Messages

466

European Pirates and Private Stations / Re: UNID 6305 AM 1737 UTC 30 Nov 2019

« on: November 30, 2019, 1738 UTC »

Yup. Just caught the TX turn on on my waterfall at that time.

TX off at 1745 mid-song....but then back on at 1749 and then off again at ~1753.

467

European Pirates and Private Stations / Re: Unid 3905 AM 1723 utc 30 Nov 2019

« on: November 30, 2019, 1727 UTC »

I noted the same thing at about the same time.
Still an open carrier at 1735 UTC.

468

European Pirates and Private Stations / UNID 6210 AM 1700 UTC 30 Nov 2019

« on: November 30, 2019, 1707 UTC »

U2, "New Year's Day" under heavy STANAG QRM. SINPO 22232 in Sweden.
1719 UTC - Faded down gradually and is now just barely above the noise level. Similar signal level on a UK SDR.

469

European Pirates and Private Stations / Re: Radio Joey (tent.) 6284 AM 1645 utc 30 Nov 2019

« on: November 30, 2019, 1700 UTC »

1700 - Electronic dance music. SINPO 44444 in Sweden.

470

Clandestine Stations / Iran International 6270 AM 1650 UTC 30 Nov 2019

« on: November 30, 2019, 1658 UTC »

Noting jamming underneath today.

471

European Pirates and Private Stations / Re: Coast FM 6230 AM 0841 utc 30 Nov 2019

« on: November 30, 2019, 1655 UTC »

1650 UTC - One of the clandestine stations has just started transmitting on top of Coast FM. Not // to 6270.
1721 UTC - just saw on my waterfall that the clandestine transmitter is gone.

472

General Radio Discussion / Re: Experts address concerns over radio frequency exposure

« on: November 30, 2019, 1651 UTC »

Where I live, all of the meters are 915 MHz Zigbee.  In the sticks, perhaps 3G or 4G.  The meters here constantly ping data, and are aggregated on a neighborhood level and sent back to the power company.  Every few block you will find a box with some whip antennas on it.

Yes, my understanding is that this takes place at 915 MHz. Most of the smart metering that I am aware of has a utility truck driving down the street, polling the individual meters as it passes, for monthly usage data. I'm not aware of the constant aggregation you describe though that would involve less fuel use. 

473

General Radio Discussion / Re: Experts address concerns over radio frequency exposure

« on: November 29, 2019, 1908 UTC »

People just willingly allowing the power company to piut these newer SMART METERS (Which are 4G cell meters) -- Thier whole house is a big cell signal bombarding them constantly!! (And making havoc on radio)

Actually, I'm not aware of them using 4G (LTE) frequencies for this. Also, the meter on your house only transmits in response to a transmission initiated from a truck in front of your house. So it's not "constantly bombarding" anything.

474

Clandestine Stations / Iran International 6270 AM 1845 UTC 29 November 2019

« on: November 29, 2019, 1900 UTC »

They have been moving through the 48 meter band and today they are on 6270 KHz.

I have made several runs with TDoA using multiple receiving sites and I get reasonably consistent results that the transmitter is located somewhere within a few hundred km of Tashkent, Uzbekistan. That could mean that it is not in Uzbekistan; it could also be in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan or Kazakhstan.

475

General Radio Discussion / Re: Experts address concerns over radio frequency exposure

« on: November 29, 2019, 0844 UTC »

I don't understand the fixation on using higher frequencies. Just use more power and bandwidth instead.

I guess that I don't understand your comment. 5G will use 400 or 1000 MHz of bandwidth, far more bandwidth than conventional LTE. The only way that they can get access to that much bandwidth is to move to mmWave frequencies.

The cost will be lower also because then they won't have to install a base station every couple of feet (I'm exaggerating, but you see the point.) and can use existing infrastructure.

The part that you are missing is that conventional base station technology is pretty much at the limit of what it can do from the perspectives of RF power, bandwidth, and thermal considerations. In order to meet expected data demands, they would have to burn a lot more power in an attempt to approach the data demands of the future but then it still would not really be possible to achieve given the bandwidth limitations of LTE.

