[Lowfer] First decode of the night!

[JD]

Attached are tonight's spots here in SE Kansas, Bob.  When I thaw out a bit, 
I'll retrieve the series of 10-second Argo captures I made simultaneously so 
I can do more detailed comparisons of signal levels with the different 
receiver filter configurations I was testing during the evening.

A preliminary summary:  From 2215 to sunset at 2300, signal level was 
moderate and noise was very low.  Despite the sub-noise indications in the 
arbitrary WSPR noise bandwidth, the signal was consistently 23-25 dB above 
Gaussian noise in the detection bandwidth.  The signal and background noise 
were both just below AGC threshold, with occasional static crashes to S5 
that did not bother either WSPR or the Argo runs.

Immediately after sunset, your signal began to grow even stronger, as 
reflected in the greatly improved SNRr 90 minutes later.  The numbers 
gradually deteriorated again due to an increase in static, which had grown 
to consistent S3 levels with peaks to S9 by the 0045 slot.

At that point, I began my filter experiments.  I had a lot more racket 
coming out of the receiver for the next three decodes, but WSPR-15 was 
actually happier with it, apparently.  It'll be interesting to observe it 
some more in future and see if I can understand better how its AGC works. 
Just at the start of the 0145 slot I switched back to my original 
configuration to see if the less noisy way would still report a worse SNRr, 
and it did.

At 0200, I wanted to do one more test in CW mode, fibbing to the software 
about the dial and BFO to make the carrier show correctly while using the 
receiver in its preferred mode.  That took several minutes, so I used the 
rest of the 0200 slot to also check the receiver frequency calibration and 
the computer time.  When I got done and tuned back in, though, there was 
nothing on the waterfall or Argo.  Didn't know if you had gone QRT or if my 
mental arithmetic was that far off, or what...but my toes, nose, and hands 
were all telling me it was time to give up and get warm anyway!

By the way, Argo showed a splendid signal from you all the way up to 
0200...in 10 second mode, in 3-second mode when I tried that one, and most 
of the time also in NDB mode!  The latter was broken up by static from time 
to time, as one might expect.  This band has amazing properties!  I'm 
delighted that Roger had such great success with it tonight.  We need more 
westerners participating, both at 4000 and 2200 meters, to get a better 
picture of how LF works domestically at amateur power levels.

73
John 
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