[Fwd: LF: 136kHz report]

[Andre Kesteloot]

Great work done in Europe.  Hope we can match this one day
André
*********************

K.E. Moore wrote:

> Came down with flu on Saturday so felt lousy, but lots happening on 136 so
> managed to keep going!
> Got a phone call from Tracey G5VU just before 10.00z to tell me EI0CF was on,
> so took a listen and found Finbar a nice 559 signal beaconing on 136.40kHz.
> Had arranged with Peter G3PLX to listen for Graham G3XTZ's 6 Watt signal with
> slow on/off keying at 10.00z on 135.94kHz, so quickly set up the waterfall
> display and retuned the RX. At 10.00z was very impressed to actually *hear*
> Graham's signal at about S4! Watched the on/off trace appear on the screen
> and phoned G3PLX to see if he could see anything. Peter said he couldn't
> and asked me to measure the frequency for him. From my display I found the
> signal was about 3 Hz high which was off Peter's diaplay! When he retuned,
> he started to see Graham's signal OK - an excellent range for such low
> power, but it does show the need for very accurate frequency control when
> pushing things to the limit, even on 136kHz. When Graham finished the slow
> transmission at 10.10z, I copied his 'normal speed' callsigns fine by ear.
> At about 10.15z I got a phone call from John G0AKN saying he was about to
> start the BPSK 'ground' transmissions on 136.50kHz. We set up "Coherent" at
> both ends, MS200 ET2, and after a slight retune to get synched to his signal,
> I got 100% copy from John:
>
> COHERENT log opened: Sat Feb  7 1998  at 10:21
> 10:21:15 DE G0AKN }}}} CQ DE G0AKN }}}} CQ DE G0AKN }}}} CQ DE G___˙} CQ
> 10:26:34  DE G0AKN }}}} CQ DE G0AKN }}}} CQ
>
> The corruption at the end of the first line is where John changed 'mid-flight"
> to 8-bit data (ET0) and I had to resynch. As you can see, I was still getting
> 100% copy at this faster character rate. We tried some tests with John
> significantly reducing power (copy still excellent) and changing to the faster
> MS100 rate, which interestingly I couldn't synch to. John then went back to
> normal power, MS200 ET2 and I copied him beautifully until 10.45z when he
> stopped sending.
> At 11.00z I caught the end of a QSO between G3XDV (549c on 136.89kHz) and
> G3KAU (579 on 136.20kHz) and at 11.37z another between G3XDV (549c on 136.81
> kHz) and G3GRO (569 on 137.20kHz), and so on.........
> Over the whole weekend I copied lots of beacons and some contacts from:
> G2AJV, G3XDV, EI0CF, G3XTZ, G3LDO, G0AKN, G3KAU, G3GRO, G0ONA, G4JNT and
> G4FEV.
> Just for fun, I also tried to put some power into the end-fed wire on Sunday.
> I don't think it's really radiating anything as most of the current seems to
> be circulating round the loading coil and not in the wire, but if anyone did
> just happen to hear anything on 136.42kHz I'd be pleased to know!! Now to
> start work on that inverted-L, at long last.......
>
>              Regards  John G4GVC