Re: [IRCA] Sat-Sun-Monday - TP Oct 8, 2012 / Jordan River Pacific version: comment

2012-10-09 Thread d1028gary 

Hi Walt,

<<<   I listened on both Saturday and
Sunday mornings from Rockwork south of Cannon Beach, OR using the FSL
broadband version.  Saturday morning was very good, IMHO with plenty of
signals especially in the bottom half of the band.  Sunday was not as good,
but still not bad.  Unfortunately, I can't rate the mornings vs my
standards of BOGs or corner-fed loops, which I'd love to do.  In any case,
I'd rate Saturday as a 7 or 8, and Sunday, a 5.   >>>

Since Chuck, Bruce and Tom were also DXing at Grayland on both October 6th 
(Saturday) and October 7th (Sunday), when all of the Perseus .wav files from 
the weekend are reviewed, there may be some very interesting (and accidentally 
obtained) information on the new Broadband FSL's  performance at the Rockwork 
cliff compared to the BOG-based DXing at Grayland. We had been planning 
something like this coordinated operation in the future, but seem to have 
stumbled across it this month by accident :-) 

73, Gary 




-Original Message-
From: Walter Salmaniw 
To: Mailing list for the International Radio Club of America 

Sent: Tue, Oct 9, 2012 10:35 am
Subject: Re: [IRCA] Sat-Sun-Monday - TP Oct 8, 2012 / Jordan River Pacific 
version: comment


Besides what Gary has observed, I have to think that Point-no-Point is just
not that great of a DX site for TP DX.  I listened on both Saturday and
Sunday mornings from Rockwork south of Cannon Beach, OR using the FSL
broadband version.  Saturday morning was very good, IMHO with plenty of
signals especially in the bottom half of the band.  Sunday was not as good,
but still not bad.  Unfortunately, I can't rate the mornings vs my
standards of BOGs or corner-fed loops, which I'd love to do.  In any case,
I'd rate Saturday as a 7 or 8, and Sunday, a 5.  I had thought that you
were off to Tofino, the real west coast of Vancouver Island.  You still
have to contend with the Olympic peninsula to a large extent, and the full
length of V.I. to the NW.  The only clear open ocean is to the W/NW, a 15
deg slice.  Just my $0.02 worth!  ..Walt

On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 7:53 PM, cafe-swl  wrote:

>
> Spent Friday night through Monday morning at the Point No
> Point cabins near Jordan River, B.C facing out over the pacific --
> http://www.pointnopointresort.**com/ <http://www.pointnopointresort.com/>
>
> Was testing out Gary Debock's innovative surplus ferrite rod
> antenna design -- its performance comparable to a 4' open frame
> loop. As it turns out, for me, this could have well been the
> single worse series of days for radio listening.
>
> MONDAY: Up at 1340 UTC and stuck with it til the stroke of 1400 UTC.
>
> Some strong carriers in some odd places - and no audio of
> note anywhere -- complete absence of any Pacific Asian audio.
>
> Having just read Nick's report, I should have hung out for
> sun rise and harvested at least a shred of radio dignity -
> This was DAY THREE of the new Russian Surplus Gary Debock
> antenna shake down (AKA, the Flux capacitor, AKA R2D2 [my wife's
> favorite antenna nickname so far] -- AKA the Russian Gatling Gun
> and now my official model number: SRFLA-50 {Surplus Russian Ferrite Loop
> Antenna -
> model 50 > 50 cores after all...}
>
> On a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is an awe inspiring morning with the dial
> choked with so many signals as to leave the listener overwhelmed and
> 1 is the result of a lightning strike to the front end, or dead batteries
> or an ionosphere that is utterly missing in action -- I would rate this
> morning as 2 -- and that is being generous.
>
> SUNDAY:
>
> Conditions could not have been that bad but they were much worse than
> Saturday morning - 529 Alaska weather station was almost full deflection
> on the Sony 2010! Promising. As I moved up the dial it was revealed
> that there would be lots of carriers with little snippets of audio
> here and there. Loud carriers on 558, 639, 702, 729, 738, 783, 792, 801,
> 891, 1008, 1098 teased me incessantly but never revealed more than
> an illusion of audio. If memory serves me, audio may have appeared
> briefly on 774, 828 and 972.
>
> I stuck with it from 1330 to 1410. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would
> have given it a generous rating of 3.
>
> SATURDAY:
>
> I arose with high hopes at 12:55 UTC -- and it was clearly obvious this
> was too early for anything - again, lots of hets on the lower band (531 -
> 1000)
> and no audio anywhere - as an indicator of potential, the Alaska weather
> station was
> well placed on 529khz. Things picked up over 15 minutes or so and some top
> tier Japanese stations poked their noses through on 774 and 828. Korea on
> 972 was
> at fair levels at times - and the best signal on the band was 1566 Korea.
> There were hets on almost