Using 400-800 MHz seems the smartest to me because the antenna is about the size of the phone itself and a relatively efficient antenna can be made, but with these crazy high frequencies, it's not going to go very far at all. If they just use the best QAM with wide bandwidth and high compression, they should be able to make it work on the existing frequencies.

The thousands of people around the world working on this for a living reached the conclusion long ago that the data demands asked for in the future cannot be met with LTE. So they are all wrong?

476

General Radio Discussion / Re: Experts address concerns over radio frequency exposure

« on: November 29, 2019, 0725 UTC »

It's my understanding that 5G has been proposed to be installed in street lamps, and when you think about it, that's about the distance between 5G sites that they want to cover, (More like bathe.), us in the mm wavelength.

Yes, that has been the discussion. "Shower heads" at street intersections is exactly what I am hearing.

and when you think about it, that's about the distance between 5G sites that they want to cover, (More like bathe.), us in the mm wavelength. Until now, the strongest mm signals that we've been exposed too is 5.8GHz with Part #15 phones, baby monitors, etc. Most everything else up at the mm wavelength has been point to point with dish antennas, thus making it pretty much harmless. However, the idea of cranking up the power to several watts ERP, to over come the low gain of personal device antennas for only a few hundred feet, could be of grave concern.

Hold on.

Keep in mind that given the huge RF path loss at 26/28/39 GHz, the base station antennas will have to form a pretty tight, steerable beam just to keep the signal-to-noise ratio reasonable over the proposed wide bandwidths. So the base stations won't be flinging energy everywhere with reckless abandon. If you aren't using a mobile device or in the path between the base station antenna and the mobile device, the signal will be greatly attenuated.

Also, the TX power is generally expressed in this realm as EIRP (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_radiated_power) - not just ERP, so there's an additional 2.15 dB of margin.

In addition, you've got some time. The equipment manufacturers are finding it harder than originally anticipated to deliver 5G signals at mmWave with the quality of service expected to moving mobile devices, so expect the rollout of 5G at 26/28 GHz to come later than originally expected. (In case anyone cares, the 5G that Verizon is rolling out in test cities in the U.S. and that the Chinese are rolling out soon is below 6 GHz, with a much lower bandwidth than the full-blown 26/28 GHz version to come later.)

On the other hand, because of the difficulties in delivering good quality of service to mobile devices and the subsequent delay in rollout, people are now looking at using 26/28 GHz for "fixed wireless access". Think of it as your ISP delivering high-data-rate service to your house by putting a 28 GHz, 400/1000 MHz bandwidth base station on a pole in front of your house, taking the place of Wi-fi. Then I suppose there is some risk if you are right in the path.

477

Equipment / Re: Put away your slingshots and arrows, get a Big Shot

« on: November 22, 2019, 0200 UTC »

I was initially having trouble understanding how you use this thing but the photo in the Amazon ad cleared that up I think.

Correct me if I am wrong but it appears that the two 4 foot poles are together to make an 8 foot pole and you pull back the slingshot over that distance. Wow. That's bigger than any slingshot I have ever tried to use.

478

SDR - Software Defined Radio / Re: Automatic clarifying of SSB signal with SDR ?

« on: November 21, 2019, 2146 UTC »

finding the strongest tones in the passband,
then looking to find the harmonically related ones,
then computing the exact missing carrier frequency,

I think that there are many potential pitfalls with this:

• Is the modulation composed of voice or music or both?
• If the fundamental tone is greater than ~1.5 KHz, the second harmonic might be severely attenuated.
• Depending upon the audio circuitry, the odd harmonics (3rd, 5th) might be stronger than the even ones (2nd, 4th). How do you know which is which?
• As you noted, selective fading could throw a spanner in the works.

479

European Pirates and Private Stations / Re: Charleston Radio Int. 5140>5135 AM 1802 utc 21 Nov 20019

« on: November 21, 2019, 2118 UTC »

Maybe the problem is with that German SDR ?

That would be unlikely as everything else appears to be quite normal. I think that propagation is just different today.

480

European Pirates and Private Stations / Re: Charleston Radio Int. 5140>5135 AM 1802 utc 21 Nov 20019

« on: November 21, 2019, 2055 UTC »

Not hearing at 1850 UTC in an SDR in Germany. No sign of a signal in 5130-5145 KHz.

Still not hearing it. Switched to Austria and it's loud and clear there.