main@UltralightDX.groups.io

A Note from the Moderator

Kevin Schanilec

#12291

Hi all:

After yesterday's string about excruciating posts, the individual involved was suspended from the Group, and this morning decided to move on.  Thanks for your forbearance.

Thanks to you all, we've got a great group here.  Please keep in mind that it is primarily about Ultralight DXing - if you're into larger equipment, other types of DXing, or can't understand why the limits are set where they're at, then there is no doubt another group out there for you.

Thanks - Kevin S

Re: ferrite vs sensitivity

Pollock,Raphael E <rpollock@...>

#12290

Hi Gary!

Do you know if Guy wrote up his experiences with the 18" Stormwise ferrite bar, especially design considerations (i.e.; wire used--Litz vs AWG, pick up coil--# of turns, spacing between turns, position on bar, housing) as well as actual dx results? My 19" Stormwise-based antenna, which is the approximate size of a two-foot long baker's rolling pin (i.e.; pretty easily transported), just about pins the S-meter on every radio that I own that is capable of inductive coupling, with nice sharp nulls and very tight tuning (e.g.; pretty good Q although I don't have the knowledge or equipment to measure). I am happy with it, but would love to get some comparative performance information from similar set ups--always looking to improve on what I can hear. Do you think that the reason that the 20" and larger loop sticks didn't do as well as the 18" Stormwise, if I am reading your email below correctly, was due to the greater diameter of the Stormwise ferrite bar?

73s;

Raphael Pollock

Show quoted text

From: ultralightdx@... [ultralightdx@...] On Behalf Of D1028Gary@... [D1028Gary@...]
Sent: Monday, November 15, 2010 5:55 PM
To: ultralightdx@...
Subject: Re: [ultralightdx] Re: ferrite vs sensitivity

Hi George and Ralph,

Thanks again to George for explaining many of the theoretical concepts behind loopstick design, which I have also found quite fascinating.

Ralph, the 7.5" loopstick ULR designs commonly used in the ULR group (Slider loopsticks, 7.5" loopstick PL-380's, etc.) were all developed through extensive live-signal A/B testing and tinkering, with the only standard of success being DXing performance. Although I was fortunate to receive Navy electronics training as a sonar repair technican, loopstick design theory was not part of the training curriculum. As such, George's ability to explain loopstick design science is appreciated.

Regarding the practical use of very long loopsticks, during the development of the variable-inductance E100 Slider loopstick (in the summer of 2008), John Bryant and Guy Atkins went in the direction of longer loopsticks, while I concentrated on refining the 7.5" Slider loopstick as a reasonable compromise of DXing performance and portability. The 20" and larger loopsticks did provide slightly more gain than the 7.5" Slider models, but not as much as we had hoped. On the other hand, Guy's 18" Stormwise ferrite-bar PL-380 loopstick design does provide significantly more DXing gain than the 7.5" loopstick PL-380, although there certainly is a tradeoff between portability and performance in such a case.

73, Gary DeBock

(in Puyallup, WA)

In a message dated 11/15/2010 8:40:34 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, rpollock@... writes:

Dear George: Your 17 swallows analogy got me to really laughing! In any event, I will await your practical applications in that the vast majority of our fellow hobbyists, myself included, lack much in-depth knowledge about the underlying electronics, let alone the theoretical modeling that you are so generously providing to us. It will be a real service to the hobby to be able to come forth with an optimized and practical application, including step-by-step instructions as well as supply sources. It may very well be that a 7.5” ferrite bar, such as what is being used for so many of the boosted Tecsun ULRs, is the best option, end of discussion. I continue to be very pleased with the 19” ferrite bar booster that I built, “designed” by reading through sources from the various Yahoo clubs, the web, Gerry’s Q-stick + which is my original inspiration, etc. All that is well and good, but is it the best that can be done??? If I am to interpret the graphs below correctly then a 19”L x 1”D 125 mu ferrite bar wrapped with a primary coil of 38 turns should yield a SNR of about +6dB and a 27” L x 1” D would be about +8dB. As a practical matter both of these antennas generate just about the same amount of apparent gain when inductively coupled to any of several radios that I own that have S-meters—slightly more gain with the 27”er but not enough to have ever made a difference in being able to receive a weak signal, plus the nulls are sharper with the 19”er.

I am really enjoying your insights, and look forward to more. BTW, basic demographic info? I’m about to turn 60, have been playing w/ radios since second grade, am a surgeon and work/live in the middle of Houston, TX. If I had been better at calculus I might have gone into EE; instead, I stand on the sidelines and play around with ferrite bars and wires and PVC piping while being taught by smarter folks like yourself!

73s

Raph Pollock

From: ultralightdx@... [mailto:ultralightdx@...] On Behalf Of george magiros
Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2010 9:20 PM
To: ultralightdx@...
Subject: Re: [ultralightdx] Re: ferrite vs sensitivity

I'm still on my quest to simulate ferrite loop antennas, this time for their signal to noise ratios. I hope I'm not proving that 17 swallows are as strong as a horse with all my graphs. Experimentation and actual DXing comes next I promise.

Let me point out a few simple design observations that I gleamed from the graphs.

First, use as many turns as possible without making the Q too high. My Sony ICF-S10MK2 apparently uses a small loopstick with an inductance of 650 uH. That is more than enough turns I would think. 300 uH is probably sufficient too, maybe lower. Having a good number of turns puts you into a kind of linear region where increasing the length of the rod improves the SNR the most. While increasing the number of turns on the loop does improve the SNR, best results come from increasing the length of the rod.

Second, increasing the diameter of rod does not improve the SNR that much, unless of course your rod has a very small diameter to begin with. It appears to be better SNR-wise, and less costly, to simply increase the length of the rod rather than its diameter. In addition there appears to be, for a given rod diameter, a maximum rod length beyond which no increase in the SNR occures.

Now here are the graphs. First for a ferrite loopstick antenna with an initial permeability of 125. One graph plots rod length against turns and the other plots rod diameter against turns. For a loopstick with a diameter of 12.7mm the best length seems to be between 200mm and 300mm FYI.

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/2042/mu125len.png

http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/1018/mu125dia.png

Next, here are the graphs for a loopstick antenna with a mu of 800. The best length for a rod with a 12.7mm diameter seems to be between 300mm to 450mm.

http://img585.imageshack.us/img585/3674/mu800len.png

http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/2258/mu800dia.png

George

Ps. Just to be sure I haven't made any glaring mistakes here is the Matlab/Octave function I used to calculate the signal to noise ratio.

