Messages

811

North American MW Pirate Radio / Re: Throwback90s 1710 AM 0125 UTC 24 Oct 2020

« on: October 24, 2020, 2018 UTC »

Huh... I was wondering if we were going to start hearing pirates again on 1710kHz and 1720kHz. And, looks like the answer is, yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssssssssss.

812

MW Loggings / DX Test This Sat Night/Sun Morn WNJC 1360?

« on: October 23, 2020, 1910 UTC »

Ripped from The FRN:

Just got an email with the following info:

DX Test This Saturday Night/Sunday Morning-- WNJC 1360, Washington Township, NJ

Heard from several active and retired engineers who are interested in DX Tests. Thought you professionals might enjoy hearing about a DX Test coming up tomorrow night. Here are the details from WNJC 1360 in Washington Township, NJ. They will be conducting a DX Test tomorrow night into Sunday morning for our clubs:

WNJC 1360 DX TEST-- SATURDAY OCTOBER 17 INTO SUNDAY MORNING OCTOBER 18

"04:00 UTC-Midnight Eastern- WNJC will conduct the DX audio test using Morse Code and sweep tones continuing on our nighttime pattern.

At 0500 UTC- 1 AM Eastern I will be switching to our daytime pattern at 5kw using 4 towers directional to SSE with the DX audio test concluding at 0600 UTC. From 0600 - 1000 UTC I will be leaving the transmitter in daytime mode
but be playing a mix of 80s - 2010 pop, rock, dance, country and whatever else I grew up listening to and feel like playing.

Listen for the sweepers between songs of movie & tv show clips along with our voice-over guy."

WNJC has tested previously and been heard as far away as the West Coast of the United States and Canada. Their test signals have also been received in the UK, Norway, and Spain. Listen for their signal if you get the chance.

73,
Les Rayburn, N1LF

Also another person added:

From what I found on the web, WNJC has been running DX tests quite often during September and October. They have even sent some FT-8.

I can remember when DX tests were quite common and well publicized by the radio clubs. It was quite common on a Sunday morning when a high power station would go off the air for transmitter maintenance and then the lower power stations on the same frequency could be heard and would have special dx tests.

Don't see this happening much anymore.

73
Bill

813

Amateur Radio / CQ World Wide DX Contest this weekend!

« on: October 22, 2020, 1849 UTC »

With that cold snap coming through this weekend in the northern states, this might be worth checking out,     https://www.cqww.com/rules.htm

814

General Radio Discussion / Re: Radio Summer

« on: October 21, 2020, 1802 UTC »

Being from Poland, do you have a presence on   https://vk.com/    ?

815

Part 15 AM and FM Station Operation / Re: You can roll your own

« on: October 17, 2020, 1818 UTC »

I have, for the 22M 13MHz band in AM,    http://boomerthedog.net/13560.html      That 2mW, (Ooooooooo, what a flame thrower!), actually covers a few miles to anyone RX'ing with the decent 20M antenna set-up. It was all trashed and recycled parts, except for the 13.560MHz crystal, that was provided by Fearless Fred. (A very nice donation, indeed!) However, I'm not using that anytime soon. Why??? The 22M Beacon freaks went apeschytt on me. Even Glenn Hauser e-mailed to me that it was a bad idea for me to use this mW AM TX. So, O.F.W... However, it was a neat and fun experiment, for a while. So, what's next? An old idea, coming of new, again. A Layman's, Plug & Play, AM Carrier-Current, Medium Wave, Transmitter. And, we have several existing choice ideas to build prototypes from. Stay tuned!!!!!! (Literally.) 

816

Amateur Radio / Re: 2M SSB

« on: October 17, 2020, 1800 UTC »

What I wished gained more traction is 222MHz SSB. Nothing around to desense you, except maybe if you are next to the VHF TV CH13 transmitter tower. 222MHz is more sensitive to Tropo as well. Unfortunately, I'm in a terrible location for 432MHz SSB, bottom of a river valley and lots of foliage. 2M SSB is planned for a make-over where I am, with only a 3 ele beam, (To start.), and extra RX preamps. I do have a 2M 140W Mirage amp as well, so I can certainly play on 2M SSB in my decent directions.

