I used to think that passive antenna tuners or matching networks
were worthless, but over the weekend I got some real SWL evidence to the
contrary.
My prime RCVR is a Sat800 refurb hooked to 156 feet of AWG 16 hard
drawn stranded, oriented NNW/SSE up about 40 feet between two large
trees and fed off center at the 1/3 // 2/3 point with twin RG6U which
comes down to a 4:1 balun outdoors at a decent ground (copper ground
pipe filled with copper sulfate, steel well casing and cast iron soil
pipe bonded together with coax braid.) Coax from the balun goes into the
house to the RCVR.
One thing about the Sat800 has always bothered me...there's no way
to turn the AGC *off*, so the noise floor is always rushing up to blast
you in the headphones when you tune between stations. I'd previously
not been able to receive anything but a couple of local aero beacons on
longwave, nor anything but the Christian megawatt at 3200 on the 90
meter band. I didn't care much about the longwave since the very useful
aviation weather Elmira NY on 385 khz was replaced by better service on
162.40 Mhz vhf.
Last week, just for fun I made a Hi-Q parallel resonant tank for
longwave from a 385 pf variable cap and a 3.850 mh inductor. (82 turns
#24 awg wire on a 1.3" audio toroid core) This tunes 520 khz down to 170
khz with a pronounced peak. I coupled it very loosely (2 1/2 turns) to
the coax near the RCVR and was astounded at the difference in reception.
Around 0500Z I logged 15 different aero beacons at between 260 and 420
khz ! The tuned circuit didn't bring the signal levels up...it took
the noise floor DOWN ! Same thing happened when I picked up a used
Barker & Williamson AT-300 Tee section tuner at a hamfest last weekend.
The peaks are not as pronounced as the longwave tank, but the 90 meter
band yielded a half dozen African stations where previously I'd heard
nothing but QRMN.
On some frequencies the most dramatic improvement came where the
peak in signal strength and the peak in noise came at slightly different
settings of the tuner. This to me is evidence that nearby noise sources,
even when filtered out of the detector and audio in the receiver are
still affecting the AGC line, turning down the effective signal. Seems
like an active preselector will help if you can't get an antenna out in
the clear, but even if you can, some more selectivity *before* the front
end of the receiver can help. I'm a convert.

In article u, wcm1
@NOSPAM.cornell.edu says...
I'd previously
not been able to receive anything but a couple of local aero beacons on
longwave, nor anything but the Christian megawatt at 3200 on the 90
meter band. I didn't care much about the longwave since the very useful
aviation weather Elmira NY on 385 khz was replaced by better service on
162.40 Mhz vhf.
Last week, just for fun I made a Hi-Q parallel resonant tank for
longwave from a 385 pf variable cap and a 3.850 mh inductor. (82 turns
#24 awg wire on a 1.3" audio toroid core) This tunes 520 khz down to 170
khz with a pronounced peak. I coupled it very loosely (2 1/2 turns) to
the coax near the RCVR and was astounded at the difference in reception.
Around 0500Z I logged 15 different aero beacons at between 260 and 420
khz ! The tuned circuit didn't bring the signal levels up...it took
the noise floor DOWN !

Has anyone bookmarked the longwave site whcih gives freq's, calls
and locations? Just for curiousity I'd like to find out where some of
these beacons are.

PKA 260.9 YGK 263.4 IT (ithaca) 267.0
YQA 272.3 YPP 303.3 ZMX 317.3
CL 345.0 SB 362.2 YMW 366.4
ZQ 372.6 YB 394.4 Y8 401.3
YTA 409.2 BC 414.4 RYS 420.0

William Mutch wrote:

I used to think that passive antenna tuners or matching networks
were worthless, but over the weekend I got some real SWL evidence to the
contrary.
My prime RCVR is a Sat800 refurb hooked to 156 feet of AWG 16 hard
drawn stranded, oriented NNW/SSE up about 40 feet between two large
trees and fed off center at the 1/3 // 2/3 point with twin RG6U which
comes down to a 4:1 balun outdoors at a decent ground (copper ground
pipe filled with copper sulfate, steel well casing and cast iron soil
pipe bonded together with coax braid.) Coax from the balun goes into the
house to the RCVR.
One thing about the Sat800 has always bothered me...there's no way
to turn the AGC *off*, so the noise floor is always rushing up to blast
you in the headphones when you tune between stations. I'd previously
not been able to receive anything but a couple of local aero beacons on
longwave, nor anything but the Christian megawatt at 3200 on the 90
meter band. I didn't care much about the longwave since the very useful
aviation weather Elmira NY on 385 khz was replaced by better service on
162.40 Mhz vhf.
Last week, just for fun I made a Hi-Q parallel resonant tank for
longwave from a 385 pf variable cap and a 3.850 mh inductor. (82 turns
#24 awg wire on a 1.3" audio toroid core) This tunes 520 khz down to 170
khz with a pronounced peak. I coupled it very loosely (2 1/2 turns) to
the coax near the RCVR and was astounded at the difference in reception.
Around 0500Z I logged 15 different aero beacons at between 260 and 420
khz ! The tuned circuit didn't bring the signal levels up...it took
the noise floor DOWN ! Same thing happened when I picked up a used
Barker & Williamson AT-300 Tee section tuner at a hamfest last weekend.
The peaks are not as pronounced as the longwave tank, but the 90 meter
band yielded a half dozen African stations where previously I'd heard
nothing but QRMN.
On some frequencies the most dramatic improvement came where the
peak in signal strength and the peak in noise came at slightly different
settings of the tuner. This to me is evidence that nearby noise sources,
even when filtered out of the detector and audio in the receiver are
still affecting the AGC line, turning down the effective signal. Seems
like an active preselector will help if you can't get an antenna out in
the clear, but even if you can, some more selectivity *before* the front
end of the receiver can help. I'm a convert.

