uncle arnie wrote:

running dogg wrote:

uncle arnie wrote:

running dogg wrote:

It used to be that I could hear morning prayers from Saudi Arabia on
15170 starting around 0300-Passport says it's a three hour broadcast,
but it usually fades out around 0430-0500 as the sun rises over Saudi
Arabia. So I tried it last night, and there was nothing. I tried SSB,
and there was no hint of a signal. I used to listen to this station
every so often for a while after 9-11, but I hadn't tuned in in about a
year to a year and a half. It would be weak but readable, but
conditions have been so terrible lately that I'm not surprised that I
can't hear it. What a winter-I've barely been able to hear the BBC,
much less anything not beamed my direction.

Where are you located? I've head quite good BBC to americas, BBC to
Africa, Australia to pacific, Japan, China and a few others for the past
10 days or
so. I'm at 53N 102W, in Saskatchewan. Listening with an R75 and 100m
(~110 yds) of wire. Most of this listening is around 0400 and then again
round about 1200 UTC. (evening and morning here locally)

I'm listening around 0300 on 5975 and 9525 khz. I keep getting a racket
on 9525 that drowns out the BBC that must be coming from somewhere in my
immediate vicinity. Someone suggested dimmer switches, and while I don't
have any I can't speak for any of the neighbors. 5975 seems to come in
good, although it has a level of noise that makes it necessary to listen
with SSB. I'm located in Sacramento, California, about 90 miles inland
from San Francisco. I'm using a FRG-8800 with about 50 feet of wire. I
haven't tried any of BBC's other streams. Maybe I'll do that tonight.

I do well with 6005 Africa stream which I think starts at 0500 and also
6135. I also get RN from Sackville nicely on 6165.

I've read about "broadband over powerlines". If I have this right, this is
internet signal on electric wires. Don't know it that has actually started
to happen down there - we're not proposed for that here. We have deeply
buried utilities (water, sewer, electric, phone, cable). They have to put
these down deep enough so that they don't freeze, which means we are well
shielded from interference. These are down about 3 metres or almost 10
feet. One of the few benefits of these long winter nights, though today
was actually great, at about -8C / 18 F. I can tell when my one neighbour
is vacuuming however and running the something else, I think may be a
blender. I may ask and do an experiment....

Our utilities out here were run by morons. No grounds (eventually
grounds were put in), cheap materials. RF sources abound. A couple years
ago there was an arcing transformer on one of the poles. So I DF it and
tell SMUD (local electric company) all about it, and nothing was done
because the girl on the phone had no clue what I was talking about. A
few months later that transformer blew, plunging the whole area into
darkness at 2am.

As for BPL, you're right it's internet on electric "mains" lines. It
doesn't work all that well for what it's designed for. The only thing it
does well is spew QRM from 80 Mhz on down. So far, this latest attempt
to make money hasn't gotten past the test stage. Most other countries
have rejected it. And it's unlikely to make any inroads in poor places
like Africa, which was the intention. Internet by satellite works much
better.



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