From: "Mike Dennison" <mike.dennison@rsgb.org.uk>
To: rsgb_lf_group@blacksheep.org
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2000 17:19:32 -0000
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Subject: Re: LF: DCF39 heard in the US
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> Dave Wilson, AC4IU, who lives near Fredericksburg, south of Washington DC,
> reports to have seen DFC39, but rarely, and adds that he is not sure what
> determines when he can hear that station of not. It should be noted that
> Fredericksburg is well inland, far from the ocean.
> 

Excellent. I feel that concentrating on this high ERP station will 
provide a useful pattern. Once fixed stations can receive it with 
some reliability (or at least predictability), preferably by ear, then 
there is a good chance that a coastal portable expedition can detect 
amateurs. It also gives something to work with, that is to measure 
improvements in propagation and receiver/antenna performance. 
When you hear nothing, you can't tell if you need another 3dB or 
300!

> The reason DCF39 was not mentioned in the Nags Head reports is that,
> sadly, we did not look for it. Our mistake, but we were concentrating on
> the narrow band between 137.600 and 137.900 where the 4 British amateur
> stations were located. 73 Andre' N4ICK
> 

Quite understood. Portable expeditions are by no means trivial and 
you have to set your agenda in advance and concentrate on that. If 
you had detected the amateur signals, that would have been 
marvelous, but it looks like you need to set your sights a little lower 
in order to determine just how far you are from succeeding. The bad 
news is that conditions were exceptionally good that weekend as 
CFH was strong well into daylight in the UK.

I am quite sure, however, that you learned useful lessons for next 
time. With my LF portable expeditions to GW, I have got better and 
better because each time I came away with a long list of things I 
knew I had done wrong - it's true about learning from your mistakes. 
An expedition only fails if you can't think of anything you would do 
better next time.

It's pretty frustrating for us in Europe as we feel we would like to just 
pop over with our own gear and hear for ourselves what the band is 
like, as we might with a listening station a few hundred km away. 
Perhaps you can put a few .WAV files onto the AMRAD website 
after your next expedition so that we can hear and also analyse the 
receiver output. It might help us to help you.

Anyway, your efforts are very much appreciated and we all look 
forward to the day when the US (and Canada) has an LF allocation 
in the licence. Then we can be the ones desperately looking in vain 
at the noise on a DSP screen!

73


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