Re: [IRCA] Sat-Sun-Monday - TP Oct 8, 2012 / Jordan River Pacific version: comment

2012-10-09 Thread Nick Hall-Patch 
It's still a pretty nice DU water path to relatively low 
mountains;You're right, it is only open to the Pacific via the 
strait from about 270 to 290 degrees.The DU bearings of 220 to 
270 degrees are water path for the last 25 to 45 km, but there is a 
chunk of Washington's Olympic peninsula blocking the path for a ways 
beyond that.   I thought the water path was the important part, and 
using Beverages just a few miles further up the coast, we heard some 
pretty serious DUs many years ago, so don't know what the problem is 
now.   It was pretty dead in July when I tried it out last with just 
an ALA100 though.


best wishes,

Nick


At 17:35 09-10-12, you wrote:

Besides what Gary has observed, I have to think that Point-no-Point is just
not that great of a DX site for TP DX.  I listened on both Saturday and
Sunday mornings from Rockwork south of Cannon Beach, OR using the FSL
broadband version.  Saturday morning was very good, IMHO with plenty of
signals especially in the bottom half of the band.  Sunday was not as good,
but still not bad.  Unfortunately, I can't rate the mornings vs my
standards of BOGs or corner-fed loops, which I'd love to do.  In any case,
I'd rate Saturday as a 7 or 8, and Sunday, a 5.  I had thought that you
were off to Tofino, the real west coast of Vancouver Island.  You still
have to contend with the Olympic peninsula to a large extent, and the full
length of V.I. to the NW.  The only clear open ocean is to the W/NW, a 15
deg slice.  Just my $0.02 worth!  ..Walt

On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 7:53 PM, cafe-swl  wrote:

>
> Spent Friday night through Monday morning at the Point No
> Point cabins near Jordan River, B.C facing out over the pacific --
> http://www.pointnopointresort.**com/ 
>
> Was testing out Gary Debock's innovative surplus ferrite rod
> antenna design -- its performance comparable to a 4' open frame
> loop. As it turns out, for me, this could have well been the
> single worse series of days for radio listening.



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Re: [IRCA] Sat-Sun-Monday - TP Oct 8, 2012 / Jordan River Pacific version: comment

2012-10-09 Thread Walter Salmaniw 
Besides what Gary has observed, I have to think that Point-no-Point is just
not that great of a DX site for TP DX.  I listened on both Saturday and
Sunday mornings from Rockwork south of Cannon Beach, OR using the FSL
broadband version.  Saturday morning was very good, IMHO with plenty of
signals especially in the bottom half of the band.  Sunday was not as good,
but still not bad.  Unfortunately, I can't rate the mornings vs my
standards of BOGs or corner-fed loops, which I'd love to do.  In any case,
I'd rate Saturday as a 7 or 8, and Sunday, a 5.  I had thought that you
were off to Tofino, the real west coast of Vancouver Island.  You still
have to contend with the Olympic peninsula to a large extent, and the full
length of V.I. to the NW.  The only clear open ocean is to the W/NW, a 15
deg slice.  Just my $0.02 worth!  ..Walt

On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 7:53 PM, cafe-swl  wrote:

