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Noise cancelling for G8 etc

bty49514 <michael.setaazul@...>
 

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@...>
 

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
 

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
 

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
 

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
 

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
 

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)
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
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
 

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
 

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
G8

michael9236 <michael.setaazul@...>
 

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@...>
 

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
 

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
 

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


--- 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
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>  
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 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@...>
 

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
 

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@...>
 

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

--- 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@...>
 

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@...


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

MarkWA1ION
 

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 <paulloganradio@...> 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 <vo1_001_swl@...> wrote:

From: vo1_001_swl <vo1_001_swl@...>
Subject: [ultralightdx] Newfoundland Ultralight Trans-Atlantics Report Nov 12-13 Summary
To: ultralightdx@...
Date: Sunday, 14 November, 2010, 21:49







 









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
KTRB San Francisco

Mark Roberts
 

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.

A couple of months ago, the station went into receivership. The
"original" site, SE of Livermore, was so remote that electric power
could not be brought to the site. The station instead ran on
generators.

The FCC granted an STA to KTRB on October 15 allowing it to run at
reduced power at night. The station's CE explained to the FCC that the
original two generators had worn out. A rental generator had been
procured, but it could only run the transmitter at 20 kW.

While the FCC granted that STA, it now appears that the station ceased
nighttime operation altogether. There is another STA application,
dated November 3, not yet granted, with this explanation:

"The receiver of station KTRB is in the process of attempting to sell
the station or to find an acceptable time broker to provide
programming for the station. During such efforts, insufficient funds
are available to operate the station on an unlimited basis, as
authorized by the KTRB license. As a result, the receiver hereby
seeks authorization to cease night time operation on the station until
such time as a programmer or an agreement to purchase the station is
finalized. The station ceased operating during nighttime hours with
night time facility on October 15, 2010. The station signs off in the
evening and on in the morning at times consistent
with the average sunrise and sunset times established in its license.
The receiver intends to return the station to night time operation as
soon as programming arrangements can be effectuated. The receiver
calls to the FCC's intention [sic] that the station currently airs
certain football games. To the extent that such
games continue beyond the time that the station would ordinarily
switch to night time operation (and now sign off), the station will
switch to its night time operating parameters and continue to operate
until the end of the football broadcast and then cease operation for
the night."

While the STA has not been granted, clearly the station is (mostly)
not operating at night. The football games mentioned are Oakland
Raiders NFL games; there wasn't one this week.

It may be a DX opportunity if, in the apparent chaos, KTRB were to
happen to not go to its DA site at night, at least when there's a
Raiders game on.

It's hard to say when this situation will be cleared up....
Re: Puyallup, WA Ultralight TP's for 11-14

pianoplayer88key
 

Hi... you had a much better session than me. I could hardly make out anything through much 50/00 desense, being only 1/3mi SE of 23kW 1300-KAZN and 50kW 1430-KMRB this AM. I started checking around 1420 (slept through my 1300 alarm) and gave up around 1500 or shortly thereafter.

I made recordings of a few frequencies, but am not ready to upload them yet. I thought I could hear traces of audio through the 41/00 on 1593, 45/00 on 1566 (but I suspect it was after HLAZ's antenna change), 50/00 on 1476 (to try to check for that unID), 50/00 on 1404, 50/00 on 1377, 49/00 on 1368 (with a 2k het), and 45/00 on 1242 (with 2k het), but the audio if any was buried deep in the desense, and I never could even tell what type of program was on.
I definitely did hear audio on 1161 reading 49/00, but had difficulty reading it, in part to being under the desense, and using 1kHz mode. That one probably could have been 1160-XEQIN.
Also I heard hets on 1458, 1359, 1341, 1269, and 1251. However, every several seconds or so they would step up or down anywhere from about 50 cents to a couple semitones approximately, so I wonder if they aren't true hets at all, but are related to the extreme desense from being so close to a local pest. In fact, 1430-KMRB was overloading the PL-380 to the point of audio distortion on the channel when the Select-A-Tenna was tuned there, and even without it, I was getting 50/00 desense from around 1220 (there was also the aforementioned 1300) to 1550 or so, possibly wider, and 49/00 (barefoot) from around 970 to 1710, also contributed to by 50kW IBOC 1110-KDIS about 4 1/2 mi away.

