[Lowfer] VLF reception

[Graham]

forgot link to grabber:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ahvgr4sekcgg99s/AACd6pWv1hMNk6xvLGxGydKpa

cheers, Graham

On 2014-11-22 07:58, Graham wrote:
> Good morning all,
>
> I haven't made a concerted effort to copy to copy the Russian ALPHA 
> stations but it is on my list of something to try. I use a EMU USB PRE 
> sound card connected to an antenna and Spectrum Lab as my VLF receiver 
> and it works quite well. I do at night copy quite well the Russian 
> Naval transmissions on 18.1 and 21.1 plus their VLF time transmissions 
> on 25.0, 25.1 25.5, 23.0, and 20.5 (a quick Google search for Russian 
> VLF time signal will provide more information).
>
> I suspect that the long integration time of my VLF does not allow the 
> ALPHA transmissions to show up very well. You can see my grabber here 
> (new screen grab every 5 minutes).
>
> TACAMO is interesting too. Typically I see activity on 17.8 most 
> frequently, sometimes 27.2, and 22.7.
>
> And, TACAMO is active as I type this on 17.8.
>
> cheers, Graham
>
>
> On 2014-11-22 07:40, Douglas D. Williams wrote:
>> Good job, Jay. What you are seeing is a plethora of military MSK 
>> stations,
>> both stateside and overseas. The strongest ones are in the USA. NAA, 24
>> kHz, is always the strongest at my QTH. If you mess with the settings in
>> Spectrum Lab, you can tell it the lowest and highest frequencies you 
>> want
>> to view, and thus magnify a certain chunk of spectrum that you are
>> interested in.
>>
>> Typically, there isn't a lot of excitement down there, as most of those
>> stations are on 24/7. Occasionally you will see a TACAMO (take charge 
>> and
>> move out....don't you love acronyms...) station, often around 18 kHz.
>> These, IIRC, are flying transmitters that trail a long wire antenna.
>>
>> For me, hearing the Russian Alphas is a big deal. Those are marked 
>> RSDN on
>> your Spectrum Lab display. I used to get very good copy on the old OMEGA
>> transmitters, but the Alphas are weak here at my QTH.
>>
>> There is a group of experimenters, mostly in Europe, who transmit on the
>> "Dreamer's Band" (below 9 kHz). I believe they mostly use QRSS600 (or
>> slower)!! You can imagine the frequency stability and accuracy that is
>> necessary to achieve DX on that band. I would assume GPS discipline is a
>> must, both for the transmitter and the receiver. I think there is a 
>> Yahoo
>> group, if you're interested.
>>
>> As for USA VLF experimenters, our own Dex has set a record for overseas
>> Dreamer's Band reception, as you can read about on the LWCA home page.
>>
>> Finally, here is a link to a web site that specializes in sub 22 kHz 
>> topics
>> and experiments:
>>
>> http://www.vlf.it/
>>
>>
>> Well, I got a little long winded there, but hopefully said something 
>> that
>> was at least mildly interesting. ;-)
>>
>> 73, Doug KB4OER
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Nov 21, 2014 at 11:58 PM, Garry Hess <k3siw at sbcglobal.net> 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Jay, I envy the "quiet" nature of your screencapture. Here I have a
>>> substantial picket fence of 60 Hz harmonics leaked out by ComEd 24/7. A
>>> fine source for VLF stations and frequencies is on Jay/s (W1VD) site at
>>> http://www.w1vd.com/vlf.html. Another source of information is at
>>> http://www.classaxe.com/dx/ndb/rna/signal_list. Just enter low
>>> frequencies like 10 to 100 kHz, check the "other" type box, then 
>>> "go". It's
>>> also helpful to do the same for the Europe and Worldwide cases.
>>> -- 
>>> 73, Garry, K3SIW, EN52ta, Elgin, IL
>>>
>>> ____________
>
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