>
> Spent Friday night through Monday morning at the Point No
> Point cabins near Jordan River, B.C facing out over the pacific --
> http://www.pointnopointresort.**com/ 
>
> Was testing out Gary Debock's innovative surplus ferrite rod
> antenna design -- its performance comparable to a 4' open frame
> loop. As it turns out, for me, this could have well been the
> single worse series of days for radio listening.
>
> MONDAY: Up at 1340 UTC and stuck with it til the stroke of 1400 UTC.
>
> Some strong carriers in some odd places - and no audio of
> note anywhere -- complete absence of any Pacific Asian audio.
>
> Having just read Nick's report, I should have hung out for
> sun rise and harvested at least a shred of radio dignity -
> This was DAY THREE of the new Russian Surplus Gary Debock
> antenna shake down (AKA, the Flux capacitor, AKA R2D2 [my wife's
> favorite antenna nickname so far] -- AKA the Russian Gatling Gun
> and now my official model number: SRFLA-50 {Surplus Russian Ferrite Loop
> Antenna -
> model 50 > 50 cores after all...}
>
> On a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is an awe inspiring morning with the dial
> choked with so many signals as to leave the listener overwhelmed and
> 1 is the result of a lightning strike to the front end, or dead batteries
> or an ionosphere that is utterly missing in action -- I would rate this
> morning as 2 -- and that is being generous.
>
> SUNDAY:
>
> Conditions could not have been that bad but they were much worse than
> Saturday morning - 529 Alaska weather station was almost full deflection
> on the Sony 2010! Promising. As I moved up the dial it was revealed
> that there would be lots of carriers with little snippets of audio
> here and there. Loud carriers on 558, 639, 702, 729, 738, 783, 792, 801,
> 891, 1008, 1098 teased me incessantly but never revealed more than
> an illusion of audio. If memory serves me, audio may have appeared
> briefly on 774, 828 and 972.
>
> I stuck with it from 1330 to 1410. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would
> have given it a generous rating of 3.
>
> SATURDAY:
>
> I arose with high hopes at 12:55 UTC -- and it was clearly obvious this
> was too early for anything - again, lots of hets on the lower band (531 -
> 1000)
> and no audio anywhere - as an indicator of potential, the Alaska weather
> station was
> well placed on 529khz. Things picked up over 15 minutes or so and some top
> tier Japanese stations poked their noses through on 774 and 828. Korea on
> 972 was
> at fair levels at times - and the best signal on the band was 1566 Korea.
> There were hets on almost every low band channel from 531 up but nothing
> jumped
> out of the radio. I kept at it until the sun came up over the West and it
> became
> clear that this particular morning was low mediocre. Funny thing, I got up
> early on
> Friday to give the SRFL-50 a quick run and I was flabbergasted by the sheer
> strength of the one channel I dropped in on; 774 Japan.
> Overall, I would rate Saturday morning as a 3.5 - hardly worth the effort.
>
> I am currently thinking about advance shipping the SRFl-50 to Hawaii -
> but that will depend on it showing off its true powers between now and
> January.
> I actually have my fingers crossed that everyone else did as poorly --
> making my experience less miserable.
>
> As a side note - this was the first weekend away in a long time that I
> packed nothing but 1 "large" radio (the 2010) and two small radios;
> the Eton E100 barefoot (great performer) and the G3 Traveler +
> 1 antenna, the SRFA-50 (apologies to Gary for giving his antenna a product
> number!)
>
>
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Re: [IRCA] Sat-Sun-Monday - TP Oct 8, 2012 / Jordan River Pacific version

2012-10-08 Thread Colin Newell 

Thank you for the technical notes on the *ahem* SRFLA-50

I think this one needs a tweak on the litz turn count.
This unit peaks from 450khz to 1590khz (and at the upper frequency,
the plates are wide open --) OR add some series capacitance to
rise the resonant frequency by 50khz or so.

That said, I concentrate on the lower portion of the band and
rare venture beyond 1593.

Still, very, very exciting and I am already trying
to line up some local "ferrite" outings.


