[Lowfer] SL 630m Overnight Bcn

[JD]

I expect a loop antenna would have helped reception here.  Had a fair amount 
of QRN, probably mainly from west Texas.  It only started out averaging S4 
with peaks to S9 immediately after dark.  By the time I returned to the 
field and began looking for SL, it was averaging S8 with peaks to +10.  But 
a little before 0900 UTC, it was down to the S5-S6 vicinity, which was 
enough to get partial copy with the sky already growing light.

I paused WSPR three times overnight and cranked up Argo...three instances of 
QRSS30 each time, since the reported frequencies spanned a range of 10 Hz. 
Finally saw what were consistent, if broken, traces with the expected tilt 
just before 4 AM local, so I narrowed in a QRSS60 session on the correct 
frequency (475,050.3 Hz, drifting down to 475,049.9, +/-0.1Hz).  Even though 
the noise decreased slightly over the next 40 minutes, so did the signal 
level, so the 60 second dot capture was no clearer than the 30 second dots.

Interesting challenge, none the less.

As for WSPR results, nobody but XXM and XJM during the night, and both were 
subject to some fading during transmissions.  Signal to noise was getting 
better as the static decreased, but fading was also getting a little more 
rapid and deep the lighter the sky got.  A few of the last decodes before I 
returned to write this:

0944  -6 -1.0   0.475709  0 WG2XXM EM15 30
0944 -21 -0.9   0.475776  0 WG2XJM EN91 37
0948  -6 -1.0   0.475709  0 WG2XXM EM15 30
0952  -9 -1.1   0.475709  0 WG2XXM EM15 30
0952 -28 -1.0   0.475776  0 WG2XJM EN91 37
0956  -5 -1.1   0.475709  0 WG2XXM EM15 30

John
 
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