[Lowfer] Delightful Sunday, Part 3

[JD]

It appears I mis-stated slightly in the previous post.  After looking at 
HiFERs I went back to LF _before_ looking at MF.  I wanted to try EAR again. 
The sun was setting when I started that capture, and both the LWBC carrier 
on 189 and a PLC somewhere in the 188.7 range were very prominent.  I 
shifted the I.F. as best I could to keep them from capturing the clipper, 
which I then drove harder for the second ID, as you'll notice by the 
darkening of the background..

By then it was getting dark rapidly, and I was particularly interested in 
static levels at lower frequencies (mainly below 100 kHz) as the radio had 
always been deaf as the proverbial post there in the pre-buffer era.  All I 
ever heard before was WWVB, and some modest static if it was a particularly 
noisy day at higher frequencies.

Well, darkness was settling in by then, so when I heard more static than 
earlier in the afternoon, I suspected maybe the band was opening up to the 
west, where I anticipated our next storms might originate.  (Later I found 
out it was from storms just then firing up in southern OK and northern TX.) 
Heard some MSK and possibly RTTY signals that I'd never noticed before down 
below 60 kHz, all the way to the receiver's tuning limit at 30 kHz--and then 
I heard one above 60 that caught my attention!

"What on earth is WWVB doing on 77.5?"  I asked myself.  And then I realized 
I was hearing DCF77 Mainflingen for the first time.  Previously, it had been 
so weak I never seriously tried for it.  But with the buffer in line and a 
noise level that was not yet too high, it really stood out at a level 
somewhere between S6 and S7.  I made a WAV recording at that time, prior to 
listening at MF, and determined to come back later and see how it might fare 
through the increasing noise.

The 500 kHz vicinity was surprisingly quiet at that point, making me worry 
again whether something had happened to the buffer.  Just then, I ran into 
WE2XGR/6 in slow regular Morse on 501.500 kHz.  It was coming in at a solid 
S7, and had no static to worry about.  After listening for several cycles, I 
decided to capture one cycle.  Took two successive screens stitched together 
to get the whole thing, even in Argo's NDB slow mode.

Finally, with twilight gone, I took another quick look at 137.78 to see if 
anyone had joined Mitch (none showed up here).  Then I went back to 77.5, 
where the noise was indeed increasing, but the signal itself was holding 
above S6 between crashes.  Did captures of both the US and German time 
signals just to marvel over the similarities.

As I say, the storms are definitely building south and southwest of us, and 
it may be two or three days before I can reasonably listen in the field 
again.  However, with temperatures in the upper 60s this afternoon, a 
pleasant breeze, and later some moonlight, I'm grateful to have had a day 
like this one!

John 
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