Messages

61

North American Shortwave Pirate / WFDR 6925 USB 2107 UTC 8 DEC 2021

« on: December 08, 2021, 2108 UTC »

Rebroadcast of news coverage of the 08 December 1941 joint session of Congress.  Good signal (S4+) and audio but faded to noise at 2110Z

62

North American Shortwave Pirate / UNID 6925 AM 1919 UTC 7 DEC 2021

« on: December 07, 2021, 1922 UTC »

Xmas music.  S3 with some static and fades

1919Z: It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas
1921Z: Christmas is just around the corner
1927Z: Its the most wonderful time of the year
1929Z: Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow
1939Z-ish:  OTA

63

Equipment / Re: bigger LOG.....

« on: December 05, 2021, 2108 UTC »

OK, I give up.  Apparently any antenna that runs in my backyard picks up a hell of a lot of QRM from somewhere.  Probably something in my office, but who knows. 

Back to the LOG in the front yard and it's very long coax run. 

64

Equipment / Re: bigger LOG.....

« on: December 05, 2021, 1605 UTC »

going to try one more thing....at the moment my antenna feeds into a balun probably 80 feet from my shack, so there's a pretty significant run of coax between there and my radio.  Since the antenna now goes all the way around the house, i can tap into it probably 6 feet away now.  Will do that, drop the gain, and see what happens. 

At the moment I can run the gain all the way up on 20m, but anything lower and i have to drop it by half and pretty much lose any useful signal. 

65

Shortwave Broadcast / WBCQ? 6160 AM 0430 UTC 05 Dec 2021

« on: December 05, 2021, 0436 UTC »

Schedule says WBCQ or Pyongyang...neither seems right. S3 signal.

0432Z-"Shake your ass" by Blowfly
0435Z-"Portable Radio" by Clout
0438Z-female talking about speaking on the radio w/ male.
0446Z-some odd music mix

Maybe it is WBCQ....the program guide at http://wbcq.com/schedule/ has a more diverse set than I expected...

66

Equipment / Re: bigger LOG.....

« on: December 04, 2021, 2221 UTC »

Noise or overload?  Which SDR? Did you try backing down the gain?

AFEDRI-SDR.  Don't think it's overload, it's not blanketing across the whole spectrum (and, if it matters the SDRDX OVL light isn't flashing!).  I have an AM station close so thought that might be the issue but the HPF is working great as I barely see anything under 2.5MHz even with the gain pushed up. If i drop the gain i lose pretty much even broadcast HF signals....

Thought it might be the hot tub since the antenna runs near that (and my heat pump) but shut those off and the noise persists.  Suppose it could be the neighbor's....

here's one of the 'hot spots'....the noise spikes are about 26.5kHz apart.....

67

Equipment / Re: LOG Not Performing Well

« on: December 04, 2021, 2209 UTC »

I've been using a 8x10m LOG for a few years w/ my AFEDRI-SDR and it's been a decent performer.  It's using 12GA single conductor insulated wire. I do have to pump up the gain all the way on the SDR, however.  I think i'm using a 9:1 balun at the moment.

68

Equipment / Re: bigger LOG.....

« on: December 04, 2021, 2155 UTC »

....aaaaand noise.  Lots and lots of noise.  Put a broadcast HPF on the coax, but that didn't really help .  Tried playing around w/ the gain, and still no joy.  Going to see if it gets better this evening as sometimes there's periodic QRM around the neighborhood.....


This was with the smaller loop...although not this evening.

69

Equipment / bigger LOG.....

« on: December 04, 2021, 1956 UTC »

Getting ready to embark on a great experiment....expanding my current LOG (~8x10m) quite a bit.  Going to run around the house (driveway crossing be damned) for a 35x20m loop. 

Fingers crossed...if it works i'll be able to move my feed line much much closer to the shack in addition to whatever additional benefits a larger antenna might have.....

Now if i can only find my yard staples....

70

Shortwave Broadcast / WINB? 9265 AM 1724 UTC 27 NOV 2021

« on: November 27, 2021, 1729 UTC »

Very weak, mostly just a carrier on the WF with occasional bits of audio.  Tried doing some searches to see if i could eyeball the antenna and, well....it's interesting if I'm looking at the right thing.  The FCC database wasn't much help....anyone know the story here?

EDIT:  that's the feedline...it goes to a rhombic in a nearby field

71

General Radio Discussion / WMLK photos

« on: November 27, 2021, 1239 UTC »

Was on a road trip in PA and (moderately) surprised to see WMLK’s antenna still standing….

72

General Radio Discussion / moderately on topic...no RFI from new humidifier

« on: November 21, 2021, 1827 UTC »

Just purchased a small ultrasonic humidifier for my office since the desert-like humidity levels play havoc with my sinuses.  I was pleasantly surprised that the wall briquette and the device did not hash up my radios....at least the bits of HF, VHF, and UHF I'm currently monitoring. 

That is all!

73

HF Mystery Signals / Re: UNID 6970 2019 UTC 19 NOV 2021--see waterfall

« on: November 21, 2021, 1448 UTC »

Intriguing….were you receiving directly or via a remote SDR?  I’d think they’d want to have as directional a signal as possible, so it raises the question why either of us would pick up if they’re targeting Europe. I guess I might catch some of the NJ signal, and you the CA-ish signal….

I was wondering about data compression but the only thing they need to transmit is a time stamp, the ticker symbol, and the price info…?

74

HF Mystery Signals / UNID 6970 2019 UTC 19 NOV 2021--see waterfall

« on: November 19, 2021, 2023 UTC »

Any ideas...twice these signals appeared simultaneously....

75

North American Shortwave Pirate / UNID 6970 AM 2012 UTC 19 NOV 2021

« on: November 19, 2021, 2013 UTC »

Music, barely above background. ~5kHz bandwidth..