[Lf] Re: Beacon reception

[Andre' Kesteloot]

"Jon M. Schumacher" wrote:

> Andre,I copied your AMRAD beacon here in Hollywood, MD today !

kudos, if you send me your address, I will send you an actual QSL card
!

> Actually, it was quite strong as would be expected  with the high
> power you are running on 136.75 Khz.  I thought the horizontal
> antenna might prevent me from hearing you, but once I got things set
> up properly, there it was.
> this antenna is indeed fairly strange, and we are considering
> replacing it with a vertical witha top capacitor
>  I am using a homebrew (Palomar clone) upconverter and Pi-section
> low-pass filter feeding a Tentec Paragon in the 3.6-4.2 Mhz range.
> The 250 cycle IF filter plus sharp audio filter bring it right up
> out of the noise, although it is good copy with a normal bandpass.
> The receive antenna is a 135 foot dipole with 60 feet of vertical
> open-wire feedline which I clip-lead to my Pi-filter input.  I can
> imagine how powerful you would be if you were running a base-loaded
> vertical fed against a good ground.  Your daytime propagation might
> be several hundred miles (maybe several thousand at night).

we have been heard booming in London Ontario last month


>  I ran LF beacons "NV" and "NVA" on 177 Khz. from southern Nevada in
> the late 1980's with good success from a rural desert location.
> With the one-watt input, 50 ft. antenna rules, we could hear
> well-equipped stations out to a couple of hundred miles at midday.
> Mike Mideke near San Luis Obispo was conscientious about maintaining
> the one watt limit and we could hear him consistently in daylight at
> Mercury, Nevada with a big receive antenna and modified Collins
> 51S-1.

wow

>  My own beacon, NVA was heard quite extensively when I used a 100
> watt PA for a short time.  It was copied in Louisiana, Michigan,
> Illinois, Arizona, California, and Nevada.

why don't you invoke the 5th amendment  first ?  :-)

> The one-watt power limit is definitely a severe limit so I hope that
> we can get an official sanction to use 137, and the 160-190 Khz.
> bands as official amateur allocations.

we are all hoping for it. The FCC appears to take its time. Better not
to push them, IMHO

>  Ah, those were the days;  but I look forward to some good things in
> the future.  Keep up the interesting work.  I will try to get going
> again here.

LF is REAL fun, and we are all rediscovering radio  (and some if its
mysteries...)

> 73,  Jon M. Schumacher (K1NV)     Hollywood, MD     (301)-373-6958
> (home)

PS, if you want you are most welcome to join our LF reflector   <
lf at amrad.org> per info below
73
Andre' N4ICK

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