% mui: initial relative permeability of the rod
% n: number of turns
% lr: length of rod in mm
% dw: diameter of wire in mm
% f: frequency in Hz
% E: E-field in V/m
function [ snr Rac Rdc ] = loopstick (mui, n, d, lr, f, dw, E)
Kb = 1.38e-23;                  % boltzmann constant
T = 293;                        % room temperature 20C (293K)
muo = 4 * pi * 1e-7;            % permeability of free space
sigma = 5.96e7;                 % conductivity of copper at 20C (293K)
B = 3e3;                        % bandwidth (3 khz)

lw = n .* pi .* d;                          % length of wire need
delta = 1 ./ sqrt(pi * muo * sigma * f);    % skin depth of wire
Rdc = lw * .001 ./ (pi / 4 .* (dw * .001).^2 * sigma);
Rac = lw * .001 ./ (pi * sigma * delta .* dw * .001);
en = sqrt(4 * Kb * T * B * Rac);            % noise voltage

mu = 1./(1./mui+(d./lr).^2.*(log(lr./(d/2))-1)); % rod relative permeability
a = pi / 4 * (d * .001).^2;                 % rod winding area
es = 2 * pi * n .* a .* mu * E / (3e8 / f); % signal voltage
snr = 20 * log10(es ./ en);
end

Oklahoma TP's 11-16-10

bbwrwy

#12289

Reception of TP signals was fairly ordinary.

Receiver: Tecsun PL-310 with 7.5-inch loopstick.  Local sunrise at 1308 UTC.

594  JOAK Tokyo J, 1246-1258, man JJ, poor.
657  unID, 1235-1237, weak carrier, not heard later.
693  JOAB Tokyo J, 1258-1301, English lesson, 2200 JST TS, Man reading WX rpt.
702  unID, 1237, carrier; 1309, weak carrier.
747  JOIB Sapporo J, 1209-1221, barely audible audio; 1253-1257, English lesson, fair.
774  JOUB Akita J, 1205-1209, barely audible audio; 1312, sharp het & man reading WX, fair; the audio signal faded out by 1321.
828  JOBB Osaka J, 1301, barely audible //JOUB 693.
972  unID (HLCA?), 1303, slight het in XEJ 970 QRM.
1134 JOQR Tokyo J, 1304, barely audible JJ talk; 1318, carrier, fading out by 1321.
1242 unID, 1307, het.

Richard Allen
36°22'51"N / 97°26'35"W
(near Perry OK USA)

Re: Noise cancelling for G8 etc

MarkWA1ION

#12288

Many DXers are using the "Quantum Phaser" sold by RadioPlus.  See "http://www.dxtools.com/Phaser.htm" for more information.

Alternately there are several homebrew designs from the simple to the complex available on my tech page "http://www.qsl.net/wa1ion/index.html" and Dallas Lankford's page "http://www.kongsfjord.no/dl/dl.htm".

If the antennas used have the same pick-up pattern, they should be placed at least 100 ft. / 30 m apart, otherwise you null everything together - noise/pests and desired DX as well.  If the antennas have different pick-up patterns: loop versus vertical, or two loops at a right angle, they can be located closer together, maybe about 10 ft. / 3 m apart, and still allow nulling of one pest station or noise signal without appreciably weakening stations you want to hear.

Mark Connelly, WA1ION
Billerica, MA + South Yarmouth, MA, USA

Show quoted text

--- In ultralightdx@..., "bty49514" <michael.setaazul@...> wrote:

For now, I am inductively coupling  my G8 to a longer ferrite aerial
with MW and LW coils and separate tuning capacitors. I may later
experiment with direct connection to the PCB and/or a 5-turn coupling
link on the internal ferrite.

Does anyone have designs for phase-cancelling of digital and transient noise (computers, domestic equipment, power-lines etc.)?  I wonder if TWO external ferrite aerials (equal length, one long one short or one and a pick-up wire aerial) might be used so that interference can be phased-cancelled. Any circuit ideas would be valuable as a starting point.

Michael
UK

Noise cancelling for G8 etc

bty49514 <michael.setaazul@...>

#12287

For now, I am inductively coupling  my G8 to a longer ferrite aerial
with MW and LW coils and separate tuning capacitors. I may later
experiment with direct connection to the PCB and/or a 5-turn coupling
link on the internal ferrite.

Does anyone have designs for phase-cancelling of digital and transient noise (computers, domestic equipment, power-lines etc.)?  I wonder if TWO external ferrite aerials (equal length, one long one short or one and a pick-up wire aerial) might be used so that interference can be phased-cancelled. Any circuit ideas would be valuable as a starting point.

Michael 
UK

Re: ferrite vs sensitivity

Pollock,Raphael E <rpollock@...>

#12286

Thanks for this posting. I have found that the 19" ferrite bar fits nicely into a 2' long piece of PVC pipe 2" in diameter with enough internal room to also accomodate a 365 pfd variable capacitor and a vernier reduction drive mechanism. This sits nicely on an 18" lazy susan along with a 2010 or a Satellit 750. The entire package can be easily transported; maybe some day to the Pacific NW for some of that great TP/DU DX!!

73s

Raphael Pollock

Show quoted text

From: D1028Gary@... [mailto:D1028Gary@...]
Sent: Monday, November 15, 2010 05:55 PM
To: ultralightdx@... <ultralightdx@...>
Subject: Re: [ultralightdx] Re: ferrite vs sensitivity

Hi George and Ralph,

Thanks again to George for explaining many of the theoretical concepts behind loopstick design, which I have also found quite fascinating.

Ralph, the 7.5" loopstick ULR designs commonly used in the ULR group (Slider loopsticks, 7.5" loopstick PL-380's, etc.) were all developed through extensive live-signal A/B testing and tinkering, with the only standard of success being DXing performance. Although I was fortunate to receive Navy electronics training as a sonar repair technican, loopstick design theory was not part of the training curriculum. As such, George's ability to explain loopstick design science is appreciated.

Regarding the practical use of very long loopsticks, during the development of the variable-inductance E100 Slider loopstick (in the summer of 2008), John Bryant and Guy Atkins went in the direction of longer loopsticks, while I concentrated on refining the 7.5" Slider loopstick as a reasonable compromise of DXing performance and portability. The 20" and larger loopsticks did provide slightly more gain than the 7.5" Slider models, but not as much as we had hoped. On the other hand, Guy's 18" Stormwise ferrite-bar PL-380 loopstick design does provide significantly more DXing gain than the 7.5" loopstick PL-380, although there certainly is a tradeoff between portability and performance in such a case.

