Thursday 15 February 2024

Building Alfred P. Morgan's "A More Selective Crystal Receiver"

 


As I’ve been seeing a lot of new membership requests on my Facebook Crystal Radio DX group indicating that they wish to build a crystal receiver, I’ve been examining some simple inexpensive circuits that should work well for local reception and possibly even to hear some skywave DX signals.
 
Since I’ve always wanted to build Alfred P. Morgan’s ‘A More Selective Crystal Receiver’ from his second ‘Boy’s Book of Radio’ ever since first seeing it at around age 10, I chose this as a start.
 
How did it Morgan’s design work? Could it hear all of my 15 locals and separate them? Was it a DX machine?
 
I invite you to read about the whole process on my web page, just published today:
 

Sunday 11 February 2024

New Page On VE7SL Radio Notebook!



Thanks to May (VA7MAY) and Mark (VA7MM) spending the time to scan my 630m QSL card collection, I have now been able to complete their work by posting a dedicated page for the cards.

If you've ever wondered what can be worked on this 'below the broadcast band' MF amateur band, then viewing the cards and reading their comments may give you some insight into its character.

                              The new page can be found here.

Wednesday 25 October 2023

Hunting For NDBs In CLE279


Another month has zoomed by and it's CLE time once again. This is a challenge for all newcomers to NDB listening and the ultimate test of your medium frequency receiving capabilities. Can you meet the challenge?

'CLE's are 'Co-ordinated  Listening Events, and NDB DXers around the world focus their listening time on one small slice of  the NDB spectrum.
 
With the number of targets slowly being decommissioned, the hunting grounds have been slightly widened ... this month the frequency range is for the NDBs whose published frequencies are between 335.0 - 349.9 kHz

When tuning for NDBs, put your receiver in the CW mode and listen for the NDB's CW identifier, repeated every few seconds. Listen for U.S. NDB identifiers approximately 1 kHz higher or lower than the published transmitted frequency since these beacons are modulated with a 1020 Hz tone approximately.

For example, 'AA' near Fargo, ND, transmitted on 365 kHz and its upper sideband CW identifier was tuned at 366.025 kHz while its lower sideband CW ident could be tuned at 363.946 kHz. Its USB tone was actually 1025 Hz while its LSB tone was 1054 Hz.

Often, one sideband will be much stronger than the other so if you don't hear the first one, try listening on the other sideband.

Canadian NDBs normally have an USB tone only, usually very close to 400 Hz. They also have a long dash (keydown) following the CW identifier.

All NDBs heard in North America will be listed in the RNA database (updated daily) while those heard in Europe may be found in the REU database. Beacons heard outside of these regions will be found in the RWW database.

From CLE organizers comes the following info:

Hello all


Here are the full details for this weekend's co-ordinated listening event.
It is open to everyone including CLE new-comers:

    Days:       Friday 27 Oct. - Monday 30 Oct.

    Times:     Start and end at midday, LOCAL time at the receiver.

          NB:   Most of us are changing our clocks by one hour this weekend.

                   However UTC time (as shown in our logs) continues unaffected.   

    Range:     335.0 - 349.9 kHz

Wherever you are, please join us and log the NDBs that you can positively
identify that are listed in this busy frequency range (it includes 335.0 kHz
but not 350 kHz), plus any UNIDs that you come across there.

Short and long logs are welcome (in-between ones are good too!)

    Send your CLE log to the List, preferably as a plain text email
    (not in an attachment) with ‘CLE297 FINAL’ in its subject line.

    Please show on EVERY LINE of your log:
       #  The date (e.g. '2023-10-27' or just the day no. '27') and UTC
           (the day changes at 00:00 UTC).
       #  kHz  (
The beacon's nominal published frequency)

              If you don’t know it, please visit https://rxx.classaxe.com

              where you will find all the details.
       #  The Call Ident.

Show those main items FIRST on each line, before other optional 
details such as Location, Distance, etc.  If you send any interim logs during the event, please also send your 'FINAL', complete, log.

Always make your log interesting to everyone by giving details of your listening location (the 6-character Locator) and brief details of the receiver, aerial(s), etc., that you were using.


We will send the usual 'Any More Logs?' email at about 19:00 UTC
on Tuesday so that you can check that your log has been found OK.
Do make sure that your log has arrived on the List at the very latest
by 08:00 UTC on Wednesday 1 November.  We will then hope to 
complete making the combined results within a day or two.

You can find full information about current and past CLEs from the

CLE page https://www.ndblist.info/cle.htm.

You can also find your relevant seeklists made from REU/RNA/RWW by visiting https://rxx.classaxe.com/cle.