I wonder if I should have checked the low end of the band instead? Or are there any tips for getting TPs through all the clutter in L.A. when I visit my grandma (who lives near the aforementioned pests)? It does seem the 50kW 1/3 mi to the northwest is making TP DX a bit difficult.

--- In ultralightdx@..., D1028Gary@... wrote:

Hello All,

Asian TP signals dropped off significantly here this morning
(compared to yesterday), in agreement with the lackluster results reported by
Richard and Nigel. Here on the west coast a few "big gun" TP's managed fair to
good audio, however, as it was "survival of the fittest" in a typically
mediocre late-season session.
"Big gun" signals on 594, 648, 657, 747, 774, 828, 972 and 1134 were
up and down in strength from 1400-1515, but "sunrise enhancement" didn't
really enhance anything. The second-tier TP's tended to stay down in the
noise, and Asian propagation wrapped up early around 1515 this morning.
657-Pyongyang's infamous transmitter continues to muffle the high audio
frequencies, thankfully silencing most of the loud Korean tirades and 1948-vintage
music. Unfortunately the same noxious NK programming has now shown up on
648-VOR's Korean program (after 1500) for two days in a row, providing DXers
the dubious chance to hear the rude shouting and obsolete music in rare high
fidelity.

The following were heard on a C.Crane SWP Slider model (7.5"
loopstick) inductively coupled to a 9' sided PVC-frame 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 (presumed) Fair music at 1422,
but no 603 // available for identity check
594 JOAK Tokyo, Japan Good Japanese interview program
at 1455 _http://www.mediafire.com/?1dxo2xzllewvii5_
(http://www.mediafire.com/?1dxo2xzllewvii5)
648 VOR Razdolnoye, Russia The OM and YL "tirade twins"
from 657-NK back after 1500 for the Korean program
657 Pyongyang BS, North Korea Good strength, but rickety
transmitter cutting off the high audio frequencies during
the obsolete music at 1451
_http://www.mediafire.com/?4vrla39xyac2t09_ (http://www.mediafire.com/?4vrla39xyac2t09)
738 BEL2 Penghu, Taiwan Poor-fair Chinese talk at 1445
747 JOIB Sapporo, Japan Good Basic English lessons 1430
774 JOUB Akita, Japan Fair English lessons in KTTH splatter
828 JOBB Osaka, Japan Good Basic English lessons at
1443 _http://www.mediafire.com/?8c4i9xd8wgzki4l_
(http://www.mediafire.com/?8c4i9xd8wgzki4l)
936 Anhui, China (presumed) Threshold music at 1338
972 HLCA Very good (in splatter) with interval music and
YL Korean speech at 1505
_http://www.mediafire.com/?36z15jvag6ncdb6_ (http://www.mediafire.com/?36z15jvag6ncdb6)
1134 KBS3 Hwaseong, S. Korea Good Korean speech in
splatter around 1428
1566 HLAZ Jeju, S. Korea Good Japanese religious program
at 1340 (before antenna change)

73 and Good DX,
Gary DeBock
Filling in the log-FARMERIK

Rik
 

Lots of AM signals tonight, so I am filling in holes in my log here in North East Connecticut.-

CIHI 1260 Fredericton, NB 10KW with NW/SE pattern, [I am SW]
C&W music they call 'Country Rock' Mention of [FM] CKHJ, also in same city. Radio Disney station fades in and out in the back round. I've had this before and only heard the shortened KHJ ID for the FM side.

WDGJ 'Talk 1300' Rensselaer, NY [Albany area] 10KW/8KW directional NW,[ I am SE] TOH says NEWS TALK RADIO but sports were the topic.

WDER 1320 Derry New Hampshire which in SE corner of state. 10KW/1KW Christian programs, Chuck Christmier [?sp] host talking.

WXBR 1460 Brockton MA.[South of Boston, East of Rhode Island] 5KW/1KW with directional antenna East [I am West]
Oldies show ' Backseat Memories' with Dennis D.

WDCD 1540 Albany , NY 50KW Christian programs, SW Bible Church ? Noah Hutchings ministry. Ad for Unshackled program.

A good night. These stations are all in the mud. - FARMERIK
21541 - 21560 of 33750