73, Gary DeBock

(in Puyallup, WA)

In a message dated 11/15/2010 8:40:34 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, rpollock@... writes:

Dear George: Your 17 swallows analogy got me to really laughing! In any event, I will await your practical applications in that the vast majority of our fellow hobbyists, myself included, lack much in-depth knowledge about the underlying electronics, let alone the theoretical modeling that you are so generously providing to us. It will be a real service to the hobby to be able to come forth with an optimized and practical application, including step-by-step instructions as well as supply sources. It may very well be that a 7.5” ferrite bar, such as what is being used for so many of the boosted Tecsun ULRs, is the best option, end of discussion. I continue to be very pleased with the 19” ferrite bar booster that I built, “designed” by reading through sources from the various Yahoo clubs, the web, Gerry’s Q-stick + which is my original inspiration, etc. All that is well and good, but is it the best that can be done??? If I am to interpret the graphs below correctly then a 19”L x 1”D 125 mu ferrite bar wrapped with a primary coil of 38 turns should yield a SNR of about +6dB and a 27” L x 1” D would be about +8dB. As a practical matter both of these antennas generate just about the same amount of apparent gain when inductively coupled to any of several radios that I own that have S-meters—slightly more gain with the 27”er but not enough to have ever made a difference in being able to receive a weak signal, plus the nulls are sharper with the 19”er.

I am really enjoying your insights, and look forward to more. BTW, basic demographic info? I’m about to turn 60, have been playing w/ radios since second grade, am a surgeon and work/live in the middle of Houston, TX. If I had been better at calculus I might have gone into EE; instead, I stand on the sidelines and play around with ferrite bars and wires and PVC piping while being taught by smarter folks like yourself!

73s

Raph Pollock

From: ultralightdx@... [mailto:ultralightdx@...] On Behalf Of george magiros
Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2010 9:20 PM
To: ultralightdx@...
Subject: Re: [ultralightdx] Re: ferrite vs sensitivity

I'm still on my quest to simulate ferrite loop antennas, this time for their signal to noise ratios. I hope I'm not proving that 17 swallows are as strong as a horse with all my graphs. Experimentation and actual DXing comes next I promise.

Let me point out a few simple design observations that I gleamed from the graphs.

First, use as many turns as possible without making the Q too high. My Sony ICF-S10MK2 apparently uses a small loopstick with an inductance of 650 uH. That is more than enough turns I would think. 300 uH is probably sufficient too, maybe lower. Having a good number of turns puts you into a kind of linear region where increasing the length of the rod improves the SNR the most. While increasing the number of turns on the loop does improve the SNR, best results come from increasing the length of the rod.

Second, increasing the diameter of rod does not improve the SNR that much, unless of course your rod has a very small diameter to begin with. It appears to be better SNR-wise, and less costly, to simply increase the length of the rod rather than its diameter. In addition there appears to be, for a given rod diameter, a maximum rod length beyond which no increase in the SNR occures.

Now here are the graphs. First for a ferrite loopstick antenna with an initial permeability of 125. One graph plots rod length against turns and the other plots rod diameter against turns. For a loopstick with a diameter of 12.7mm the best length seems to be between 200mm and 300mm FYI.

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/2042/mu125len.png

http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/1018/mu125dia.png

Next, here are the graphs for a loopstick antenna with a mu of 800. The best length for a rod with a 12.7mm diameter seems to be between 300mm to 450mm.

http://img585.imageshack.us/img585/3674/mu800len.png

http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/2258/mu800dia.png

George

Ps. Just to be sure I haven't made any glaring mistakes here is the Matlab/Octave function I used to calculate the signal to noise ratio.

% mui: initial relative permeability of the rod
% n: number of turns
% lr: length of rod in mm
% dw: diameter of wire in mm
% f: frequency in Hz
% E: E-field in V/m
function [ snr Rac Rdc ] = loopstick (mui, n, d, lr, f, dw, E)
Kb = 1.38e-23;                  % boltzmann constant
T = 293;                        % room temperature 20C (293K)
muo = 4 * pi * 1e-7;            % permeability of free space
sigma = 5.96e7;                 % conductivity of copper at 20C (293K)
B = 3e3;                        % bandwidth (3 khz)

lw = n .* pi .* d;                          % length of wire need
delta = 1 ./ sqrt(pi * muo * sigma * f);    % skin depth of wire
Rdc = lw * .001 ./ (pi / 4 .* (dw * .001).^2 * sigma);
Rac = lw * .001 ./ (pi * sigma * delta .* dw * .001);
en = sqrt(4 * Kb * T * B * Rac);            % noise voltage

mu = 1./(1./mui+(d./lr).^2.*(log(lr./(d/2))-1)); % rod relative permeability
a = pi / 4 * (d * .001).^2;                 % rod winding area
es = 2 * pi * n .* a .* mu * E / (3e8 / f); % signal voltage
snr = 20 * log10(es ./ en);
end

Stock or modified?

Jay Heyl

#12285

I can't claim to have read all the messages in the stock or modified debates that have gone on so I may have missed this particular subtopic. Is there a ruling on whether the use of external speakers kicks a logging into the modified category if the radio is otherwise stock?

My gut was to say that use of anything not in the original package puts you in the modified category, but then I started thinking of my SRF-59. It came with some junky headphones that I may have used once before switching to far more portable and better sounding earbuds. I wouldn't consider use of non-supplied earbuds to disqualify one from the stock category, and speakers are just a different form of sound reproduction device, not fundamentally different than earbuds or headphones.

This is mostly a philosophical question brought up by my recent acquisition of some very small, very good amplified speakers. I haven't tried them with my SRF-59 yet, but now that I've thought of it I'm anxious to give it a try.

-- Jay

Re: G8

Jay Heyl

#12284

On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 15:47, michael9236 <michael.setaazul@...> wrote:

As with other receivers, a tuned longer ferrite placed
along the top of the G8 couples inductively and produces very good
results, making risky tinkering with the internal ferrite winding superfluous. (I posted this idea decades ago in the UK publication Practical Wireless!) I look forward to learning from the experience of all of you. 73s,

I've used a Q-Stick+ to inductively couple to the antenna in a small radio. With the ULRs that do LW it's virtually required in my area to get even the local NDBs to come in.

The Q-Stick+ is a manually tuned 7.5" ferrite antenna. Essentially a fancier version of what you're suggesting. It does work quite well and greatly improves weak signal reception.

