Is this the Amrad Beacon??

[Nan and Sandy Sanders]

 As much as I hate to say it, that probably was not the AMRAD beacon. It is 
really at about 136.745 (we are assigned 136.750 but the tolerance 
specified allows us a few HZ either side). Also I watched it for a while 
with ARGO set to 120 sec mode and there is a noticeable cyclic frequency 
variation as the heating system cycles. We plan on running it with 90 sec 
dots for a while.
					Sandy
					WB5MMB

----------
From: 	john sexton[SMTP:computernetworks@excite.com]
Reply To: 	rsgb_lf_group@blacksheep.org
Sent: 	Tuesday, February 06, 2001 4:14 AM
To: 	rsgb_lf_group@blacksheep.org
Subject: 	LF: Is this the Amrad Beacon??

Hi All,
I used Argo last night to monitor the Amrad Beacon frequency at 136.750 kHz
and found a signal precisely on frequency to within 0.01 Hz. I used the
highest resolution of 120 sec dots, which means that one cannot see the 
QRSS
coding, which is probably 3 sec dots, but the signal could probably not be
seen at all if I had set Argo to that dot length. I used the Loran lines to
calibrate Argo.

To see the best image click on www.g4cnn.f2s.com/amradbeacon.jpg. The 
signal
is about 0.01 Hz low in this picture, but when I recalibrated Argo this
morning, I found the nearest Loran line at 136751.5669 also appeared 0.01 
Hz
low, so this is just a calibration error (still learning).

The signal was visible from about 22.00 last night (010205) until 06.00 
this
morning when it died out.
I saw no clear "Dawn effect" on the QRN in these images, but the QRN is low
throughout, which might be a result of using this resolution, or perhaps 
the
different frequency.

In order to measure to 0.01 Hz accurately, I had to import the images into
Paint Shop Pro and use the vernier to measure the difference in position of
two consecutive 1 Hz marks and the line. The lack of finer vertical scaling
in Argo is the one minor deficiency in this otherwise excellent package.
Thanks Alberto.

73, John, G4CNN






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