817

General Radio Discussion / Re: 1710 WQFG689 Hudson County TIS is broken again

« on: October 15, 2020, 1822 UTC »

Yeah... I heard that last night on the drive to work. It does make for a neat propagational beacon, though. (Hi-hi...)

818

Amateur Radio / Re: ISS with Crossband repeater! Is it down?

« on: October 15, 2020, 1820 UTC »

From KE8ODG:     "I can’t remember who spoke about not being able to hear the ISS. So, I’ll post here.
If you click the link below it will show all the available satellites. The ISS has been reported offline for the past few days. You can also click on the numbers in each column and see the reports. Below that, you can also report on them.

https://www.amsat.org/status/

Hope this helps, KE8ODG"
Yeah... Come to think of it, I haven't heard ISS for a while on 437.800MHz FM, either.

819

The RF Workbench / Re: ICOM AD-55 power supply output voltage adjustment

« on: October 14, 2020, 1851 UTC »

Wow... Somethin' ain't right there. Well, open that up and look for, either an adjustment POT, or for cold solder joints by a Zener Diode, or an LM78##-like Voltage Regulator. Just for the heck of it, have you put it to a load, like a 12VDC light bulb, and measured the voltage under load? Not having that power supply myself, I'm just speculating, but hopefully enough to help.

820

VHF/UHF Logs, including satellites and radiosondes / Re: VHF Aircraft Communications? Chit-chat FREQ.

« on: October 11, 2020, 2155 UTC »

Wanna' fun aviation FREQ to check out? Listen anytime on 123.450MHz AM. That's like the CB CH19 equivalent for air traffic. At 2AM, you can hear cargo planes talking like truckers from several states away. Ya never know what, or whom, you might hear on that FREQ.

821

The RF Workbench / Re: 100W Linear PA for the FM Band?

« on: October 10, 2020, 1716 UTC »

I certainly can see the VHF-High version as the perfect 2M FM HT amp. Duty cycle would be right for two-way, than full bore for broadcasting.

822

The RF Workbench / Tecsun PL-990X/PL-330 New Hidden Feature

« on: October 09, 2020, 1907 UTC »

Did anyone else know about this?     https://radiojayallen.com/2020/10/09/tecsun-pl-990x-pl-330-new-hidden-feature/

823

The RF Workbench / Re: Watch out for those cheap components

« on: October 07, 2020, 1814 UTC »

Ehhh??? Huh... Well, one way you could tell that you're getting a 3W carbon resistor, instead of a ceramic wire-wound 5W, is put an inductance checker to it. Look at it this way, at least you could probably use these on RF applications. But, still... Almost makes you not want to break open that carbon resistor, to find out just what's inside that. Hmmmmm, a piece of Tungsten???

824

Part 15 AM and FM Station Operation / Re: Part 15 EAS kinda?

« on: October 06, 2020, 0623 UTC »

Laugh In German soldier says, "Very interesting..." I've heard the local 2M COVID-19 Net talk about this devices, when they switched to radio-like topics, and summer storms. I suppose you could get it to switch on a NOAA Weather Radio, or a cheap scanner running the NOAA VHF FREQ's. C'est possible. My question is, would an arc welder close-by set it off as a false warning? 

825

MW Loggings / WGN 720AM, from inside a sheet metal building, booming in.

« on: October 02, 2020, 1650 UTC »

The talk station that I wanted to listen too last night suddenly went off-air just after 4PM. So, pissed with sports radio, until dark. Then, tuned around on a cheap POS QFX portable that I have there. To my surprise, Chicago's WGN just boomed right in for the last 2hrs of work. And, that's inside a steel building, where my AM RX'ing is very limited. So is my FM. I've heard folks say that AM DX'ing seems to be much better now, and I guess so. However, Cleveland's 1100WTAM has been a hard catch at night, lately. Must be too close at 300 miles away, where as WGN is about 500 miles from me.