-- Jay

Re: KTRB San Francisco

Mark Roberts

#12283

Strangely enough, tonight (Monday), they're on, evidently at nighttime
parameters, judging by the sudden increase in background noise. Still,
it bears watching.

The station also carries Stanford Cardinal college football, so there
may be Saturday opportunities, too.

On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 8:32 PM, Mark Roberts <markrobt@...> wrote:
KTRB, 860 kHz, 50 kW, DA-N, which was moved to San Francisco from
Modesto, CA a few years ago, has temporarily ceased full-time
operations. Earlier this year, it moved its daytime site to use one of
the towers of KFAX. I noticed this afternoon at 5 pm, current local
sunset, that KTRB signed off and said it would resume in the morning
at 6:45.[snip]

Puyallup, WA Ultralight TP's for 11-15

Gary DeBock

#12282

Hello All,

In agreement with Richard, Asian signals seemed a little stronger here today than yesterday, although it was a typical late-season session where "big gun" TP's dominated. Second-tier Asians never seemed to get out of the noise, and the band folded early (around 1515).

594, 648, 657, 738, 747, 828, 936, 972, 1134 and 1566 had fair to good audio at times, although like yesterday there wasn't much of a sunrise enhancement boost. The big news was finally hearing a pure carrier and audio signal from 738-BEL2 (Taiwan Fisheries), which has apparently fixed its raspy carrier and throbbing hum. A pure 738 kHz Asian TP carrier was almost always a sure sign of HLKG here previously, but now both BEL2 and HLKG have clean signals, so this "ID tip" is no longer valid.

657-Pyongyang's muffled audio continues to get worse, however. At 1507 a strong Pyongyang signal had almost all the high-frequency audio cut off, making it sound like the Korean YL's tirades were being impeded by a mouth muffler. DXing occasionally does provide such unexpected humor.

The following were heard on a C.Crane SWP Slider model (7.5" loopstick) inductively coupled to a 9' sided PVC tuned passive loop (in the rainy back yard). A modified ICF-2010 (30" loopstick) was used as an SSB spotting receiver:

558 HLQH Daegu, S. Korea Fair music at 1418, // 603

594 JOAK Tokyo, Japan Good interval music at 1429 during

Japanese interview program http://www.mediafire.com/?9lpz63ea4vaalsw

603 HLSA Namyang, S. Korea Fair-good music around 1419

639 CNR1 China Synchros Fair male-female Chinese at 1511

648 VOR Razdolnoye, Russia Strong Russian disco music

during Chinese program at 1442 http://www.mediafire.com/?bge9x1ovsvlj8ui

657 Pyongyang BS, N. Korean Strong signal, but missing the

high audio frequencies (thankfully, muffling the tirades)

http://www.mediafire.com/?w91idt61rcll79o

666 JOBK Osaka, Japan Poor-fair Japanese talk at 1414

738 BEL2 Penghu, Taiwan Fair drama-type Chinese speech

at 1448; transmitter issues apparently corrected

http://www.mediafire.com/?9g42jc02c3fgd2g

747 JOIB Sapporo, Japan Good Japanese speech at 1502

774 JOUB Akita, Japan Losing the battle with KTTH splatter

828 JOBB Osaka, Japan Fair-good Japanese in splatter 1455

936 Anhui, China Fair Chinese speech at 1421

972 HLCA Dangjin, S. Korea Very good Korean speech at 1510

1134 KBS3 Hwaseong, S. Korea Good male-female speech 1429

1566 HLAZ Jeju, S. Korea Good Japanese religious program 1341

1575 VOA Ban Rassom, Thailand Poor-fair Asiatic language 1340

73 and Good DX,

Gary DeBock

1160 KSL Salt Lake City heard in St. John's Newfoundland

Allen Willie

#12281

KSL is putting a good signal off and on into St. John's this evening. Anyone in the east needing Utah for a state , this could be your chance

Good Dx

Allen Willie
St. John's,Newfoundland

Re: ferrite vs sensitivity

Gary DeBock

#12280

Hi George and Ralph,

Thanks again to George for explaining many of the theoretical concepts behind loopstick design, which I have also found quite fascinating.

Ralph, the 7.5" loopstick ULR designs commonly used in the ULR group (Slider loopsticks, 7.5" loopstick PL-380's, etc.) were all developed through extensive live-signal A/B testing and tinkering, with the only standard of success being DXing performance. Although I was fortunate to receive Navy electronics training as a sonar repair technican, loopstick design theory was not part of the training curriculum. As such, George's ability to explain loopstick design science is appreciated.

Regarding the practical use of very long loopsticks, during the development of the variable-inductance E100 Slider loopstick (in the summer of 2008), John Bryant and Guy Atkins went in the direction of longer loopsticks, while I concentrated on refining the 7.5" Slider loopstick as a reasonable compromise of DXing performance and portability. The 20" and larger loopsticks did provide slightly more gain than the 7.5" Slider models, but not as much as we had hoped. On the other hand, Guy's 18" Stormwise ferrite-bar PL-380 loopstick design does provide significantly more DXing gain than the 7.5" loopstick PL-380, although there certainly is a tradeoff between portability and performance in such a case.

73, Gary DeBock

(in Puyallup, WA)

Show quoted text

In a message dated 11/15/2010 8:40:34 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, rpollock@... writes:

Dear George: Your 17 swallows analogy got me to really laughing! In any event, I will await your practical applications in that the vast majority of our fellow hobbyists, myself included, lack much in-depth knowledge about the underlying electronics, let alone the theoretical modeling that you are so generously providing to us. It will be a real service to the hobby to be able to come forth with an optimized and practical application, including step-by-step instructions as well as supply sources. It may very well be that a 7.5” ferrite bar, such as what is being used for so many of the boosted Tecsun ULRs, is the best option, end of discussion. I continue to be very pleased with the 19” ferrite bar booster that I built, “designed” by reading through sources from the various Yahoo clubs, the web, Gerry’s Q-stick + which is my original inspiration, etc. All that is well and good, but is it the best that can be done??? If I am to interpret the graphs below correctly then a 19”L x 1”D 125 mu ferrite bar wrapped with a primary coil of 38 turns should yield a SNR of about +6dB and a 27” L x 1” D would be about +8dB. As a practical matter both of these antennas generate just about the same amount of apparent gain when inductively coupled to any of several radios that I own that have S-meters—slightly more gain with the 27”er but not enough to have ever made a difference in being able to receive a weak signal, plus the nulls are sharper with the 19”er.

