Testing

[jFarley]

Doing a dress rehearsal on the remote Ferrite NDB Loop today preparatory to getting it sited outdoors.  Maybe next week.  Here we were able to run the loop at the end of a 50 foot cable set (power, RF coax, and communications which is a CAT5 cable employing a pair of USB to CAT5 converters.)  Able to log quite a few locals even though the Ferrite Loop is sitting just above the basement floor in a pretty noisy environment.

All logs 1800-1900z.

212    VP    Valparaiso, IN
251    JZY   Macomb, IL
272    IK     Kankakee, IL
275    RF    Rockford, IL
293    UI    Quincy, IL
329    AAA  Lincoln, IL
334    LH    Bloomington, IL
356    IUL   LaPorte, IN
356    PI     Peoria, IL
379    UG    Waukegan, IL
382    SP     Springfield, IL
389    EN    Kenosha, WI

And no exceptions thrown in the software today!

[ChrisSmolinski]

Looks good! I did some listening with my beverage for 48 meters (which is more like an isotropic point source antenna at long wave) in June, and was surprised how much I could hear with it. My sky loop is deaf on LW, probably because it is a dead short down there.

A question for you or any other NDB hunters: Do you know of a good listing of beacons, that includes their location (lat/lon)? I'd like to put something together so you can enter in your location, and determine the distance (and bearing) to beacons.

[jFarley]

Hey, Chris; the best is the RNA list.

http://www.classaxe.com/dx/ndb/rna/

Most entries contain a Maidenhead locator in the GSQ column.  I use that in my app, and it is pretty easy to compute the Lat/Long from the locator.  From there, computation of bearing and range is straightforward.

[refmo]

The RNA list is good, but I usually gravitate toward this site because of the easy to see lat/long in degrees/minutes/seconds.....

http://www.dxinfocentre.com/ndb.htm

[jFarley]

I have had the Ferrite NDB loop outdoors for a week now, and things are looking good with one major exception.  I lost my noise floor to the tune of ~20dB, and this would be a game-ender if not solved.  It was quickly determined that I had a major ground loop problem due to the fact that the loop is serviced by 3 long cables (power, RF coax, and a data cable) each with their own ground. 

To date, the most effective solution has been isolating the RF ground by place a 1:1 isolation transformer (8+8 turns on an FT-190-J core) in the RF return signal path from the loop amp.  This has provided relief to the point where the ground loop noise created by the USB link is now dominant, and is probably creating a noise floor about 6dB above where I think it should be.  Hopefully, maybe a USB Isolator will help to clean up the rest of the noise/garbage, but for the time being, I can live with the current floor.

I have been waiting for a dead-cat bounce on solar activity, but that apparently is not happening.  Conditions were good enough to get some reasonable logs yesterday afternoon/evening.

224.0    MO   Moosonee, ON, CAN (2015-09-17 0051)
230.0    QB   Quebec, QC, CAN (2015-09-17 0055)
245.0    YZE   Gore Bay, ON, CAN (2015-09-16 2045)
248.0    WG   Winnipeg, MB, CAN (2015-09-17 0102)
260.0    YAT   Wapisk' Attawapiskat, ON, CAN (2015-09-17 0108)
326.0    VV   Wiarton, ON, CAN (2015-09-16 2110)
351.0   YKQ   Waskaganish, QC, CAN (2015-09-17 0111)
353.0   QG   Saint Clair Beach (Windsor), ON, CAN (2015-09-17 0112)
362.0   SB   Sudbury, ON, CAN (2015-09-17 0115)
366.0   YMW   Maniwaki, QC, CAN (2015-09-17 0116)
371.0   GW   Jarpik Kuujjuarapik, QC, CAN (2015-09-17 0120)
381.5   SJX   St James' Beaver Island, MI, USA (2015-09-17 0124)
382.0   YPL   Pickle Lake, ON, CAN (2015-09-17 0125)
396.0   YPH   Inukjuak, QC, CAN (2015-09-17 0127)

Nothing really astounding, but the fact that YZE 245 and VV 326 were logged well before local sunset is interesting.  I also had the opportunity to test nulling ability using a Radio Shack Rotator.  In most cases, nulls or depressions of typically 24dB were attained via loop rotation, and this should be a great help when the season really gets going.