[Lowfer] QRSS I'm Confused (Long)

[Garry Hess]

Hi Bill,

Glad to hear you copied my lowfer beacon. With the good advice you got 
you should be able to do that again, and copy many other LF signals to boot.

It's important that your receive system is both accurate and stable in 
frequency. I'm not familiar with the TT RX320D but the Icom 706MkIIG I 
often use needs an external fan to yield flat ARGO displays with speeds 
as slow as QRSS30. Otherwise the internal fan occasionally kicks on and 
perturbs the tuning enough the dits and dahs are wobbly.

John, W1TAG, has a nice article on frequency calibration using Loran-C 
at http://www.lwca.org/library/articles/w1tag/R75cal.htm. This involves 
first calibrating your sound card rate, then determining your receiver 
tuning error. Since Loran went off-the-air I believe he updated that to 
use WWV but I don't recall a web address for the new article.

In addition to the big signals from experimental ham stations like XGJ, 
XES, and XNS often on around 137.780 kHz, station MP (grid EN93ja) is 
active and even closer to you. Probably the strongest LF signal for you 
though would be WD2XSH/7, who has lately been sending QRSS10+CW ID on 
495.033 kHz. Station activity can be checked via any number of Internet 
Grabbers, http://www.lowfer.us/grabber.htm and 
http://kl7uk.com/Bville.html to name just two (they shift the frequency 
span monitored depending on time of day).

Good luck and 73,
Garry, K3SIW, EN52ta, Elgin, IL