[Lowfer] Friday HiFERs

[JD]

Better conditions at HF today too, apparently.  MP was its usual solid self 
most of the time, with only modest fades.  The CW ID preceding every other 
QRSS3 ID was often audible, if not always entirely readable because of the 
beat notes.  The powerhouse signal of the afternoon was USC, which didn't 
seem to fade at all this time.  NC and EH were both very good with only 
modest QSB until after 4 PM, when EH began to be obscured a little more of 
the time.

I made one aural listening pass early on and snagged both MTI and AJO, but 
nobody any higher than that was audible under the sideband splatter of False 
Pro--well, let's just say, a certain notorious SWBC.

After they finally relieved the air, I began an experiment involving USB 
reception at a dial frequency of 13,558 kHz with my widest band filter, in 
preparation for designing my HiFER Time Shifter (intended as a companion to 
the VLF Time Shifter, and the two possible future LF Time Shifters).  I was 
attempting to determine just how big a notch I'd want to leave in the 
vicinity of 13,560 kHz, since trying to operate a HiFER within a kHz or more 
either side of the ISM and RFID racket strikes me as being like trying to 
run an ice cream parlor on the planet Mercury--no matter how hard you tried, 
the customers would never be able to get what they came for anyway.  No need 
to even allow that noise inside the time shifter.  Might as well get rid of 
it and save the dynamic range for something else.

At any rate, there I am with the 6 kHz IF filter letting everything through 
that it possibly can...a dozen or more discrete carriers and all sorts of 
random-looking junk around 2000 Hz on the Argo NDB-mode display...and what 
suddenly comes fading up out of the noise?  None other than AJO and its DAID 
again, clear as a bell for several minutes!  I may have even captured it 
visibly--I'll have to check because there's a lot of glare in the car in 
late afternoon, which made it hard to tell.  If it's there and clear enough, 
I'll post that shot at the LW Message Board, where Ward checks in every so 
often.

John