Conditions here (FN15) not so good last night. The usual morning
"bright-up" was less pronounced today. Discernable on-frequency
traces for several hours and after daybreak enough of Scott's signal
was visible to confirm his DFCW keying signature (I'm familiar with
it by now) - but cannot say a complete ident was received. Nothing
seen from John this morning.
I am unsure just what role high QRN plays in determining whether or
not reliable copy is possible. The static crashes are continuous on
LF these summer nights - I had around S9 on the meter just from QRN
so it must be doing quite a number on my front-end gain. I tried
turning off the AGC for a while but had to manually cut the RF gain
so much to avoid clipping it didn't seem like a good idea. With the
AGC on at least there is some possibility of weak-signal energy
getting through between crashes if there are QRN-lulls here and
there. I'm wondering if some adjustable-threshold hardware clamping
before the signal goes into the radio would be effective? Given the
improvement in VLF weak signal detectability when applying software
clamping (Spectrum Lab) - would a symmetrical hardware clamp work
too? Anyone tried it?
73,
Bill VE2IQ
|
