[Lowfer] Radio Activity (not entirely LF)

[JD]

Tonight is the first time it's been simultaneously warm enough and nearly 
mud-free enough to enable me to do some after-dark monitoring with the new 
antenna.

Amazing LWBC into Kansas on 162 and 171 right after dark, just as listenable 
as anything on the AM broadcast band.  Both diminished in strength somewhat 
as the evening wore on.  Allouis was considerably stronger at the start (a 
good S9 from a 40 foot vertical with no tuner or preamp ahead of the R5000) 
than Tangier, but weaker than them later.  Skywave was being generous to 
NDBs as well, with vastly more signals pouring in than I had the patience to 
sort out from each other for very long at a time.  Now that I have a good 
location like this, it's clearly time for a portable loop so I can do a bit 
of nulling.

Thought I'd do a survey of HF next, partly to see how the spectrum looks in 
the 3 MHz region where Todd's upconverter will soon be shifting my LF 
signals.  Kind of depressing to hear the hum-filled and distorted preachers 
(I mean their audio quality, but one could refer to their--er, unorthodox 
messages in nearly the same terms) blaring away at S9+60 or greater.  How 
does the US allocate stations in a tropical band in the first place?  Oh 
well.  After fleeing that region, I had an enjoyable time monitoring QSOs on 
160 m for a while, which is the band where that ground system is ultimately 
intended to work.  Then I wandered up to 75 m just in time to hear someone 
talking about spending a lot of time on longwave!  That certainly caught my 
attention.

It was Bob W2ZM operating W2AN for the A.W.A. AM QSO Party.  He was chatting 
with W0VMC when I first tuned in, and both were S9+50 or greater, with 
magnificent clean audio.  What a delight.  Stations all over the northeast, 
down into Florida, and even Arkansas were in there too over the next half 
hour.  Eric KD5UWL was calling as well, but I don't guess Bob could copy him 
in some of the pileups that took place after the most recent station signed.

Eventually, I took another shot at NDBs before rolling up the coax and 
returning to QRM Central after the eyelids started getting heavy.  Great way 
to spend a Saturday evening.

John