Hello everyone,
Some Decca active antennas from Decca Navigator receivers have appeared on
the surplus market recently. They're worth buying if you see one - I have
one and it's as good as my 100m inverted-L as regards S/N although not
absolute output. They look like white or grey plastic tubes about 70 cms
long, 4 cms dia, with "Racal-Decca" printed on the outside.
They're quite good for reception on 73 and 136 being broad-banded over
70-130 kHz and have a fair amount of gain - 26 dB or so. All they need is
9-30 v dc fed up the co-ax in the usual way. Circuit attached courtesy Ko
Versteeg.
Note : their preamps are NOT the same as the preamps some of us got from
the Decca transmitter sites.
Re Loran - Following culled from NELS Newsletter:
Quote:
Northwest European Loran-C System.
At the May 2001 meeting of the NELS Steering Committee, several member
nation representatives presented statements reflecting that without a
significant multimodal increase in the use of the system, a continuation of
NELS beyond 2005 as a system funded over member nations public budgets
would not be possible. In the now very likely event that the NELS
organisation as such would be discontinued as of 31 December 2005, being
concerned with the future for the infrastructure itself, the Committee
decided on the following statement:
NELS Steering Committee Statement
Most of the NELS Governments have indicated that they do not see a future
need for Loran-C as a publicly funded position-fixing infrastructure beyond
the expiry date of the current agreement
Some NELS Steering Committee representatives consider that the Loran-C
infrastructure can continue to fulfill an important
role, especially in the area of the land mobile market, funded by the
private sector.
The NELS Steering Committee recommends that NELS members now urgently
consider the future of the infrastructure having
regard in particular to:
National positions
Organizational arrangements
Future uses, especially the land mobile use
Future stakeholders, especially private stakeholders
end quote.
So hang in there - if we can retain 136 beyond 2005 there's hope yet!
Walter G3JKV.
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