[Lowfer] Update for LowFER 'DPC'

[Denis Cote]

Greetings all,

I am in the process of getting my LowFER beacon 'DPC' on the air. So far I
have the antenna and 20" x 36" loading coil constructed. The antenna is a
vertical wire cage with 5 tophat wires, overall length is within the FCC
Part 15 regulations. My variometer/loading coil is complete and still in the
basement, testing was performed last week and inductance values are 2416 to
4688 uH with an extra 1100 uH coil wound on the same form.

The DPC exciter is almost complete as well as the final amp. All is needed
is to perform final bench testing and install inside a shielded enclosure.
The final amp is the classic LEK complimentary design. Exciter is an Epson
SG8002 oscillator and 74HC4017 divide by 10 chip. The keying circuit will be
either a KID chip or QRS317 with interface. As a backup TX, I also have a
LW-MAX board installed in a P166 machine running windows 98.

All was looking good up until last Thursday morning when I accidentally
broke my ankle fighting a structure fire in my hometown. I am a volunteer
firefighter for Swansea, MA....one of the hazards with the job. To make a
long story short, DPC probably will not be on the air for the second half of
the season, too bad considering this cold weather has been making RX'ing
quite excellent.

Hopefully, when I'm back on my feet I'll be on the 185.3 crew or 181.5 KHz
depending upon oscillator accuracy.

Happy DXing,

Denis P. Cote
W1WV
Swansea, MA
FN41kr

PS: HIFER 'DPC' is QRSS-3 transmit mode presently.