[Lowfer] Wm reception reports

[Bill Ashlock]

Thanks to Gary and others for reports on "Wm"s signal strength or lack, thereof. My early assessment is that my mountain site is not doing all that well but reports like yours, especially comparisons to TAG, are of high importance. My Andover loops seemed to have been copied with much more strength on the Grabulator and other locations back in the 'good old Watering Hole days'. I've been monitoring the input current to the final and this has not changed more than a few % since the time I began transmitting, so we can assume any variability in received strength has nothing to do with local conditions up here. Would be interesting to, once again, begin transmitting from Andover and see how the two signals compare. That transmitting setup is still intact except for the loop itself.

 

Please continue to monitor.

 

Bill
 
> Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 09:42:58 -0600
> From: k3siw at sbcglobal.net
> To: lowfer at mailman.qth.net
> Subject: [Lowfer] Beacons over night to NE Illinois
> 
> Hi to all Lowfers,
> 
> Lack of NDB reports made it a good night to concentrate on lowfer 
> beacons. Propagation was decent to NE Illinois as beacon SJ, 186.849.9 
> kHz, QRSS-20 was already displaying weakly by 0400Z 021509. However, 
> despite that the watering hole at 185.3 kHz, QRSS-30 only showed MP at 
> that time (the W3EEE grabber showed MP solid and WM in and out).
> 
> Beacons WEB (185.95 kHz, QRSS-30) and TAG (185.8 kHz, Wolf-10) were 
> tuned for unsuccessfully between 0410Z and 0440Z, but beacon WMS, 
> QRSS-60 was coming through at 0445Z, ramping upward in frequency from 
> 187.490.7 kHz as it transmitted "W". A return to the watering hole 
> still only showed beacon MP coming in here up to 0530Z, even though WM 
> was visible on the grabber.
> 
> Wolf-10 decoding of TAG failed again over 0530-0620Z. By 0640Z beacon 
> XR, 184.322.2 kHz, QRSS-60 had been displayed successfully so the 
> watering hole was visited again (this is tiring!). CV (185.298.3 kHz, 
> QRSS-60) had joined MP by 0715Z here, but not on the grabber, which was 
> barely showing WM. No WM here.
> 
> A TAG decode was again attempted and this time was successful, after 
> about 20 minutes of integration (0745Z). WEB was looked for and again 
> nothing was seen. So, you guessed it, back to the watering hole. This 
> time a single visual display of M followed by W was seen (0845Z). At the 
> time the grabber was showing only MP. Kept looking until 1000Z and 
> never noticed WM clearly again, but the grabber did resume showing it 
> weakly.
> 
> Based on the above I wonder if WEB is off the air due to the bad storms 
> that have been about of late. Also, although it was finally seen here, 
> beacon WM is relatively weak compared to beacons SJ and TAG, that are at 
> similar heading and distance.
> 
> 73,
> Garry, K3SIW, EN52ta, Elgin, IL
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