With that type of antenna I'd always recommend a tuner. It is an off center
fed dipole, and as such will be frequency limited without the use of an
antenna tuner.

If one wants broadband performance out of a single antenna it is best in most
applications to go with a random wire antenna.

Steve
Holland, MI
Drake R7, R8 and R8B

http://www.iserv.net/~n8kdv/dxpage.htm

William Mutch wrote:

In article u, wcm1
@NOSPAM.cornell.edu says...
I'd previously
not been able to receive anything but a couple of local aero beacons on
longwave, nor anything but the Christian megawatt at 3200 on the 90
meter band. I didn't care much about the longwave since the very useful
aviation weather Elmira NY on 385 khz was replaced by better service on
162.40 Mhz vhf.
Last week, just for fun I made a Hi-Q parallel resonant tank for
longwave from a 385 pf variable cap and a 3.850 mh inductor. (82 turns
#24 awg wire on a 1.3" audio toroid core) This tunes 520 khz down to 170
khz with a pronounced peak. I coupled it very loosely (2 1/2 turns) to
the coax near the RCVR and was astounded at the difference in reception.
Around 0500Z I logged 15 different aero beacons at between 260 and 420
khz ! The tuned circuit didn't bring the signal levels up...it took
the noise floor DOWN !

Has anyone bookmarked the longwave site whcih gives freq's, calls
and locations? Just for curiousity I'd like to find out where some of
these beacons are.

PKA 260.9 YGK 263.4 IT (ithaca) 267.0
YQA 272.3 YPP 303.3 ZMX 317.3
CL 345.0 SB 362.2 YMW 366.4
ZQ 372.6 YB 394.4 Y8 401.3
YTA 409.2 BC 414.4 RYS 420.0

http://frodo.bruderhof.com/ka2qpg/

Scroll down for looking up US beacons.

"William Mutch" wrote in message Has anyone
bookmarked the longwave site whcih gives freq's, calls
and locations? Just for curiousity I'd like to find out where some of
these beacons are.

PKA 260.9 YGK 263.4 IT (ithaca) 267.0
YQA 272.3 YPP 303.3 ZMX 317.3
CL 345.0 SB 362.2 YMW 366.4
ZQ 372.6 YB 394.4 Y8 401.3
YTA 409.2 BC 414.4 RYS 420.0

Go to the following site and download WWSU V5.10. It will give you the
location and frequency of the NDB station. In addition it will tell you the
distance and bearing from your location when you set in your locations
co-ordinates. It also offers some nice search capabilities if you only get
part of a call.

http://members.rogers.com/wiecek6010/files.htm

Al KA5JGV
San Antonio, Tx.

I'd like to put in a plug for

www.airnav.com

You can look up locations by beacon call letter there (at least US). Also
gives lots of info about the originating airport, like VHF freqs, size and
services, etc.

john kb5ag


"Al - KA5JGV" wrote in message
...
"William Mutch" wrote in message Has anyone
bookmarked the longwave site whcih gives freq's, calls
and locations? Just for curiousity I'd like to find out where some of
these beacons are.

PKA 260.9 YGK 263.4 IT (ithaca) 267.0
YQA 272.3 YPP 303.3 ZMX 317.3
CL 345.0 SB 362.2 YMW 366.4
ZQ 372.6 YB 394.4 Y8 401.3
YTA 409.2 BC 414.4 RYS 420.0

Go to the following site and download WWSU V5.10. It will give you the
location and frequency of the NDB station. In addition it will tell you
the
distance and bearing from your location when you set in your locations
co-ordinates. It also offers some nice search capabilities if you only get
part of a call.

http://members.rogers.com/wiecek6010/files.htm

Al KA5JGV
San Antonio, Tx.

