We seek to understand and document all radio transmissions, legal and otherwise, as part of the radio listening hobby. We do not encourage any radio operations contrary to regulations. Always consult with the appropriate authorities if you have questions concerning what is permissible in your locale.

Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - Zoidberg

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 [7] 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 ... 157
91
"Doe" is an old Breeders tune, I used to play it all the time for Al Fansome when he was smitten with Kelly Deal...

Don't tell Belinda Carlisle. She still thinks she had Fansome all to herself.

92
4030 AM, just a carrier to the Palstar with indoor antenna strung along the ceiling. Closest I got to hearing anything on HF tonight. Even the time signals (2500, 5000, 7850) and some of the usual powerhouse AM broadcasters were weak tonight.

93
General Radio Discussion / Re: Hobby Broadcasting Radio
« on: November 18, 2022, 0538 UTC »
Thanks much for the interest! Sleep's important and this is the only time slot, so I can e-mail the MP3 to you if you'd like and if your e-mail can handle 20Mb attachments
If you have a studio recording of the program, it's worth uploading to the internet archive site, archive.org. I've used that site for years to upload a few of my better off air recordings. All are still intact -- unlike all the other upload sites that went dormant or switched from free to premium subscriptions and deleted every file from the free accounts.

And if pirates want to relay the program, they can access it easily from there. Even if we upload a wav file, the site automagically creates more compact but good quality files in common formats, as well as open source formats that have no licensing issues. And media files can be played directly from archive dot org via their built-in players, or streamed through our preferred media player.

94
Same audio anarchy via Penisylvania SDR, good signal and audio. Smells like Final Countdown mashup, Led Zep/Ozzy mashup of Whole Lotta War Pigs, Bee Gees/Fink Ployd Leave Those Disco Kids Alone, Rick Rolled by Chumbawamba.
0202z straight versions of Nirvana "Come As You Are," Metallica "Enter Sandman"
0415z off after impromptu show of lots of great music. Good steady signal to Penn SDR throughout.

Alas, no copy via home rx. Maybe just an occasional hint of audio struggling.

Audio from final 60-90 minutes, I wasn't checking the time: https://archive.org/details/sycko-radio-via-pa-sdr-18-nov-2022-end-0415-utc-4185-usb

95
Equipment / Re: MLA-30 Loop antenna
« on: November 17, 2022, 0236 UTC »
Quote
if your feedline is long enough, just wrap it neatly in closely spaced coils

Old "ham" wives tail. Not recommended, highly inconsistent with unpredictable results. This topic is covered in the ARRL Antenna Book. Don't waste your time and use quality ferrites from a reputable source, and just not any ferrite.

MIX 31 -> 1 MHz - 300 MHz (good for HF)
MIX 75/J -> 150 KHz - 10 MHz

https://palomar-engineers.com/ferrite-products/ferrite-cores/ferrite-mix-selection

I'm not a ham, old or otherwise. I don't transmit, and have never tried the coiled feedline trick suggested by some hams for transmitting.

I'm referring strictly to coiling up feedline to reduce noise in receive-only antennas. It works because... I've used it. It works as well as ferrite cores. I've compared both side by side many times.

Same pros and cons apply to both methods. Ferrite cores and coiled feedline can reduce noise without attenuating signal on some bands, not so well on others. In many experiments I find they work identically.

But ferrite chokes are indispensable for reducing noise on audio patch cables (for off air recordings, etc), USB cables, and some power cords. It's always a trial and error thing. Many shielded cables come with small ferrite chokes on one or both ends, but they tend not to work well unless the cable is looped at least once through the choke. Ferrite chokes usually work best with two or three loops, so I buy them oversize.

Coiling shielded audio patch cables *can* work, but ferrite chokes are easier -- you don't need excessively long cables in order to have enough material to coil up.

Coiling unshielded cords does nothing, so it won't help to coil up power cords from a noisy converter. Better to just get a better quality power adapter. The one that came with my Palstar spews RFI, but I replaced it long ago with some very good, quiet power adapters from Radio Shack -- no longer available, alas.

96
Back when propagation was better I'd occasionally hear CB savages playing piratical programming on the CB bands. Ditto 20m and 75-80m. Haven't heard that for awhile.

Beware... the CB band is fraught with peril. Avoid Candy Cane.

https://youtu.be/cuMnE4BliI4

97
Equipment / Re: MLA-30 Loop antenna
« on: November 17, 2022, 0110 UTC »
Ditto, tricks to reduce common mode noise picked up by the coax feed line itself.

Even cheaper than ferrite cores -- if your feedline is long enough, just wrap it neatly in closely spaced coils. A form such as a plastic coffee can works great. Coil the feedline around that and tape it in place. It'll usually work as well as ferrite cores for receive-only antennas.

However those tricks also seem to attenuate the wanted signal on some bands. And household RFI tends to be worse on some bands and almost non-existent on others. In my apartment I find it necessary to reduce RFI as much as possible from around 6600-7000, but it's practically nil around 75-80m, 20m and other bands. So if I use the ferrite cores or coil trick, I might do better to remove those if I'm primarily listening to frequencies outside the funny bands.

