I'm curious to know the ERP of VTX3 ... anyone reading this in India ?
Well not from India....
According to very reliable info I have, but unfortunately dating from
several years ago now, the VTX nominal tx power is +60 dBW. I have another
figure of +57 dBW which I think may be claimed ERP but that seems a trifle
optimistic!!
I first came across VTX3 a year or two prior to the Gulf War and a period of
several months monitoring showed the signal to be very reliable here in ZL-
day/night variation is less than 3 dB but there are other unexplained larger
variations in signal that seem to happen any time. Not listened to it
regularly for some time now but it is typically sending idents or code
groups. Used to have manual sending up occasionally (operator training
perhaps?) and was only too obvious when that happened. It was very active
during the Gulf War with all sorts of traffic including quite long morse
text messages but all meaningless stuff to me. Lots of obviously hand sent
stuff over that period as well!
A useful VLF beacon overall and although we have the advantage of a mainly
sea path here in VK/ZL, sounds like it gets up overland into Europe fairly
well too. A pity it isn't a 50 baud packet digipeater, although even 50 baud
is probably too wide/fast for the antenna system to handle.
73
Dave, ZL3FJ
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