N8KDV wrote:

William Mutch wrote:

In article u, wcm1
@NOSPAM.cornell.edu says...
I'd previously
not been able to receive anything but a couple of local aero beacons on
longwave, nor anything but the Christian megawatt at 3200 on the 90
meter band. I didn't care much about the longwave since the very useful
aviation weather Elmira NY on 385 khz was replaced by better service on
162.40 Mhz vhf.
Last week, just for fun I made a Hi-Q parallel resonant tank for
longwave from a 385 pf variable cap and a 3.850 mh inductor. (82 turns
#24 awg wire on a 1.3" audio toroid core) This tunes 520 khz down to 170
khz with a pronounced peak. I coupled it very loosely (2 1/2 turns) to
the coax near the RCVR and was astounded at the difference in reception.
Around 0500Z I logged 15 different aero beacons at between 260 and 420
khz ! The tuned circuit didn't bring the signal levels up...it took
the noise floor DOWN !

Has anyone bookmarked the longwave site whcih gives freq's, calls
and locations? Just for curiousity I'd like to find out where some of
these beacons are.

PKA 260.9 YGK 263.4 IT (ithaca) 267.0
YQA 272.3 YPP 303.3 ZMX 317.3
CL 345.0 SB 362.2 YMW 366.4
ZQ 372.6 YB 394.4 Y8 401.3
YTA 409.2 BC 414.4 RYS 420.0

http://frodo.bruderhof.com/ka2qpg/

Scroll down for looking up US beacons.



YQA 272 Muskoka, Ontario 45 02 21N 79 16 58W
YTA 409 Pembroke, Ontario 45 48 10N 77 13 09W
YGK 263 Kingston, Ontario 44 17 48N 76 36 20W
YPP 303 Parent, Quebec 47 53 22N 74 40 19W
SB 362 Sudbury, Ontario 46 38 53N 80 55 18W
YB 394 North Bay, Ontario 46 23 04N 79 28 07W
BC 414 Baie-Comeau, Quebec 49 07 04N 68 19 34W
ZMX 317 Montreal Mirabel, Quebec
(Listed as Janvier) 45 44 29N 73 55 14W
YMW 366 Maniwaki, Quebec 46 12 27N 75 57 23W
Y8 401 Drummondville, Quebec 45 50 50N 72 23 56W

The frequencies I gave is the listed (carrier) frequency. The ones you
have listed is the Upper Sideband - which is the way to get the beacons.

Hope this helps,

Dave

In article ,
says...
I'd like to put in a plug for

www.airnav.com

You can look up locations by beacon call letter there (at least US). Also
gives lots of info about the originating airport, like VHF freqs, size and
services, etc.

john kb5ag


This database got info on over half the logged signals. TNX de
kc2lvq

In article ,
says...
"William Mutch" wrote in message Has anyone
bookmarked the longwave site whcih gives freq's, calls
and locations? Just for curiousity I'd like to find out where some of
these beacons are.

PKA 260.9 YGK 263.4 IT (ithaca) 267.0
YQA 272.3 YPP 303.3 ZMX 317.3
CL 345.0 SB 362.2 YMW 366.4
ZQ 372.6 YB 394.4 Y8 401.3
YTA 409.2 BC 414.4 RYS 420.0

Go to the following site and download WWSU V5.10.

I tried this site and did the download. Interesting looking
program , but returns some nonsense values for range and bearings. The
map "beacon radar" doesn't correlate with the entered location.

It will give you the
location and frequency of the NDB station. In addition it will tell you the
distance and bearing from your location when you set in your locations
co-ordinates. It also offers some nice search capabilities if you only get
part of a call.

http://members.rogers.com/wiecek6010/files.htm

Al KA5JGV
San Antonio, Tx.

In article . edu, wcm1
@NOSPAM.cornell.edu says...
In article ,
says...
"William Mutch" wrote in message Has anyone
bookmarked the longwave site whcih gives freq's, calls
and locations? Just for curiousity I'd like to find out where some of
these beacons are.

PKA 260.9 YGK 263.4 IT (ithaca) 267.0
YQA 272.3 YPP 303.3 ZMX 317.3
CL 345.0 SB 362.2 YMW 366.4
ZQ 372.6 YB 394.4 Y8 401.3
YTA 409.2 BC 414.4 RYS 420.0

Go to the following site and download WWSU V5.10.


Got it working...misconfig to east longitude Cool program.

I tried this site and did the download. Interesting looking
program , but returns some nonsense values for range and bearings. The
map "beacon radar" doesn't correlate with the entered location.

It will give you the
location and frequency of the NDB station. In addition it will tell you the
distance and bearing from your location when you set in your locations
co-ordinates. It also offers some nice search capabilities if you only get
part of a call.

http://members.rogers.com/wiecek6010/files.htm

Al KA5JGV
San Antonio, Tx.