Good listening

 

   Brian and Joachim

   (CLE Coordinators)

(Reminder:  You could use any ONE remote receiver for your loggings, stating its location and owner - with their permission if required. A remote listener may NOT also use another receiver, whether local or remote, to obtain further loggings for the same CLE)

 _._,_._,_

CLE's provide several purposes. They:

• determine, worldwide, which beacons are actually in service and on-the-air so the newly-re-vamped Rxx online database can be kept up-to-date

• determine, worldwide, which beacons are out-of-service or have gone silent since the last CLE covering this range


• will indicate the state of propagation conditions at the various participant locations


• will give you an indication of how well your LF/MF receiving system is working


• give participants a fun yet challenging activity to keep their listening skills honed


Final details can be found at the NDB List website, and worldwide results, for every participant, will be posted there a few days after the event.


The NDB List Group is a great place to learn more about the 'Art of NDB DXing' or to meet other DXers in your region. There is a lot of good information available there and new members are always very welcome. As well, you can follow the results of other CLE participants from night to night as propagation is always an active topic of discussion.

You need not be an NDB List member to participate in the CLEs and all reports, no matter how small, are of much value to the organizers.

Remember - 'First-time' logs are always VERY welcome!

Reports may be sent to the NDB List Group or e-mailed to CLE co-ordinator, Brian Keyte (G3SIA), whose address appears above. If you are a member of the group, all final results will also be e-mailed and posted there.

Please ... give the CLE a try ... then let us know what NDB's can be heard from your location! Your report can then be added to the worldwide database to help keep it up-to-date.

Have fun and good hunting!

Thursday 17 August 2023

Magic Band Summer Season



This summer’s Sporadic-E season has pretty much wound-down once again. As E seasons go, this one ranked right up there with the worst of them but this comes with some provisos.

Over the past several years, my only interest has focused on Europe and Asia, looking for any DXCC entities that I have not yet worked and I tend to ignore most domestic openings unless the MUF appears to be climbing into the range of 2m.

There were several openings from here in British Columbia to most regions of the US and Canada, so many would likely disagree that it was a poorer season than normal!
 

Unlike last year when we had several good days to Europe over a two-week period, this year’s fireworks were pretty much confined to June 12, when the somewhat unstable polar-path to Europe jumped from country to country for several hours. In spite of making 62 contacts to Europe, only one new country was worked when 9H1TX in Malta replied to one of my CQs! Other than him, there were no other signals being heard at the time but after our QSO, his fellow countryman, 9H1LO, also appeared ... so it was exciting to find two rare 9H1s in the 6m log! For about 4 minutes, the only two signals in my FT8 waterfall were both CQers from Malta! Note the power and antenna being used by 9H1LO ... it doesn't take much when the magic appears, albeit momentarily.
 


 
Last summer’s E season was not as heavily influenced by the active Sun, unlike this summer’s constant stream of solar flares keeping the polar regions anything but calm and quiet … a seeming requirement for good transpolar Es on 50MHz from the west coast.
 
Last year produced 8 new DXCC entities and in most cases, like this year, signals were strong enough for CW but almost all DX prefers the few db advantage offered by the FT8 mode. Exchanges can be made MUCH more quickly on CW than the snail-pace of FT8. The addition of 9H1 brings my 6m DXCC confirmed total to 109.
 












If Cycle 25 continues to grow as it has been (in small spurts), it’s difficult to predict if there will be any long haul F2 propagation in the late fall or not. In previous cycles we’ve needed to see some steady flux values in the 200 or higher range for several days in a row … at least for us here in VE7 land.
 
If the high F2 MUF does indeed manage to manifest itself, we should expect to see early morning openings to the New England / NY regions with blowtorch signal levels before seeing the path crawl down the eastern seaboard then possibly into the Caribbean and South America. Later in the afternoon, expect signals from Japan and the far East for several hours up until sunset, once again at bone-crushing signal levels. There are few things in ham radio more exciting than experiencing 6m F2 and hearing the level of signal strengths that can be reached when operating near the edge of the MUF.
 
If not this fall then hopefully in 2024 for sure … but as of now, it’s anyone’s guess as to if or when the rare winter magic will appear once again!

Wednesday 26 July 2023

Hunting For NDBs in CLE294

YZS-362 Coral Harbor, NU (ve3gop.com)
 

Another month has zoomed by and it's CLE time once again. This is a challenge for all newcomers to NDB listening and the ultimate test of your medium frequency receiving capabilities. Can you meet the challenge?

