LF: US-Eu Frequency

[MarkusVester@aol.com]

Hi Laurence, Laurie, Mike,

well it would be great to see an American LF signal after all, despite the sad and hard-to-understand fact of the FCC's denial of a 136kHz ham band.

Receiving is always a little more difficult here in Central Europe 'cause we got "both ends burning"... lots of DCF39 Luxembourg IM at the top, while on the bottom DCF42/49 TX-intermodulation bursts come in, and SXV from Greece becomes quite strong at night.

Their current FSK spectrum (main peaks at 135683 and 783) has several sidebands, with a spectral density roughly 10dB over background noise near 135922. However there is a pronounced minimum now between 135890 and 135900Hz which could be useful. The problem is that as their frequency is drifting, the position of the clear gap may vary from week to week (see pic).

Kind regards
Markus, DF6NM

> I think it would be best to keep clear of top end of the band which might be
> in use for local QRSS contacts,and also when looking for VA3LK I had strong
> Loran interference on 137.7446. So I would suggest we continue to use the
> old T/A slot below 136 and would prefer 135.922 since that freq is quiet
> here and reasonably clear of SXV.
> 73 Laurie.

I also favour the low end of the band as Luxembourg effect QRM is bad at the
HF end in the evenings.