I am really enjoying your insights, and look forward to more. BTW, basic demographic info? I’m about to turn 60, have been playing w/ radios since second grade, am a surgeon and work/live in the middle of Houston, TX. If I had been better at calculus I might have gone into EE; instead, I stand on the sidelines and play around with ferrite bars and wires and PVC piping while being taught by smarter folks like yourself!

73s

Raph Pollock

From: ultralightdx@... [mailto:ultralightdx@...] On Behalf Of george magiros
Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2010 9:20 PM
To: ultralightdx@...
Subject: Re: [ultralightdx] Re: ferrite vs sensitivity

I'm still on my quest to simulate ferrite loop antennas, this time for their signal to noise ratios. I hope I'm not proving that 17 swallows are as strong as a horse with all my graphs. Experimentation and actual DXing comes next I promise.

Let me point out a few simple design observations that I gleamed from the graphs.

First, use as many turns as possible without making the Q too high. My Sony ICF-S10MK2 apparently uses a small loopstick with an inductance of 650 uH. That is more than enough turns I would think. 300 uH is probably sufficient too, maybe lower. Having a good number of turns puts you into a kind of linear region where increasing the length of the rod improves the SNR the most. While increasing the number of turns on the loop does improve the SNR, best results come from increasing the length of the rod.

Second, increasing the diameter of rod does not improve the SNR that much, unless of course your rod has a very small diameter to begin with. It appears to be better SNR-wise, and less costly, to simply increase the length of the rod rather than its diameter. In addition there appears to be, for a given rod diameter, a maximum rod length beyond which no increase in the SNR occures.

Now here are the graphs. First for a ferrite loopstick antenna with an initial permeability of 125. One graph plots rod length against turns and the other plots rod diameter against turns. For a loopstick with a diameter of 12.7mm the best length seems to be between 200mm and 300mm FYI.

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/2042/mu125len.png

http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/1018/mu125dia.png

Next, here are the graphs for a loopstick antenna with a mu of 800. The best length for a rod with a 12.7mm diameter seems to be between 300mm to 450mm.

http://img585.imageshack.us/img585/3674/mu800len.png

http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/2258/mu800dia.png

George

Ps. Just to be sure I haven't made any glaring mistakes here is the Matlab/Octave function I used to calculate the signal to noise ratio.

% mui: initial relative permeability of the rod
% n: number of turns
% lr: length of rod in mm
% dw: diameter of wire in mm
% f: frequency in Hz
% E: E-field in V/m
function [ snr Rac Rdc ] = loopstick (mui, n, d, lr, f, dw, E)
Kb = 1.38e-23;                  % boltzmann constant
T = 293;                        % room temperature 20C (293K)
muo = 4 * pi * 1e-7;            % permeability of free space
sigma = 5.96e7;                 % conductivity of copper at 20C (293K)
B = 3e3;                        % bandwidth (3 khz)

lw = n .* pi .* d;                          % length of wire need
delta = 1 ./ sqrt(pi * muo * sigma * f);    % skin depth of wire
Rdc = lw * .001 ./ (pi / 4 .* (dw * .001).^2 * sigma);
Rac = lw * .001 ./ (pi * sigma * delta .* dw * .001);
en = sqrt(4 * Kb * T * B * Rac);            % noise voltage

mu = 1./(1./mui+(d./lr).^2.*(log(lr./(d/2))-1)); % rod relative permeability
a = pi / 4 * (d * .001).^2;                 % rod winding area
es = 2 * pi * n .* a .* mu * E / (3e8 / f); % signal voltage
snr = 20 * log10(es ./ en);
end

G8

michael9236 <michael.setaazul@...>

#12279

I just joined the group, having bought a G8 today. First impressions are good, very good for size and price. Static soon killed the frontend FET in my E5.  Any chance this could happen with the G8 - or is it properly protected? I assume the schematic remains elusive - or is it downloadable somewhere? The sensitivity issue does not seem serious. With a short ferrite LW reception will always be poor. The jpgs indicate the winding may be centered on MW, presumably untuned, with LW thrown in for the few in Europe, such as me, who have interest in stations. As with other receivers, a tuned longer ferrite placed
along the top of the G8 couples inductively and produces very good
results, making  risky tinkering with the internal ferrite winding superfluous. (I posted this idea decades ago in the UK publication Practical Wireless!) I look forward to learning from the experience of all of you. 73s, Michael

New UL Log- WRNS-960

John Cereghin <jcereghin@...>

#12278

On a good roll lately with another new station for the UL log:

960 WRNS Kinston NC at 1650, country music, "960 WRNS" ID jingle and a
mention of their outlet on 95.1 FM.  Mixing with the dominant WFIR in
Roanoke VA.  Heard barefoot on the PL-310.

My 743rd UL log.

--
John Cereghin WDX3IAO  KB3LYP
Smyrna, Delaware
My radio page www.pilgrimway.org/dx
The Ultralight Scoreboard  www.pilgrimway.org/ulradio

Re: 1521 khz

Allen Willie

#12277

RE: So for you Allen looks like you have a short window before your local sundown plus the hour later on. Should be doable - I check CRI every afternoon to see what conditions are like if there are any outstanding afternoons I will email and let you know.

Amazing to hear Urumqi has been heard in the Boston metro area Mark, it thrills me hearing it here so I can only imagine the multiplied effect on the other side of the Atlantic!

regards

Paul Logan,
Lisnaskea, N. Ireland

Thanks Paul and Mark for the information provided on this , I'll be heading up to Signal Hill tomorrow once again for some Dxing weather permitting. I'll try and find out if it's audible again what exactly that is under the Saudi station.

Regards

Allen Willie

St. John's,Newfoundland

Re: Newfoundland Ultralight Trans-Atlantics Report Nov 12-13 Summary

Paul Logan

#12276

Hi Allen / Mark,

WRTH 2010 lists Urumqi with Russian between 11 and 20 utc to Central Asia. I just checked after 2000 and no Russian noted. However they also have Russian from 0000 - 0200 (thats 0800 - 10 Xinjiang local time, so at least the first hour of that will be before local dawn)

On at least one occasion in the past I have heard them on their morning broadcast.

So for you Allen looks like you have a short window before your local sundown plus the hour later on. Should be doable - I check CRI every afternoon to see what conditions are like if there are any outstanding afternoons I will email and let you know.

