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Loggings => Longwave Loggings => Topic started by: chanito on February 27, 2022, 1325 UTC

Title: 100kHz time signal? 1320UTC 2/27/2022
Post by: chanito on February 27, 2022, 1325 UTC

Seeing/hearing a bit of a time signal on 100kHz. Can hear on both longwire and vertical. Can't make out the station ID, but there are parts that sound like English. Thought it might be BPL China. Thoughts?


Receiving about the same strength as WWVB 60 kHz, but not nearly as steady signal. Image? Real?

Title: Re: 100 kHz Time Wignal? 1320 UTC 27 FEB 2022
Post by: ~SIGINT~ on February 27, 2022, 1409 UTC

100 kHz is the assigned LORAN frequency. LORAN, a navigation system, has now been predominantly replaced by GPS based navigation. LORAN was also a very popular alternative for locking radio based disciplined oscillators over locking to WWVB.

The Austron 2100T Timing Receiver was very common and at one time widely available on the surplus market. https://www.prc68.com/I/A2100F.shtml (https://www.prc68.com/I/A2100F.shtml)

The technology has been widely replaced by GPS based disciplined oscillators (GPSDO).

Based on the list of LORAN-C transmitters found here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loran-C (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loran-C) it appears that some sites are still operational.

There would be no voice announcement to LORAN.

Title: Re: 100kHz time signal? 1320UTC 2/27/2022
Post by: NJQA on February 28, 2022, 1448 UTC

The KiwiSDR radios have an integrated Loran-C decoder built in.  It could be used to help decode what Loran you might be hearing.  But as Sigint noted, there aren’t voice announcements.  My guess is you are hearing an image.

BTW, a few years ago I was hearing eLoren out of Wildwood on 100 kHz.  I haven’t heard them since.