98
Equipment / Re: MLA-30 Loop antenna
« on: November 16, 2022, 0830 UTC »
Indoor antennas, including magnetic loops or any antenna that touts receiving the magnetic portion of the spectrum tend to be just as vulnerable to RFI as the telescoping whip on a portable or bare random wire to a tabletop receiver. Just the nature of the beast when we're swamped with electronic and electrical noisemakers from every direction.

With any amplified wide spectrum small loop antenna, the best we can hope for is to orient the nulls toward the worst sources of RFI. Sometimes that helps. Often it doesn't when we're surrounded by RFI from every direction.

If you try enough online receivers and SDRs around the globe, you'll encounter some Wellbrook loops and other highly prized loops that have raspy, buzzy RFI just as bad as anything we can get at home with a portable on the whip, or a bit of random wire strung along the ceiling or dangled outside a window. There's nothing magical about a Wellbrook or any loop in an environment plagued by RFI from every direction.

Same with the PA0RDT amplified mini-whips. Those are only as good as the location, and few online tuners have them mounted high enough to be relatively free of RFI. The popular Twente SDR is among the tiny handful that make good use of the design.

Plenty of online tuners and SDRs claim to be in quiet locations, but few actually are quiet. If they've strung up traditional wire antennas -- slopers, dipoles, doesn't matter -- reception is only as good as their nearest worst neighbor. The best, quietest SDRs tend to either be in remote locations, or very directional, such as aimed across the Atlantic or Pacific from either coast, with a few lobes off the backs that make domestic US reception possible. Those are often remarkably quiet because the designs tend to ignore the local RFI. The HFU accessible SDR with 250 foot V-beam aimed across the Atlantic is one such example, being among the quietest in the world of all the SDRs I've tried. But it depends on lobes off the back, small apertures of sensitivity toward US transmitters.

In 15 years in the same apartment battling RFI from neighbors' devices to faulty electrical power sources, to the nearby fire department, I've had the best results from homebrewed passive shielded loop antennas. See: https://swling.com/blog/tag/pixel-shielded-magnetic-receive-only-loop/ and other articles.

None of my radios -- various portables including a Sony ICF-2010, and Palstar R30C sorta-tabletop/portable-ish hybrid -- needs an antenna amplifier. All of them have far more sensitivity than necessary, even on low/attenuated. That includes using the external antenna jack on the Sony, which is only slightly less sensitive than the whip.

Speaking of whips, through trial and error I discovered My Sony ICF-2010 portable is remarkably directional with the whip. Aim the tip of the whip antenna toward the worst local RFI and there's a null. Likewise, orienting the whip horizontally -- parallel with the ground -- is the quietest setting. Also the least sensitive, but it's often easier to actually copy the faint signal with reduced noise.

There are many designs for homebrewed loop antennas, including at least one that doesn't even look like a conventional loop -- the Villard antenna, which is just sheets of aluminum foil mounted on a large sheet of cardboard, plywood, foamcore or gatorboard. The Joe Carr receiving antenna book published in the 1990s includes most of these designs.

These can be tuned by adding a tuning capacitor. Some, like the Villard, and this ugly but functional doodad (https://www.eham.net/article/40484), use overlapping sheets of aluminum foil with non-conductive spacers between the foil -- a sheet of paper, plastic, whatever you have available.

If you don't want to bother with a capacitor, or don't have one handy, too pricey, whatever, you can build the loop to dimensions tuned for the desired band. Optimal reception will be fairly narrow, with good reception possible at other bands scattered across the HF and MW spectrum. With trial and error you can build a very quiet, direction, functional passive shielded loop from nothing but old TV coaxial cable, an adaptor to suit the antenna jack on your receiver, and a place to hang or mount the ugly mess of coax. I used such a fugly loop for years, mounted on the inside of a closet door. The swinging door added directionality to null out the worst local RFI, and I could close the door to hide the antenna from snoopy landlords, maintenance crews and building inspectors who couldn't cite any valid reason not to have an indoor receive-only antenna, but thought there was something suspicious about it. Keep in mind that changing in communications devices have made "radio" a foreign object used only by misfit nerds and spies, as far as most folks are concerned.

Another version that worked even better -- although not an indoor loop -- was a stealth loop fastened to the inside of a wooden fence outside my ground floor apartment window. The loop was nothing but very thin magnet wire, in a roughly square shape, 8 feet along each side, following the dimensions of the fence (I used screws, nails or cup hooks, whatever was handy, to wrap the wire in a large "loop" shape). The wire ends were fastened to an old fashioned TV balun. I ran old TV coax, often scrounged from the dumpster, along the ground next to the building, tucked into the dirt. Then up the wall to a window with the sash cracked open just a bit (thumbscrew sash locks used to discourage burglars), and to the receiver. That loop nulled off the edges (opposite of most small loops, which null off the open faces), effectively nulling out the worst RFI from the parking lot and building lights. Worked great, until the apartment complex maintenance crews found it and tore it down. Which is why I built these from the cheapest materials available. I bought a bunch of magnet wire cheap from the local Radio Shack outlet store years ago. And I scrounged the TV coax and baluns from the dumpster after tenants moved, died or were evicted. So I didn't have more than a couple of dollars sunk into any outdoor passive loop. The only problem with that design now is TV baluns are hardly ever in demand or used anymore. I could use a proper homebrewed balun designed for HF, but the TV baluns worked despite not being optimized for HF.

