From: "Mike Dennison" <mike.dennison@rsgb.org.uk>
Organization: Radio Society of Great Britain
To: rsgb_lf_group@blacksheep.org
Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 17:31:16 +0100
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Subject: Re: LF: good signals - deaf receivers
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HB9ASB wrote:
> Alarming is the increasing number of stations with good signals and
> mediocre receivers. It seems to me, that the real challenge on the LF
> band is the receiving part and I think there is still a lot of work to
> do. This includes also directional receiving aerials. 
> I am aware of the fact that some locations suffer from heavy local QRM
> or Loran-splatter or have more Luxembourg-effect than others. On the
> other hand are receivers suffering from front end overload,
> inappropriate AGC-characteristics and large bandwidths far from the
> optimum.
> 

I have argued this for years, and won't bore everyone with my 
sermon again. The bottom line is that if you get better reports than 
you give most of the time, you need to improve the receiver. 
Remember the most successful stations can receive just as well 
as they can transmit. With a good receiver and a poor antenna, or 
low power, you can work more stations than with just a good Tx. 

In the UK, I find a good test is comparing the 138.82 signal, and 
the Greek RTTY on about 136, with the band noise, as follows:
138.82kHz s9+40
136kHz (evenings) s9
Band noise s2-3

It took me a while to get there, with careful filtering and level 
adjustment.

Mike, G3XDV (IO91VT)
http://www.dennison.demon.co.uk/activity.htm