Twelve?

Pirate on 1710

I heard a pirate station on 1710 kHz, Wednesday evening starting at 0020 UTC. No station identification or voice announcements, the station played 1950's rock songs continuously. It was S-7 on the 80-meter inverted Vee antenna and S-9 on the Hy-Gain 18 AVT/WB-A vertical antenna. I connected the Terk Advantage antenna to the ICOM IC-R8600 to locate where the station was located and the signal peaked at 0°/180°.

Hamvention Transition

Some of the crew staffing the TAPR booth at Hamvention

I attended Hamvention and am happy to report that it was a successful trip. Here are some thoughts on the trip.

The transition from the Hara Arena to a new (to me) venue (Greene County Fairgrounds) was better than I expected. My only complaint is the scarcity of brick and mortar bathrooms and the dependency on portables (I hate portables).  

After researching the matter before the trip, I decided to transition from soldered to crimp-on coax connectors. So I had a shopping list for the parts I needed and returned home with three bags of crimp-on connectors (to terminate different coax cable sizes) as well as crimp-on dies for my Powerpole crimper.

It rained Thursday, Friday and Saturday and my Subaru now sports mud camouflage, but it's all-wheel-drive kept things moving and I avoided the tow trucks.

I saw most of the people I looked forward to seeing and it was great to renew acquaintances in person.

Working the TAPR booth is always interesting and attending the TAPR-AMSAT banquet and the Hamvention Awards dinner was a lot of fun (not to mention that the food was great).

During the 725-mile roadtrip, I entertained myself by tuning up and down the AM radio dial. It was interesting to hear stations during the day that I only hear after dark at home, like CHML, WJR, WLW and WSM.

Over and out.

Saturn Day

On March 13, 2006, Cassini's narrow-angle camera captured this look at Saturn and its rings, seen here nearly edge on. The frame also features Mimas and tiny Janus (above the rings), and Tethys (below the rings). "Above" and "below" the rings is mostly a matter of perspective here. All three moons and the rings orbit Saturn in roughly the same plane. (Source: digg.com)

Xenia Marks the Spot

This time next week, I will be on an Interstate in Ohio heading for Hamvention. Although this will be my 30-something trip to the big show, it will be different this year because of the new-to-me Hamvention venue in Xenia – specifically, the Greene County Fairgrounds.

I will be staffing TAPR's booths (Building 5, booths 5001-5003) Friday and Saturday and I will be attending the TAPR-AMSAT Annual Banquet Friday evening.

If you will be attending Hamvention, I hope to see you there!

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1710 Mystery Solved!

This morning (4:15 AM EDST), I dropped a relative off at the airport (BDL).

On the trip home, I was solo, so I did some DXing with the car radio in my 2007 Subaru Outback Sport. I tuned to 1700 kHz and found WJCC in Miami Springs, Florida fading in and out. Nice catch on a car radio!

As I entered Hartford from the north on I-91, a station on an adjacent frequency was splattering onto 1700, so I tuned up and down and found a very strong signal on 1710 transmitting Spanish music and Spanish announcements. The signal was very strong as I passed through downtown Hartford. Heading west on I-84, the signal faded out about 5 miles west of downtown Hartford.

I mentioned hearing a mystery Spanish station on 1710 in the recent past (here and here). The format of the station I heard this morning matches up with what I heard in the past, so I think that solves the mystery.

WWV Seeks 25-MHz Reception Reports

Anyone hearing the experimental High Frequency 25.000 MHz NIST WWV broadcast from Fort Collins, Colorado, USA?

The broadcast information includes time announcements, standard time intervals, standard frequencies, UT1 time corrections, a BCD time code, geophysical alerts and marine storm warnings.

Modulation is double side-band amplitude.

Radiated power is 2.5kW into a half-wave vertical dipole.

Prior to 06 September 2017, the configuration used was an experimental turnstile antenna with circular polarization with a radiated power of 2.0kW.

Listeners comments and reception reports may be mailed to wwv@nist.gov or sent via postal mail to:

National Institute of Standards and Technology

Radio Station WWV

2000 E. Country Rd. 58

Fort Collins, CO 80524

(TU Mike Schaffer, KA3JAW, for the heads-up!)