The best performing versions of my loops were remarkably quiet, enough to reduce local RFI to just above the receiver's built-in noise floor, a sort of white noise low hiss. That enabled leaving the receiver on 24/7 with the volume just high enough to catch the faint sound of a pirate or other signal on 6925, 6955, etc. Rigged to an SDR we could just go by the visual cues onscreen.

The only downside was these passive loops picked up only fairly strong signals, and were more prone to fading. But there was a lot less tiresome RFI.

99
15 Nov 2022
6950 AM
0230z Timothy Leary chatter over psychedelic music.
0238z Exile, Kiss You All Over
Very good via Utah SDR. SINPO 44333
0245z steep fade during R&B song, still audible enough to copy familiar songs, ARS,  Alien
0253z Diamondback, Good Old Days, SINPO 44322 now, occasional strong peaks but condx r teh sux
0301z Carly Simon, Grownup, still approx SINPO 44322, good peaks, deep fades
0314z Blondie, Rapture, still occasional good peaks through deep fades
0329z Dan Fogelberg, Windows and Walls, SINPO 44333, conditions a bit steadier now
0333z RPM45 ID, variations of Romeo Papa Mike 45, etc., and off

Just a faint carrier via the home receiver as of 0230. Nary a peep of a hint of a carrier by 0300z.

Off air recording of final 10 minutes with ID, via Utah SDR: https://archive.org/details/rpm-45-shortwave-pirate-utah-sdr-15-nov-2022-0315-0333-utc-6950-am

100
6869 USB
0032z just barely audible to indoor portable, sounds like Talking Heads, Psycho Killer
0050z Argent, Hold Your Head Up, very good to Utah SDR, still just barely audible via home portable
0054z Radio 48 ID via Utah SDR, music with CW under music
0100z Willie and the Hand Jive just barely audible via home portable, very good via Utah SDR
0103z Radio 48 ID, Larry Verne "Mr Custer"
0155z some version of Louie Louie, audible via indoor portable at home
0204z Manhattans, Kiss and Say Goodbye, signal peaking a bit more, indoor portable
0210z Grass Roots, Let's Live For Today
0212z Radio 48 ID, email address, CW, YL voice, SSTV
0222z faded out or off, good while it lasted tho

101
6880 USB
0005z sounds like Jethro Tull, fair to good via Sony ICF2010 indoor portable on the whip. Getting a bit stronger since I tuned in about five minutes ago.
0026z SSTV, no copy to portable. Signal fading, occasional stronger peaks. Music still sounds like Jethro Tull.

102
I wonder what T.S. Eliot would make of pirate radio? He didn't think much of being shelled on the Western Front in 1916.

I think Eliot might have enjoyed Dr. Benway with Undercover Radio.

103
Same since just after 0300 UTC, 6960 AM, fair via Utah SDR, only occasionally audible via California SDR. Not a peep via home receiver. Occasional ute QRM just above 6960, probably OTHR.
0330z band went bye-bye very quickly, just a carrier visible on waterfalls of every SDR I've tried around the US since 0315z. Hamster ragchew bands on 40m are dead too, only a couple of powerhouse ops audible tonight.
0333z spoke too soon, music just barely audible between fades in California. I'll leave it on that SDR for awhile and see if things develop.
0405z audio still occasionally trying to sneak through between fades via California SDR
0409z sounds like version of Girl From Ipanema on flute
0430z sounds like Doors, Love Me Two Times, just barely audible for a couple of seconds now and then

104
Whew! I hadn't heard that old Eddy Arnold tear-jerker since Slim Whitman was making the down payments on his first Nudie suit.
And inspired Gram Parsons to don the Nudie suit before launching the inaugural desert Burning Man festival.

105
0100 UTC Wolverine Radio on 6950 USB surprisingly strong to indoor portable on the whip near a window with fairly low RFI.

Turn theme, Tossing and Turning, Judy's Turn to Cry, Byrds Turn, Turn, Turn, others.
0125z Fleetwood Mac, World Turning, coming in strongly enough I can hear it via my portable in the other room. Gotta separate radio from my noisy laptop, kicks up more RFI than my desktop.
0135z Whoa, signal improving to indoor portable. Now I remember why my radio shack used to be located by that particular bedroom window. Only place in this apartment with a sweet spot that's relatively free of RFI.
0200z final Wolverine Radio ID, SSTV, no copy here on the portable. Great signal though.

SINPO 34323 to Sony ICF 2010 indoor portable.

Fair via an east coast SDR, booming into Utah SDR.

Short off-air clip via Utah SDR: https://archive.org/details/wolverine-radio-turn-theme-13-nov-2022-0100-utc-6950-usb

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 [7] 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 ... 157