt Miricle - sand-dune temperature drifter
Post by: vlfradio on September 30, 2012, 1852 UTC: I have implanted a mile from a small desert town in Inyo County a free-running oscillator beacon of about 1 mW output to low-1/4 wave wire up 3-8 feet above sand (1/4 wave gnd. counterpoise) amongst sand-dunes and scrub that is drifting between 2671 to 2679 kHz depending upon the outside temp and temp within its clear-plastic enclosure - the wee beacon runs on a 12 v/ 9 aH gel cell 24/7 and drifts upward as the temp declines. It is keyed by a 555 low-power timer chip to J-fet oscillator (coil is wound on a toroid) to a 2N2222 output buffer trans. keyed by a 2N2222 keying transistor. It FSKs about 2.12 kHz with one of its "side" of the FSK being a tad stronger than the other.

This beacon seems to closely track ambient temperature of its osc. circuit, thus it is called the "dunes drifter."

It might make the ULTIMATE skip-DX beacon for Token or those in a quiet location at dusk or night to dawn.

73 and gud DXing - -v-
Title: Re: Microwatt Miricle - sand-dune temperature drifter
Post by: vlfradio on September 30, 2012, 1907 UTC: oh, i need to emphasize this 2671-2680 kHz FSK drifter-beacon is 1 MILLI-watt (not 1 microwatt) and thus might skip some skywave...

73

-v-
Title: Re: Microwatt Miricle - sand-dune temperature drifter
Post by: cmradio on October 01, 2012, 0716 UTC: Usually that band is quiet. Tonight it's 7 S-units of frying eggs and stations have their "head in a bucket of water" like VHF skip.

Weeeeeeiiiiired :-\

Peace!
Title: Re: Microwatt Miricle - sand-dune temperature drifter
Post by: cmradio on October 03, 2012, 0650 UTC: I have something at 2672.203 at 0748z
(QRSs viewer will show any dot spacing shorter than 3 seconds as a single line)

Peace!
Title: Re: Microwatt Miracle - sand-dune temperature drifter
Post by: vlfradio on October 03, 2012, 2130 UTC: It might be it, but over time it should show drift one way or another - rarely does it sit still for more than 15 minutes - it is quite temp. sensitive - about 8.5 kHz freq. swing day to night. You should also see two frequencies about 2 kHz apart, plus and minus a few hundred hertz. This 1 mW beacon is def. the weidest one I've planted...

-v-
Title: Re: Microwatt Miricle - sand-dune temperature drifter
Post by: cmradio on October 04, 2012, 0128 UTC: 2KHz away was a big wide fuzzy line of computer gibberish swamping anything.

This was a dasher on the one freq. about 800mS on, 800mS off. If it was shifting 2KHz in that time, it was under the gibberish :-\

The window width is about 2 minutes fastest.

For some reason, I couldn't get my regular spectral analasys goodie, Baudline, to talk to my sound card that night.

Peace!
Title: Re: Microwatt Miricle - sand-dune temperature drifter
Post by: Token on October 06, 2012, 2118 UTC: I have not yet captured this flea level beacon. I keep getting snifs of something that I think is it, but never anything I can say for sure "that is it". Will keep trying.

T!