[Lowfer] 136 kHz Opera

[Garry Hess]

Noticed WD2XES was active sending opera32 on 136 kHz (dial frequency) 
last night. Jay peaked at -19 dB SNR with an eprobe and regular opera 
decoding software. Results with the deep search software were not 
credible - apparently there are errors when the signal is very strong:

2013-11-29 05:32:06 WD2XNS  1268km 137553.003Hz 165mHz -99.9dBOp  97% 15.0dB
2013-11-29 04:59:09 WD2XNS  1268km 137553.010Hz 211mHz -99.9dBOp  88% 19.7dB
2013-11-29 04:26:13 WD2XNS  1268km 137552.997Hz 186mHz -48.4dBOp  97% 20.6dB
2013-11-29 03:53:17 WD2XNS  1268km 137553.009Hz 198mHz -99.9dBOp 100% 20.5dB
2013-11-29 03:20:20 WD2XNS  1268km 137553.079Hz 150mHz -42.8dBOp  84% 19.4dB

Deep search here regularly complains of inability to create files but 
gives no guidance on what files are causing problems. It also 
occasionally transitions to German text for some presumably different 
error. That's on a PC running Windows XP Media Center. A second PC 
running Windows XP Home Edition doesn't seem to have those errors, but 
on it I've noticed failure to decode VO1NA at times even though the Spec 
Lab FFT clearly shows it in there well above the noise floor.

The processing load is too high to trust running both regular opera and 
deep search opera on the same PC here so not sure how different the SNR 
numbers are, but others have noted deep search values are appreciably 
lower than regular opera values. I'll have a newer more powerful Windows 
7 PC online shortly and it will be interesting to see how the software 
fairs on it.

-- 
73, Garry, K3SIW, EN52ta, Elgin, IL