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HF Beacons / Re: Possible insight in to the Hiker beacon
« on: May 13, 2016, 1507 UTC »At power levels so low, what does it take to receive the signals if you're not near the transmitter? I've attempted to find some of these signals but no luck so far. I know part of my issue is that my longwire doesn't do so well with weak or distant signals much below 49 m (and that band can be tough too), and my receivers can only be tuned in 1 kHz increments. Still, with such restrictions can I reasonably expect to hear these beacons when propagation is good? I'm in Denver CO.
Can you share more about your antenna? Dimensions, feedline, tuner?
What is the narrowest receiver bandwidth for CW mode?
Basically you have a receiving system and if you cannot have a perfect receiver then you try to improve the gain of the antenna.
Also try listening at different times of day such as before and after dawn, midday and before and after sunset. A couple of years back I was in the San Juan mountains of Colorado and received these with a less than perfect antenna but a good receiver:
2097 "A" beacon, weak but clear
4094.5 "X" beacon, clear and weak with slight fading
4096.24 Hexie with the 1 second dash
From some older notes there may be some beacons in Colorado. Token posted some YouTube videos here
8000.5 kHz, S: YouTube - Pirate beacon, "S" in Colorado, September 05, 2010, 8000.5 kHz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE49nzA8Y6k
11003.45 kHz, I think this is Echo: YouTube - Pirate beacon, "Echo" in Colorado, September 05, 2010, 11003.45 kHz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwYWX37qTMc
I have found it helps a lot if you know what to listen for. Here are two lists of YouTube audio recordings of beacons
http://www.hfunderground.com/board/index.php/topic,19965.0.html
http://forums.radioreference.com/hf-mw-lw-general-discussion/190582-few-pirate-beacon-reception-videos-i-put-youtube.html#post1379971
