[Lowfer] receive woes

[Douglas Williams]

Installed my old L400B today, and the issue seems to have resolved. Will
try for some QRSS Lowfers tonight.

D. KB4OER

On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 4:44 PM, Douglas Williams <
williamsdoug1966 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Well, I believe I remarked a week or so ago that I haven't had much luck
> receiving Lowfer signals so far this season and that the problem might be
> on my end. Today, I finally found the time to do some investigating, and
> the problem is indeed real, and right here.
>
> As I was tuning around VLF this afternoon, I noticed that the S-Meter
> readings were significantly lower (S3 ish) than I was getting at 180 kHz
> (S9). This is with a 250 Hz CW filter. Now, there are no storms in the area
> today, so I thought S9 was a bit high for QRN on a calm December afternoon.
> Having a listen, I thought I could hear music. Using a much wider filter,
> and switching over to SSB, and then AM, I was indeed hearing
> music.....Christmas country music.....in the middle of the day on 180
> kHz.....at S9. Probably one of my local AM broadcast stations.
>
> I started taking things out of the receive chain in an effort to pin down
> where the weak link is. First I eliminated the LF Converter, then the
> receiver multicoupler, then the 500 kHz low pass filter, and finally I just
> plugged the active e-probe DC coupler directly into the R75. No change.
> Still the music.
>
> So the issue is my active whip antenna or the buried coax between my house
> and the antenna.
>
> Doug KB4OER
>
>
>