[Lowfer] LF over night in NE IL

[Garry Hess]

Interesting reception (and lack thereof!) last night. Began with good 
copy of Jay's WE2XGR/2 Hell transmissions at QRSS10 rate. Then looked 
for TAG to no avail on 185.8 kHz WOLF. Nor was SJ seen on 186.85 kHz 
QRSS20. However, a note was seen later indicating SJ was down due to 
ice. Perhaps that affected TAG too because the night before it locked 
reliably to the correct frequency, though no decodes resulted. No such 
problem to the south - CW from lowfer EMP in LA came in on 185.544 kHz 
as early as 0400Z.

By 0700Z 3 European time standards were yielding good CLOCK decodes: HBG 
on 75 kHz, DCF77 on 77.5 kHz, and Inter-France on 162 kHz.

A note on http://dxworld.com/ndblog.html indicated that a local DXer was 
copying DGPS #950, Bermuda on 323 kHz at 0649Z. Tried to do the same but 
nothing decoded here though the waterfall indicated signals in there at 
both 100 bps and 200 bps rates. The latter was probably DGPS #887, 
Robinson Point, WA while the former might have been #950 (it was a bit 
late for that but a bit early for #889, Annette Is., AK). Since DGPS 
#882, Lompoc, CA decoded well on 321 kHz, the SDR-IQ was tuned to 302 
kHz expecting to find DGPS #881, Point Loma, CA or #888, Whidbey Is., WA 
(both 100 bps stations). Instead, it was a pleasant surprise to find the 
200 bps station #972 at Miraflores, Panama decoding.

73, Garry, K3SIW, EN52ta, Elgin, IL