==
Colin Newell - Victoria B.C. DXer and Ham - VA7WWV
ICOM 703+ / DRAKE R8 / ETON E1 / Kenwood R2000
Antennas: Wellbrook ALA100's " Workman Verticals
==

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Re: [IRCA] Sat-Sun-Monday - TP Oct 8, 2012 / Jordan River Pacific version

2012-10-08 Thread d1028gary 

Hi Colin,

<<<   Was testing out Gary Debock's innovative surplus ferrite rod
antenna design -- its performance comparable to a 4' open frame
loop. As it turns out, for me, this could have well been the
single worse series of days for radio listening.   >>>

Sorry that the DXing weekend didn't meet your expectations, Colin. I'm sure 
that you gave it your best efforts, but it might be a little optimistic to 
expect optimal TP-DXing results during the current wild propagation, and 
without a little FSL practice time. The FSL antennas are weird creations, and 
do not behave at all like typical air core loops. 

The single-optimized frequency FSL antennas (as opposed to the Broadband 
variety, which four Perseus-SDR DXers now have) have much sharper tuning than 
equivalent air core loops, and take some time to get used to. Skillfully 
peaking both the FSL's tuning system and inductive coupling distance is 
necessary for best results, and even in my own case, this required some serious 
practice time. FSL's can also provide razor-sharp nulls-- if you know how to 
get them.

In a DXpedition situation where live DXing requires quick frequency changes and 
FSL adjustments, I never try to tune an FSL antenna by listening to an 
inductively-coupled radio's audio response. Especially on the high end of the 
MW band, such attempts take too much time during DXpeditions, where time is at 
a premium. I always tune the FSL's visually, by using the Sony ICF-2010's LED 
signal display to show when the FSL's frequency matches that of the ICF-2010 
SSB spotting receiver. This combo can accurately tune the FSL with a couple of 
seconds, even on an upper-band frequency like 1701 kHz.

FSL antennas used to be quite rare, but there are now 10 DXers using the 
single-frequency variety, so it's probably time for a detailed article 
providing the full operating instructions. Anyway, Colin, if you keep 
practicing, I'm sure that you will discover all the little FSL quirks-- and 
obtain maximum benefit from the antenna.

73, Gary DeBock (in Puyallup, WA, USA)





-Original Message-
From: cafe-swl 
To: Mailing list for the International Radio Club of America 

Sent: Mon, Oct 8, 2012 12:54 pm
Subject: [IRCA] Sat-Sun-Monday - TP Oct 8, 2012  / Jordan River Pacific version



Spent Friday night through Monday morning at the Point No
Point cabins near Jordan River, B.C facing out over the pacific --
http://www.pointnopointresort.com/

Was testing out Gary Debock's innovative surplus ferrite rod
antenna design -- its performance comparable to a 4' open frame
loop. As it turns out, for me, this could have well been the
single worse series of days for radio listening.

MONDAY: Up at 1340 UTC and stuck with it til the stroke of 1400 UTC.

Some strong carriers in some odd places - and no audio of
note anywhere -- complete absence of any Pacific Asian audio.

Having just read Nick's report, I should have hung out for
sun rise and harvested at least a shred of radio dignity -
This was DAY THREE of the new Russian Surplus Gary Debock
antenna shake down (AKA, the Flux capacitor, AKA R2D2 [my wife's
favorite antenna nickname so far] -- AKA the Russian Gatling Gun
and now my official model number: SRFLA-50 {Surplus Russian Ferrite 
Loop Antenna -
model 50 > 50 cores after all...}

On a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is an awe inspiring morning with the 
dial
choked with so many signals as to leave the listener overwhelmed and
1 is the result of a lightning strike to the front end, or dead 
batteries
or an ionosphere that is utterly missing in action -- I would rate this
morning as 2 -- and that is being generous.

SUNDAY:

Conditions could not have been that bad but they were much worse than
Saturday morning - 529 Alaska weather station was almost full 
deflection
on the Sony 2010! Promising. As I moved up the dial it was revealed
that there would be lots of carriers with little snippets of audio
here and there. Loud carriers on 558, 639, 702, 729, 738, 783, 792, 
801,
891, 1008, 1098 teased me incessantly but never revealed more than
an illusion of audio. If memory serves me, audio may have appeared
briefly on 774, 828 and 972.

I stuck with it from 1330 to 1410. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would
have given it a generous rating of 3.