'CLE's are 'Co-ordinated  Listening Events, and NDB DXers around the world focus their listening time on one small slice of  the NDB spectrum.
 
With the number of targets slowly being decommissioned, the hunting grounds have been slightly widened ... this month the frequency range is for the NDBs whose published frequencies are between 350.0 - 369.9 kHz

A good target for all NA listeners is powerhouse YZS on 362 kHz, located at Coral Harbor, Nunavut. Listen for its upper sideband CW identifier on 362.402 kHz.

When tuning for NDBs, put your receiver in the CW mode and listen for the NDB's CW identifier, repeated every few seconds. Listen for U.S. NDB identifiers approximately 1 kHz higher or lower than the published transmitted frequency since these beacons are modulated with a 1020 Hz tone approximately.

For example, 'AA' near Fargo, ND, transmitted on 365 kHz and its upper sideband CW identifier was tuned at 366.025 kHz while its lower sideband CW ident could be tuned at 363.946 kHz. Its USB tone was actually 1025 Hz while its LSB tone was 1054 Hz.

Often, one sideband will be much stronger than the other so if you don't hear the first one, try listening on the other sideband.

Canadian NDBs normally have an USB tone only, usually very close to 400 Hz. They also have a long dash (keydown) following the CW identifier.

All NDBs heard in North America will be listed in the RNA database (updated daily) while those heard in Europe may be found in the REU database. Beacons heard outside of these regions will be found in the RWW database.

From CLE organizers comes the following info:

Hello all,

Our 294th Co-ordinated Listening Event is almost here.

First time CLE logs too?  Yes, please! 

Short logs are always as welcome as long ones.

 Days:     Friday 28 July - Monday 31 July

Times:   Start and End at midday, your LOCAL time

Range:   350.0 - 369.9 kHz   

Please log all the NDBs you can identify that are listed in this range (it includes 350 kHz but not 370) plus any UNIDs that you come across there.

Send your final CLE log to ndblist@groups.io, preferably as a plain text email, not in an attachment and - important - with 'CLE294' and 'FINAL' in its title.

 

Please show the following main items FIRST on EVERY line of your log:

#   The Date (e.g. 2023-07-28) or just the day (e.g. 28)

#   The Time in UTC (the day changes at 00:00 UTC).

#   kHz - the beacon's nominal published frequency, if you know it.

#   The Call Ident.

 

Optional details, such as Location and Distance, go LATER in the same line.

Please make your log useful to everyone by including your listening location, its 6-character Maidenhead Locator if you know it, and brief details of the receiver and aerial(s).

 

We will send the usual 'Any More Logs?' email at about 19:00 UTC on Tuesday so you can check that your log has been found OK.

To be included in the combined results, do make sure that your log has arrived on the List by 08:00 UTC on Wednesday 2 August at the very latest.

 We hope to make all the combined results within a day or so.

 You can find full information about current and past CLEs  from the CLE page https://www.ndblist.info/cle.htm.

You can also find your relevant seeklists made from REU/RNA/RWW by visiting https://rxx.classaxe.com/cle.

Good listening

Brian & Joachim

(CLE coordinators)

(Reminder:         If you wish you can use a remote receiver for your loggings, stating its location and owner -  with their permission if required.

A remote listener may NOT also use another receiver,  whether local or remote, to obtain further loggings  for the same CLE)


CLE's provide several purposes. They:


• determine, worldwide, which beacons are actually in service and on-the-air so the newly-re-vamped Rxx online database can be kept up-to-date

• determine, worldwide, which beacons are out-of-service or have gone silent since the last CLE covering this range


• will indicate the state of propagation conditions at the various participant locations


• will give you an indication of how well your LF/MF receiving system is working


• give participants a fun yet challenging activity to keep their listening skills honed


Final details can be found at the NDB List website, and worldwide results, for every participant, will be posted there a few days after the event.


The NDB List Group is a great place to learn more about the 'Art of NDB DXing' or to meet other DXers in your region. There is a lot of good information available there and new members are always very welcome. As well, you can follow the results of other CLE participants from night to night as propagation is always an active topic of discussion.

You need not be an NDB List member to participate in the CLEs and all reports, no matter how small, are of much value to the organizers.

Remember - 'First-time' logs are always VERY welcome!

Reports may be sent to the NDB List Group or e-mailed to CLE co-ordinator, Brian Keyte (G3SIA), whose address appears above. If you are a member of the group, all final results will also be e-mailed and posted there.

Please ... give the CLE a try ... then let us know what NDB's can be heard from your location! Your report can then be added to the worldwide database to help keep it up-to-date.

Have fun and good hunting!