LF: Re: Transatlantic reception?

[André Kesteloot]

Walter Blanchard wrote:

> Andre,
> US Coastguard tells me that GWEN has been shut down.
> There is a proposal to use its transmitters for the
> transmission of differential GPS data. Maybe one of them
> is doing so on trial.
> Have you heard it recently?

I heard it yesterday afternoon, and I can tell you that it generously
distributes its energy all over !

> Anyway we have megawatt broadcast transmitters in that
> part of the spectrum over here. and unlikely we could
> hear anything at all under them.

Walter, that is indeed a good point I had not thought of. My original
idea was that if you guys could hear a US high power transmitter, you
would deduce that the band was open. I guess the reverse is still true:
since we do not have any high power tx in that band on this side of the
Atlantic, then if we can hear the European AM broadcasts, we may assume
there is at least a one-way path.

Incidentally, I just received a communication from Bill Bowers, whose
QTH is in Oklahoma, and who has probably tried every combination of
receiving systems known to man. He states that by using a remotely tuned
whip (see "The Low and Medium Frequency Scrapbook" by Ken Cornell W2IMB,
10th Edition, page 32 and LOWDOWN, Dec 1994),  "...the French station on
162 KHz come in here sometimes with concert hall quality."

Although I have for the moment an active antenna on my roof, it is not
remotely tuned, and suffers from intermodulation from Medium Wave
transmitters. My next endeavor will be to build another one with remote
tuning (along the lines suggested by Bill Bowers), and perform a
side-by-side comparison.

73

André N4ICK