Amazing to hear Urumqi has been heard in the Boston metro area Mark, it thrills me hearing it here so I can only imagine the multiplied effect on the other side of the Atlantic!

regards

Paul Logan,
Lisnaskea, N. Ireland

Show quoted text

--- On Mon, 15/11/10, MarkWA1ION wrote:

From: MarkWA1ION
Subject: [ultralightdx] Re: Newfoundland Ultralight Trans-Atlantics Report Nov 12-13 Summary
To: ultralightdx@...
Date: Monday, 15 November, 2010, 4:36

In the '70s/early '80s the Urumqi transmitter was on the unique channel of 1525 and it was logged several times in autumn around sunset in the Cape Cod and metro-Boston coastal areas. Since going to 1521 I think there was one tentative log at Chatham, MA but mostly the channel is owned by the Saudi, one of the strongest of all TA's. SER Spain is what is usually what's far off in the background.

Mark Connelly, WA1ION

--- In ultralightdx@..., Paul Logan wrote:
>
> Hi Allen,
>
> re your Russian language on 1521 I can tell you that the only thing I hear in RR on that frequency is China. Have you ever heard CRI before?
>
> I will keep an eye open in the coming days to see if CRI is still on at that time. Reception can be patchy here sometimes it completely dominates the channel while others times its in the mix with England and Saudi.
>
> regards
>
> Paul Logan,
>
> Lisnaskea, N. Ireland
>
>
>
>
> --- On Sun, 14/11/10, vo1_001_swl wrote:
>
> From: vo1_001_swl
> Subject: [ultralightdx] Newfoundland Ultralight Trans-Atlantics Report Nov 12-13 Summary
> To: ultralightdx@...
> Date: Sunday, 14 November, 2010, 21:49
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Â
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Hello Everyone,
>
>
>
> Due to the windy and colder conditions today I was unable to complete all 3 DX sessions over the weekend as planned up at Ladie's Lookout near Signal Hill, Newfoundland. However, Friday and Saturday evening offered better weather conditions and 2 sessions were completed with the logs listed below.
>
>
>
> Stations from Spain dominated the two day affair and 2 new stations were added to the Ultralight Log
>
>
>
> Saturday's monitoring at 20:20 UT discovered a signal on 1521 khz under the Saudi station with a woman in Russian language. Not sure if this is Urumqi in China as no other details and the time seems a bit late for it.
>
> Also an unidentified on 1296 khz at 19:52 UT with Drumbeat music and vocals, possibly Sudan, any ideas ?
>
>
>
> 621 khzâ€"CANARY ISLANDSâ€"Radio Nacional Tenerife 20:26 UT/13 man in Spanish (weak)
>
> 684 khzâ€"SPAIN-Radio Nacional Espana Sevilla 19:35 UT/12 woman in Spanish
>
> 693 khz-ENGLANDâ€"BBC Five Live 20:25UT/12 talk (Arabic underneath ?)
>
> 729 khzâ€"SPAIN-R. Nacional Oveido 20:25 UT/12 Spanish talk by man
>
> 756 khz â€"SPAIN-R. Euskadi,Bilbao 20:24UT/13 man in Basque language
>
> 774 khz-SPAIN-R.Nacional Valencia 20:26UT/12 man in Spanish
>
> 855 khz-SPAIN-R.Nacional Murcia 19:33UT/12 commentary in Spanish
>
> 864 khz-FRANCE-France Bleue,Paris 20:24/12 French talk & music
>
> 882khz-ENGLAND-BBC Wales Washford 20:27UT/12 talk
>
> 882khz-CANARY ISLANDS-COPE Tenerife 20:27UT/12 Spanish mixing with BBC
>
> 900khz-SPAIN-R. Popular de Bilbao,Bilbao 20:26UT/12 Spanish talk,music (weak)
>
> 909khz-ENGLAND-BBC Radio Five Live,Moorside Edge 20:23 UT/13 Twitter talk
>
> 954 khz-SPAIN-Onda Cero Radio,Madrid 20:28UT/12 Spanish commentary
>
> 963khz-PORTUGAL-R.Sim,Seixal 20:24UT/12 man in Portugeuse talk
>
> 981khz-PORTUGAL-R.Sim,Coimbra 19:32UT/12 pop songs,Portugeuse talk (**NEW)
>
> 999khz-SPAIN-COPE Madrid 19:45UT/12 Spanish talk (fair)
>
> 1008khz-CANARY ISLANDS-R. Punto Arucas 20:22UT/12 two men in Spanish
>
> 1017khz-SPAIN-R.Nacional 5,Burgos 20:21UT/12 two men talk Spanish
>
> 1026khz-SPAIN-SER Reus 20:21/12 woman in Spanish
>
> 1044khz-SPAIN-SER San Sebastian 20:28UT/13 Spanish talk (Strong)//1080 khz
>
> 1053khz-LIBYA-R. Jamahiriyah,Tripoli 20:20UT/12 Arabic talk (over England)
>
> 1062khz-ITALY-RAI1 Cagliari 20:24UT/12 Italian talk,pop music
>
> 1080khz-SPAIN-SER Huesca 20:20UT/12 Spanish talk (mixing with 2 listed on 1080
>
> 1080khz-SPAIN-Onda Cero Toledo 20:20UT/12 Spanish **NEW**
>
> 1080khz-IRAN-VOIRI Abadan 20:20UT/12 Persian music and talk
>
> 1089khz-ENGLAND-Talksport Radio 19:44UT/12 talk
>
> 1107khz-SPAIN-R Nacional 5 20:20UT/13 Spanish woman and man //1098
>
> 1116khz-SPAIN-SER Radio 20:18/13 woman describing sports event
>
> 1125khz-SPAIN-R.Nacional 5 19:42UT/12 man in Spanish (Strong)
>
> 1134khz-CROATIA-Hrvatske R. Zadar 19:52UT/12 man in Croatian (mixing with Spain)
>
> 1152khz-SPAIN-R.Nacional 5 20:25UT/12 Spanish talk by two men
>
> 1161khz-IRAN-VOIRI Abadan 20:20UT/12 Relaying Voice of Palestine
>
> 1179khz-SPAIN-SER Valencia 20:28UT/13 Spanish sports commentary
>
> 1251khz-LIBYA-Voice of Africa Tripoli 20:29UT/13 Arabic talk
>
> 1269khz-SPAIN-COPE Ciudad Real 20:10UT/13 Lively Spanish commentary
>
> 1287khz-SPAIN-SER 20:00UT/12 Spanish commentary
>
> 1296khz-Unidentified 19:52UT/13 African beat music and vocals(mx Spain) Sudan ?
>
> 1305khz-SPAIN-R.Nacional 5 19:30UT/12 woman with Spanish commentary
>
> 1314khz-SPAIN-R.Nacional 5 20:10UT/13 man in Spanish //1305
>
> 1323khz-GERMANY-Voice of Russia via Wachenbrunn 20:29UT/12 woman in French
>
> 1341khz-NORTHERN IRELAND-BBC Radio Ulster 19:51UT/12 talk (mx w/ Hungary)
>
> 1341khz-HUNGARY, Magyar R. Katolikas 19:52UT/12 religious program in Hungarian
>
> 1341khz-Unidentified 19:54UT/12 a fast paced talker non English noted here in addition to above 2 stations
>
> 1377khz-FRANCE-France Info 20:00UT/13 woman with news in French
>
> 1386khz-SPAIN-Euskadi Irratia Bilbao 19:50UT/12 pop songs,talk in Basque
>
> 1395khz-ALBANIA-Transworld Radio via Fllake 19:50UT/12 man in Hungarian (like a local)
>
> 1404khz-FRANCE-France Info Brest 20:09UT/13 French talk
>
> 1413khz-SPAIN-R. Nacional 5 20:06UT/12 man and woman Spanish commentary
>
> 1422khz-ALGERIA-R.Culture,Alger 19:48UT/12 two men in Arabic
>
> 1431khz-DJIBOUTI-R.Sawa Arta 20:02UT/12 Arabic pop songs
>
> 1440khz-LUXEMBOURG-China Radio Relay via Marnach 19:49UT/12 Chinese music
>
> 1449khz-LIBYA-Voice of the Great Homeland Misurata 20:06/12 Arabic news
>
> 1458khz-ALBANIA-China Radio Relay via Fllake 20:18UT/12 Chinese music
>
> 1476khz-SPAIN-Euskadi Irratia,Biribilondo 20:02UT/12 political talk by woman in Basque language
>
> 1485khz-SPAIN-SER Santander 19:47UT/12 two men in Spanish
>
> 1494khz-FRANCE-France Info Clermont 19:47UT/12 man in French news items
>
> 1503khz-SPAIN-R. Nacional 5 19:57UT/13 Spanish commentary (Strong)
>
> 1521khz-Unidentified 20:20 UT/12 Russian talk (only detail) Urumqi Relay CRI ?
>
> 1521khz-SAUDI ARABIA-BSKSA Duba 19:50UT/12 Arabic talk music
>
> 1530khz-VATICAN STATE â€" Vatican Radio 20:29 UT/13 Interval Signal
>
> 1530khz-SAO TOME â€" VOA Relay Pinheira 20:29 UT/13 drum music and vocals mix w/ Vatican
>
> 1548khz-KUWAIT-R.Sawa Kuwait City 19:38UT/12 Arabic music talk
>
> 1557khz-FRANCE-France Info,Nice 20:04UT/12 News in French
>
> 1575khz-ITALY-RAI1 Genova 19:46UT/12 woman in Italian commentary
>
> 1584khz-SPAIN-SER R. Orense 20:04UT/12 woman talking in Spanish
>
> 1593khz-KUWAIT-R. Free Iraq relayed 19:54UT/13 Arabic talk, music & singing
>
> 1602khz-SPAIN-Euskadi Irratia R Vittoria 20:12UT/12 Spanish talk(Strong) mx w/ another Spanish station
>
>
>
> Receivers: SRF-M37V barefoot SRF-39FP barefoot
>
>
>
> Good DX
>
>
>
> Allen Willie
>
>
>
> St. John's,Newfoundland
>

