Re: LF: TA on 500kHz

["lawrence mayhead" <laurie.mayhead@googlemail.com>]

Dear John,
Glad you will continue with the grabber thanks. Archiving no problem.
I have recently acquired an AR 7030 for use on LF.mainly QRSS. This receiver is very sensitive and has
best sig/noise performance of any rx in my possession. However I find the tuning most difficult and still
have to refer to the handbook.
Setting up for 60sec QRS requires that I use an accurate signal source since the tuning is in 3Hz steps
even though the display shows 10hz. BFO offset is in 33hz steps and also displays 100hz. So set up
is likely to be 30/35 hz out. Not a problem normally but difficult when attempting to see a 2/3hz window.
73 Laurie.

On 03/03/2008, John Pumford-Green GM4SLV <gm4slv@sighthound.demon.co.uk> wrote:

On Sat, 1 Mar 2008 14:31:18 +0000
"lawrence mayhead" <laurie.mayhead@googlemail.com> wrote:

> I cannot agree ! I use this grabber all the time and find it very
> useful. Sometimes during the day there is no signal but then I am on
> the south coast,
> a long way away. At night no problem, so John please keep up the good
> work. Laurie G3AQC
>


Thanks Laurie and others for the kind words re: grabber.

The grabber RX (AR7030) is fed from my main 500kHz TX antenna and I
discovered over the weekend that it was very off tune after more
Shetland storms had rattled the ATU enclosure.

I retuned and it appears the receive sensitivity of the grabber has
returned.

I have all but given up on 500kHz operating recently - too many other
distractions - but at least I can provide something of use to the rest
of the active users of the band instead of just sitting moaning about
appliance operators and lack of activity. If I was retired, with few
other interest in life than radio I too could be sitting all day & night
in the shack looking for non existent DX on 500kHz.

However, I'm glad others find my investment of radio hardware, PCs &
internet bandwidth of value to their own experiments.

One thing I should announce, I have suspended the "automatic archiving"
of each 5-minute screengrab. All that happens now is that the new grab
is uploaded to the web. The local copy isn't stored. I found that after
7 months of saving a JPG image every 5 minutes that I had over 10GB of
pictures stored...!

Since I have had only one request over that period to look back to
specific day/times I figure I'm wasting my hard drive's storage space
by attempting to archive every screengrab.

I guess it's now up to yourselves to use one of the various "grabber
grabber" tools to make your own saved sequences of periods of interest.

I have zipped up each month's screengrabs (approx 1.5GB each month)
from July 07 to Feb 08 and will keep them for another month after which
time I fear I'll have to delete them to free up space on my Hard Drive
for other projects.


Cheers


John GM4SLV