[Lowfer] 137.78 watering hole

[Scott Tilley]

Hi Chris

Running a grabber is addictive!

I've been running mine for at least five years now and have learned alot 
about how to hear and keep the system as 'reliable' as possible. Most 
issues now are related to me not leaving things well enough alone :-)

You might consider running a second window of Argo and turn off the AGC 
in that instance and setup the levels to show the daytime background 
noise just barely.  The idea would be to compare it to your plots with 
the AGC on in the other instance of Argo.  This will give you a sense of 
SNR and may help you find intermittent issues and be able to tell when 
your affected by noise. The AGC is nice but can hid the real goings on 
sometimes...

You could also setup a plot with spectrum lab and do the same thing.  
Watching the nighttime t-storm noise go up and down is a great way to 
get a sense of how well the system is operating too and comparing 
antennas.  Assuming of course it is noisy :-)  Usually a safe assumption.

73 es gl with your experiments!

Scott
VE7TIL





On 12/14/2010 3:10 PM, Chris - KC0TKS wrote:
> Jay,
>
> My grabber IS hit or miss. When I put it up it was only going to be for
> a couple of nights. I enjoyed it so much, I decided to leave it up
> anytime I am not using the rig for anything else.
>
> When looking at my grabber, do not assume it is "live". Always check the
> time/date on the capture. I don't think it was live last night until
> around 0500z. (I forgot to start it!)
>
> Chris - KC0TKS
>
>
>
> jrusgrove at comcast.net wrote:
>> Chris
>>
>> XNS (137.781 kHz) was on for the period ~ 0200 - 0400Z last night. Nothing was seen on your grabber
>> yet signals into the VE7TIL were 'normal' strength. I've noticed that your grabber has been 'hit or
>> miss' showing signals. I've wondered several times if your antennas was intermittant, or got
>> disconnected, or perhaps there is stong local interference that blanks out any trace of signals.
>> Might be worth looking into.
>>
>> Jay W1VD  WD2XNS  WE2XGR/2
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Chris - KC0TKS"<kc0tks at att.net>
>> To: "Lowfer"<lowfer at mailman.qth.net>
>> Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2010 9:23 AM
>> Subject: [Lowfer] 137.78 watering hole
>>
>>
>>
>>> Although I neglected to report it, the watering hole 3 nights ago was
>>> HOT. I copied XNS, MP, XGJ and XKO. XGJ and XKO were "dogbones" most of
>>> the time and all of the others seemed stronger than usual.
>>>
>>> The last two nights, I haven't seen so much as a blip. Did my antenna
>>> freeze to death or was there just nobody on? The last time this
>>> happened, I had accidentally left my attenuator switched in. Not the
>>> case this time.
>>>
>>>
>>> Chris - KC0TKS
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