[Lowfer] Lowfer RM

[Garry Hess]

Thanks to Mark for pointing out the KI0LE grabber. It's tuned to 189.8 
kHz and near lowfer RM. The first time I looked at the grabber it wasn't 
showing any signals but last night RM was overloading it with a sequence 
of three QRSS30 "RM" transmissions, then a CW ID period. I've been 
having trouble seeing lowfers with my loop antenna so I first looked for 
RM with an e-probe and SDR-IQ. No luck. But I did discover the cockpit 
error that was causing my reception problems with the loop.

I recently added a CW filter to the IC706MkIIG receiver to prevent AGC 
pumping of HF WSPR signals by other nearby, strong signals (thanks for 
the suggestion Andy!). The radio is fooled to activate the filter in SSB 
modes but the IF shift must be used to place the passband at the nominal 
1.5 kHz WSPR band center. I generally listen for lowfers and NDBs with 
the tuning set for 400 Hz tone output (my ears and computer speaker 
system respond best at low audio frequencies). I can still do that but 
have to remember to place the IF shift back at its normal position. Once 
I did that the loop outperformed the e-probe as expected.

Lowfers MP, XR, and CV were clearly evident at the 185.3 kHz watering 
hole around 0630Z even with the e-probe. So was WMS on 187.492 kHz. 
About 0830Z the loop was used to listen for RM and Argo was set on 
autopilot, or so I thought. Checking at 1130Z I saw RM weakly just below 
189.8 kHz using QRSS30, slow. This was local sunrise and right then the 
neighborhood must have awakened because interference skyrocketed. RM 
might have been better earlier but the capture ON button was not set. 
Maybe next time I'll remember to set it.

73, Garry, K3SIW, EN52ta, Elgin, IL