[Lf] use of Liaison

[Andre' Kesteloot]

Peter Dodd wrote:

> On the 10th of March I received an e-mail from Alan Melia saying that
> Brian Rogerson, CT1DRP, was in a position to receive 73kHz signals;
> although all he had heard to that date was Rugby. Brian was keen to
> try to receive amateur signals on this band before it was withdrawn
> (due for the end of June 2000 at the time).
>
> After an initial exchange of e-mails I agreed to transmit QRSS
> signals on 71.8kHz but the results were negative.
>
> I then asked Brian to send me a .JPG of his Spectrogram screen. The
> display was a mess with masses of electrical QRM.
>
> In a series of e-mail exchanges I passed  to Brian the collective LF
> group wisdom (G4GVC et al)  for improving the receive system. This
> included improving the antenna resonating and matching and extending
> the ground system. The e-mails received from Brian showed intelligent
> response to the advice and  the .JPG images continuing improvement in results.
>
> On the 5th of April I received an e-mail from Brian, with an attached
> .JPG, saying "was this you".
> It certainly was, although only readability 'T'; more recognizable
> from the frequency characteristics on keying than the data!
>
> On the 10th of April I received a further .JPG from Brian showing my
> the 72kHz side of my cross-band QSO with I5TGC, this time readability 'O'.
>
> The reason for describing this saga in detail is to show the value of
> liaison for propagating LF experience, particularly  if you are
> trying to achieve a long distance contact over over a path whose
> characteristics are not well known. When you realise that Brian had
> not received any amateur signal until the 5th of April,  to receive a
> 30mW signal over 1200km as his first received amateur signal was
> quite an achievement.
>
> Could not such a similar procedure be used for the transatlantic path?
>
> --
> Regards, Peter, G3LDO
>
> <g3ldo at zetnet.co.uk>