Re: VLF: VLF at different locations and QRN as a function of daytime

[Daniele Tincani <danieletincani@yahoo.com>]

Hello Stefan, VLF,

 

frankly speaking, it is still unbelievable to me that I was able to catch a faint trace of your signal and see it appearing on my PC. This is because of the intense hum at my location and the unsophisticated reception system that I use. Anyway, I'm glad to read your opinion that the screenshot I captured was really showing your tx :-)
I'm also interested in supporting your idea of collecting information about local QRN at different locations. I'm aways looking for simple-to-build solutions for improving my setup. May be some helpful information could emerge from this data analysis you are proposing.

For the time being, these are the information you have requested: the locator is JN53EM. As for the callsign, I'm sorry, I haven't one. I'm only "registered" as a SWL and my identifier is I0169LI (http://www.qrz.com/db/I0169LI/).

 

Cheers

Daniele

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From: Stefan Schäfer <schaefer@iup.uni-heidelberg.de>
To: Daniele Tincani <daniele.tincani@alice.it>
Cc: Renato Romero <contact@vlf.it>; Paul <paul@abelian.netcom.co.uk>; rsgb_lf_group@blacksheep.org
Sent: Mon, October 4, 2010 1:43:28 PM
Subject: VLF: VLF at different locations and QRN as a function of daytime

Hi Daniele, VLF,

Congrats to your successful VLF reception! :-) If you compare your received signal to that of Renato Romero, it is not much weaker. Since Renatos Antenna is excellent, i assume the low S/N is caused either by local QRN in Italy or simply by the propagation. If i remember correctly, in my 3rd experiment, Renatos reception was one of the best of all! So maybe we should/could learn something about the VLF propagation between Germany and Italy, above the alps. I think the lower S/N is not (only) due to the presence of the alps! All this is very interesting :-)

There is still no reception in Italy on 6470 Hz (46 km band), sadly. It is just because of my mistake with the generator :-( At least 2 hours of TX time was lost :-( Ok, never mind...
Maybe 6470 Hz is much more suitable to cross the alps. We will check this in the next experiment i would say? :-)

6470 Hz has many advantages i think, at least if the mains hum at a given RX location is about at equal or less strength than on 8970 Hz. I have observed that the (day)time of low QRN is much longer there. Another question is how the S/N as a function of time behaves. Attached you see a capture of my 'wideband' grabber window of the last sunday (including those nerving horizontal local QRM lines). You can see the frequency region of the maximum sferics level is changing with daytime. On 8970 Hz it is 'dark' from 7...12 UTC but on 6470 Hz it is 'dark' from 7...17 UTC.

Maybe some VLF receiving OMs can record their 'wideband' window on their own location and we can share the results. This makes it easyer the compare the situation of various locations :-) And we could discuss about the best time for a transmission either on 33 km or on 46 km to reach a given location.

Daniele, can you tell me your call and locator? I want to set up a list of the successful VLF receptions :-)

73, Stefan/DK7FC