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Markus, Group
Since my name was mentioned I'll make a quick
post.
We may have a chicken and egg situation here. Up
until several years ago I routinely monitored and reported on EU
activity on LF ... that is until EU stations moved en masse to the US T/A
window. It is simply impossible to receive weak signals from EU while BIG
US stations are on the air. One is reduced to looking for crumbs
of weak signals between long callsigns strings. Worse yet, set up for
overnight captures because no US stations are active only to wake up to a screen
full of US stations that got a late start. I gave up.
Now there's talk of merging the EU and US 500
kHz WSPR windows. Providing spots last winter, especially for low
power EU stations, was an interesting and challenging pursuit. But it won't
be if the majority of WSPR time slots are clobbered by strong local
groundwave signals.
Don't change anything on my account ... there's
plenty of other interesting things to do on VLF, LF and
MF!
Jay
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, November 14, 2010 6:17
AM
Subject: Re: LF: Eu QRSS freq....
Dear Mike,
first of all, let me say that your signal has
never created any problem here, and I appreciate your careful choice of
operating techniques to mitigate potential interference. As far as I could see, there were only very few occasions,
when spectrograms in Holland and France where being
desensitized when you and XGJ were on simultaneously. But on
the other hand, I think I would have a problem if I lived much closer to
you.
I also completely
understand your point about the lack of feedback from grabbers operating
in the designated Eu slot. In the past, we were rewarded by
excellent captures, for example from Jay and Laurence. In my opinion, the
point of the story is to motivate every LF grabber operator to include
an Eu slot as well.
Regarding choice of frequency: If I remember
right, we went from the original 135.92 kHz to 136.32, because the
latter provided a larger gap between American Loran lines - which is no
more an issue now. But recently, CFH's wideband FSK around 137.0 has been
reactivated. How much does it affect stateside reception on 136.32? If
they continue, we may consider to bring the slot back to the bottom
end.
Kind regards,
Markus (DF6NM)
Sent: Sunday, November 14, 2010 11:41 AM
Subject: LF: Eu QRSS freq. Was 'XDV QRSS60 137k'
Hartmut,
You are
right. In the past I have strongly argued that Eu beacons
should be in
that part of the band. However, the reality is that no-
one is listening
there (apart from a couple of Eu grabbers). There
are grabbers in Alaska,
Western Canada, Japan and Eastern Russia but
not one covers the 136.320kHz
sub-band.
That sub-band was originally created when there were many Eu
(mostly
UK) stations chasing QSOs and reports from the east coast of
America -
there were even several Canadians capable of two-way QSOs.
The idea
of the split frequency was that these QSOs should not cause QRM
to
each other. Now there are very few Eu stations interested in DX
working, and seemingly no east coast American stations routinely
monitoring.
I try not to QRM those Eu stations who are
monitoring for US and
Russian beacons. This is achieved by not beaconing
every day, and by
not beaconing continuously (which is why I synchronise
each
transmission with the start of each hour). My frequency is much lower
than most US and Russian beacons. I have also announced that if my
transmissions cause anyone any problems, I will close down. In
practice, unless the receiving station is within about 150km of me
there is little chance of real QRM - last night EW6GB was fully
readable just 0.2Hz HF of me on the grabbers of DF6NM and
OE3GHB.
There is still a use for the Eu DX sub-band during two-way DX
QSOs,
or tests involving lots of activity. I will be the first to use it
again if any DX stations are prepared to monitor it.
Does anyone
else have a view on this?
Mike,
G3XDV
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