SATURDAY:

I arose with high hopes at 12:55 UTC -- and it was clearly obvious this
was too early for anything - again, lots of hets on the lower band (531 
- 1000)
and no audio anywhere - as an indicator of potential, the Alaska 
weather station was
well placed on 529khz. Things picked up over 15 minutes or so and some 
top
tier Japanese stations poked their noses through on 774 and 828. Korea 
on 972 was
at fair levels at times - and the best signal on the band was 1566 
Korea.
There were hets on almost every low band channel from 531 up but 
nothing jumped
out of the radio. I kept at it until the sun cam

[IRCA] Sat-Sun-Monday - TP Oct 8, 2012 / Jordan River Pacific version

2012-10-08 Thread cafe-swl 


Spent Friday night through Monday morning at the Point No
Point cabins near Jordan River, B.C facing out over the pacific --
http://www.pointnopointresort.com/

Was testing out Gary Debock's innovative surplus ferrite rod
antenna design -- its performance comparable to a 4' open frame
loop. As it turns out, for me, this could have well been the
single worse series of days for radio listening.

MONDAY: Up at 1340 UTC and stuck with it til the stroke of 1400 UTC.

Some strong carriers in some odd places - and no audio of
note anywhere -- complete absence of any Pacific Asian audio.

Having just read Nick's report, I should have hung out for
sun rise and harvested at least a shred of radio dignity -
This was DAY THREE of the new Russian Surplus Gary Debock
antenna shake down (AKA, the Flux capacitor, AKA R2D2 [my wife's
favorite antenna nickname so far] -- AKA the Russian Gatling Gun
and now my official model number: SRFLA-50 {Surplus Russian Ferrite 
Loop Antenna -

model 50 > 50 cores after all...}

On a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is an awe inspiring morning with the 
dial

choked with so many signals as to leave the listener overwhelmed and
1 is the result of a lightning strike to the front end, or dead 
batteries

or an ionosphere that is utterly missing in action -- I would rate this
morning as 2 -- and that is being generous.

SUNDAY:

Conditions could not have been that bad but they were much worse than
Saturday morning - 529 Alaska weather station was almost full 
deflection

on the Sony 2010! Promising. As I moved up the dial it was revealed
that there would be lots of carriers with little snippets of audio
here and there. Loud carriers on 558, 639, 702, 729, 738, 783, 792, 
801,

891, 1008, 1098 teased me incessantly but never revealed more than
an illusion of audio. If memory serves me, audio may have appeared
briefly on 774, 828 and 972.

I stuck with it from 1330 to 1410. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would
have given it a generous rating of 3.

SATURDAY:

I arose with high hopes at 12:55 UTC -- and it was clearly obvious this
was too early for anything - again, lots of hets on the lower band (531 
- 1000)
and no audio anywhere - as an indicator of potential, the Alaska 
weather station was
well placed on 529khz. Things picked up over 15 minutes or so and some 
top
tier Japanese stations poked their noses through on 774 and 828. Korea 
on 972 was
at fair levels at times - and the best signal on the band was 1566 
Korea.
There were hets on almost every low band channel from 531 up but 
nothing jumped
out of the radio. I kept at it until the sun came up over the West and 
it became
clear that this particular morning was low mediocre. Funny thing, I got 
up early on
Friday to give the SRFL-50 a quick run and I was flabbergasted by the 
sheer

strength of the one channel I dropped in on; 774 Japan.
Overall, I would rate Saturday morning as a 3.5 - hardly worth the 
effort.


I am currently thinking about advance shipping the SRFl-50 to Hawaii -
but that will depend on it showing off its true powers between now and 
January.

I actually have my fingers crossed that everyone else did as poorly --
making my experience less miserable.

As a side note - this was the first weekend away in a long time that I
packed nothing but 1 "large" radio (the 2010) and two small radios;
the Eton E100 barefoot (great performer) and the G3 Traveler +
1 antenna, the SRFA-50 (apologies to Gary for giving his antenna a 
product number!)


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Opinions expressed in messages on this mailing list are those of the original 
contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the IRCA, its 
editors, publishing staff, or officers

For more information: http://www.ircaonline.org

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