Re: ferrite vs sensitivity

Pollock,Raphael E <rpollock@...>

#12275

Dear George: Your 17 swallows analogy got me to really laughing! In any event, I will await your practical applications in that the vast majority of our fellow hobbyists, myself included, lack much in-depth knowledge about the underlying electronics, let alone the theoretical modeling that you are so generously providing to us. It will be a real service to the hobby to be able to come forth with an optimized and practical application, including step-by-step instructions as well as supply sources. It may very well be that a 7.5” ferrite bar, such as what is being used for so many of the boosted Tecsun ULRs, is the best option, end of discussion. I continue to be very pleased with the 19” ferrite bar booster that I built, “designed” by reading through sources from the various Yahoo clubs, the web, Gerry’s Q-stick + which is my original inspiration, etc. All that is well and good, but is it the best that can be done??? If I am to interpret the graphs below correctly then a 19”L x 1”D 125 mu ferrite bar wrapped with a primary coil of 38 turns should yield a SNR of about +6dB and a 27” L x 1” D would be about +8dB. As a practical matter both of these antennas generate just about the same amount of apparent gain when inductively coupled to any of several radios that I own that have S-meters—slightly more gain with the 27”er but not enough to have ever made a difference in being able to receive a weak signal, plus the nulls are sharper with the 19”er.

I am really enjoying your insights, and look forward to more. BTW, basic demographic info? I’m about to turn 60, have been playing w/ radios since second grade, am a surgeon and work/live in the middle of Houston, TX. If I had been better at calculus I might have gone into EE; instead, I stand on the sidelines and play around with ferrite bars and wires and PVC piping while being taught by smarter folks like yourself!

73s

Raph Pollock

From: ultralightdx@... [mailto:ultralightdx@...] On Behalf Of george magiros
Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2010 9:20 PM
To: ultralightdx@...
Subject: Re: [ultralightdx] Re: ferrite vs sensitivity

I'm still on my quest to simulate ferrite loop antennas, this time for their signal to noise ratios. I hope I'm not proving that 17 swallows are as strong as a horse with all my graphs. Experimentation and actual DXing comes next I promise.

Let me point out a few simple design observations that I gleamed from the graphs.

First, use as many turns as possible without making the Q too high. My Sony ICF-S10MK2 apparently uses a small loopstick with an inductance of 650 uH. That is more than enough turns I would think. 300 uH is probably sufficient too, maybe lower. Having a good number of turns puts you into a kind of linear region where increasing the length of the rod improves the SNR the most. While increasing the number of turns on the loop does improve the SNR, best results come from increasing the length of the rod.

Second, increasing the diameter of rod does not improve the SNR that much, unless of course your rod has a very small diameter to begin with. It appears to be better SNR-wise, and less costly, to simply increase the length of the rod rather than its diameter. In addition there appears to be, for a given rod diameter, a maximum rod length beyond which no increase in the SNR occures.

