Possible insight in to the Hiker beacon

[tesla]

I don't actually know the source but of recent info I received third party info.
relative to the hiker.  The original maker of the beacon no longer has the beacon.
It is often activated while in an old Willies WW2 jeep with a vertical antenna.
Power levels can be varied from a few Milliwatts up to a watt.   

It is also placed at a remote locations,  there are three locations with very low dipoles that
remain at the locations.  When operating from these locations 100Mw is the power.

That's all I know and I cannot say it is even accurate. Strange stuff I suppose.

[ChrisSmolinski]

Very interesting, thanks for sharing.

It's interesting how beacons tend to be a west coast phenomena.

[Teotwaki]

We don't have much snow to deal with and have some remote, desolate and wide open spaces where a beacon and long wire antenna might never be found   

[ChrisSmolinski]

We don't have much snow to deal with and have some remote, desolate and wide open spaces where a beacon and long wire antenna might never be found   

Yes, I am sure that helps a lot. Not easy to set up a beacon here when the solar panel would be covered by snow part of the year, and it is often overcast and rainy. 

It's a pity there are not more beacons on higher frequencies. 2, 4, and 6 MHz are tough, even at night, with the low power levels and high static levels. I may have to check out the 13560 kHz region again, and see if there's anything new there. I keep meaning to set up a Part 15 beacon there. Maybe I will one of these years 

[MDK2]

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.

[Teotwaki]

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

[ChrisSmolinski]

Your best bet is possibly A on 2097. It puts out a hefty signal, here on the East Coast I can hear it most mornings. I have heard rumors it runs about 20 watts.  I used to be able to hear the 8 and 11 MHz beacons from CO fairly well when they were on the air. Maybe they still are, but I cannot hear them any longer. Of course I can't hear the 4096 cluster any longer either, except under rare occasions, and they used to be regulars, so maybe it is me (or my antenna). 

[MDK2]

Thank you gents. My main receive is a Grundig Satellit 750 and the longwire is about 45-50 stretched straight across my roof, and then hooks down another 20' or so straight into my window and into the receiver, which has a speaker wire type connection. It's very low tech.    I'm going to homebrew a magnetic loop following a link I got from DJ Dickweed, but I've been slowly gathering the materials and been waiting for a good day to do it. It should be big enough to help with lower band reception. The problem with the 750 is that it's very sensitive to the local AM (MW) transmissions in the lower SW frequencies. Sometimes WWV at 2500 or CHU at 3330 power in enough in to be listenable, but otherwise anything much below 3500 is an unlistenable mess, even when using the internal antenna.

As for 3500-10000, those bands just tend to have a lot of interference in general for me, although it decreases as I go up and pretty much is not a factor at all about 13500. Any signal with good power overcomes the interference but weak or distant ones can be a struggle. I may be able to get a longer and higher longwire put up along another angle (I hear that it's good to get 1/4 wavelength or so above the ground, which is pretty high when your wavelength is 60m) but I may just need to get something professional. I live in the city about 10 miles from the center, decent amount of land but restricted by the fact that my house powerline cuts across my back yard diagonally, so things like G5RV Jrs or horizontal loops are pretty much ruled out if I don't want to risk electrocution.

At some point I want to get an SDR (probably the SDRplay since it looks like it gives a lot of bang for the buck), and I've been tipped to a couple of horizontal antennas that may just work. I'll see what the magnetic loop does for me first, and perhaps that second longer longwire.

[tesla]

0230 utc   Q5 hardly any fades into the static

[tesla]

May 31....7998.4 khz  time 1300 utc  very weak copy just occasional fad ups ...

[ChrisSmolinski]

After quite a few weeks of trying... I am finally hearing Hiker at 1257z on 7998.42. Quite a lot of fading, but every so often a nice signal. 

The long period mystery dasher up around 8000.3 is also present this morning.

[Teotwaki]

That is cool! I wonder if the Hiker transmitter-in-a-Jeep was up and running for the holiday week?

[tesla]

I got an e mail from a swler just a few mins ago and he has it strong in Utah, so I turned on the receiver and there it is...
time is 0155 utc... maybe you can hear it also...

[Teotwaki]

Thanks for the heads up!!

7998.410 KHz  Hiker beacon, fair signal then fades down to barely readable.

[chucks]

Hi all, just read the posts and thought I would go have a look and see what I could hear.
7998.40  a dasher, a dash every 3 seconds.
weak visually in the water fall but with some good peaks and
on the peaks it was audible for several pluses.
this is the first I've listened for a beacon in some time, I used to
listen all the time. I will have to go up the hfer band and listen
for aa0rq.

Chucks
Harrisburg Pa