Now here are the graphs. First for a ferrite loopstick antenna with an initial permeability of 125. One graph plots rod length against turns and the other plots rod diameter against turns. For a loopstick with a diameter of 12.7mm the best length seems to be between 200mm and 300mm FYI.

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/2042/mu125len.png

http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/1018/mu125dia.png

Next, here are the graphs for a loopstick antenna with a mu of 800. The best length for a rod with a 12.7mm diameter seems to be between 300mm to 450mm.

http://img585.imageshack.us/img585/3674/mu800len.png

http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/2258/mu800dia.png

George

Ps. Just to be sure I haven't made any glaring mistakes here is the Matlab/Octave function I used to calculate the signal to noise ratio.

% mui: initial relative permeability of the rod
% n: number of turns
% lr: length of rod in mm
% dw: diameter of wire in mm
% f: frequency in Hz
% E: E-field in V/m
function [ snr Rac Rdc ] = loopstick (mui, n, d, lr, f, dw, E)
Kb = 1.38e-23;                  % boltzmann constant
T = 293;                        % room temperature 20C (293K)
muo = 4 * pi * 1e-7;            % permeability of free space
sigma = 5.96e7;                 % conductivity of copper at 20C (293K)
B = 3e3;                        % bandwidth (3 khz)

lw = n .* pi .* d;                          % length of wire need
delta = 1 ./ sqrt(pi * muo * sigma * f);    % skin depth of wire
Rdc = lw * .001 ./ (pi / 4 .* (dw * .001).^2 * sigma);
Rac = lw * .001 ./ (pi * sigma * delta .* dw * .001);
en = sqrt(4 * Kb * T * B * Rac);            % noise voltage

mu = 1./(1./mui+(d./lr).^2.*(log(lr./(d/2))-1)); % rod relative permeability
a = pi / 4 * (d * .001).^2;                 % rod winding area
es = 2 * pi * n .* a .* mu * E / (3e8 / f); % signal voltage
snr = 20 * log10(es ./ en);
end

Oklahoma TP's 11-15-10

bbwrwy

#12274

After the near wipe-out yesterday, TP signals were better this morning.

Receiver: Tecsun PL-310 with 7.5-inch loopstick.  Local sunrise at 1307 UTC.

567  JOIK Sapporo J, 1310, woman JJ //JOAK, poor.
594  JOAK, Tokyo J, 1256, woman  JJ, poor; 1320, woman JJ, fading out at 1321; carrier audible at 1327.
657  unID (KRE?), 1300, weak carrier, QRM: KTNN 660; still audible at 1323.
693  JOAB, Tokyo J, man reading 2200 JST WX rpt, fair, QRM: KGGF 690.
702  unID, 1258, carrier, QRM: KSEV 700; 1323, weak carrier. QRM: KHSE 700.
747  unid (JOIB?), 1223, carrier (het), no audio, QRM: WSB 750.
774  JOUB, Akita J, 1221, carrier; 1252, man & woman, poor in KSPI 780 QRM.
828  unID (JOBB?), 1253, het, QRM: WCCO & XEIK 830.
873  unID (JOGB?), 1307, carrier, QRM: WWL 870.

Besides the above, I also heard a US station for the first time.  It was KGFW 1340, Kearney NE, at 1236-1250 UTC, with news, sports & ag-rpt.

Wishing you a good day & DX

Richard.

Richard Allen
36°22'51"N / 97°26'35"W
(near Perry OK USA)

Re: Latest DX - November 13th and 14th

Kirk <kirk74601@...>

#12273

Heya Steve!
Man, it's sure great to see you in here again! I've been wondering abt you lately...drop me a note when you can. With KLBJ co-channel, XEFD is a welcome catch down there no doubt abt it! That was the first XE sta I hrd last year when I moved to Pasadena in September....they sometimes were audible during mid-day! Be sure to keep an ear open on 590 for XEPH, Distrito Federal, w/ "La Sabrosita cinco-noventa" IDs.

One question for you. Are you hearing any Cubans down there other than the reliable (always there) stations? When I was in Pasadena a year ago, Oct and Nov were especially good months for Cuban loggings. Since coming back to Okie-Land, I've yet to be listening during any noteable openings in that direction...yet.
73 to ya.

Kirk Allen
Ponca City, OK

Show quoted text

--- In ultralightdx@..., "Stephen H. Ponder" <stephen_ponder@...> wrote:

Just two stations, both heard before, but offered to the group in case other
group members need the information.
Both were heard using my Sangean DT-400W.

 590 XEFD MEXICO  Reynosa, Tamaulipas - 14 Nov 2010, 2030 UTC - Heard with
     good, clear ID, "X-E-F-D, La Mejor."  The announcer really trilled the
     final "r" of "Mejor!"  Pretty good copy even with co-channel KLBJ in
     Austin, Texas being so close.  (S. Ponder/TX))

1160 KRDY TX  San Antonio - 14 Nov 2010, 0530 UTC - Radio Disney outlet;
     after about 15 minutes of listening, finally head a "Radio Disney
     1160" ID, but no call letters.  Since this is the only Radio Disney
     outlet on 1160 kHz, pretty sure it's KRDY.  (S. Ponder/TX)

Hope to do more DX'ing as I can.

73 and Great DX'ing!


Stephen H. Ponder, N5WBI
Clear Lake City, TX

Home:  281-286-3440  Cell:  713-299-7241
E-Mail:  stephen_ponder@...

Latest DX - November 13th and 14th

Stephen H. Ponder <stephen_ponder@...>

#12272

Just two stations, both heard before, but offered to the group in case other group members need the information.
Both were heard using my Sangean DT-400W.

590 XEFD MEXICO Reynosa, Tamaulipas - 14 Nov 2010, 2030 UTC - Heard with
     good, clear ID, "X-E-F-D, La Mejor." The announcer really trilled the
     final "r" of "Mejor!" Pretty good copy even with co-channel KLBJ in
     Austin, Texas being so close. (S. Ponder/TX))

1160 KRDY TX San Antonio - 14 Nov 2010, 0530 UTC - Radio Disney outlet;
     after about 15 minutes of listening, finally head a "Radio Disney
     1160" ID, but no call letters. Since this is the only Radio Disney
     outlet on 1160 kHz, pretty sure it's KRDY. (S. Ponder/TX)

Hope to do more DX'ing as I can.

73 and Great DX'ing!

Stephen H. Ponder, N5WBI
Clear Lake City, TX

Home: 281-286-3440 Cell: 713-299-7241
E-Mail: stephen_ponder@...