[MRCA] SAQ received in Chickenland

[B. Smith]

We sat up again at Port Mahon Delaware  and set up at  approx 06:30Z 
(01:30 local). Mission was to test out a small 3 foot loop which was 
designed to fit inside and not "on top" of  my 86 Suburban War Wagon. We 
had a major winter storm rapidly approaching from the South West on our 
tails and I was in a hurry to get setup before the storm and get inside 
the war wagon  to play radio and to stay dry.

The 3 foot loop had 36 turns  and had a measure inductance of approx  28 
mH. I used a varicap control box  mounted at the loop base with a 
remote  pot and a 9 volt battery  via a 15 foot control line to bias 5 
NTE 129 varicaps in the box  (BTW ordinary diodes can be used) to 
supplement a fixed capacitance of 3000 pf and to be able to tune the 
antenna plus or minus 1.5  Kcs . Since it was going to be raining and 
windy  I took a compass bearing and aligned  the antenna  axis on a 
magnetic bearing of 048 degrees  plus or minus 5 . (True bearing 036 
corrected for 12 degrees of "West" variation).

At first I did not hear SAQ  doing the usual tune up at the half hour 
before the normal broadcast but finally picked up a steady carrier 
approx 17 minutes before the scheduled broadcast time of 08:00Z.  It was 
interesting to listen to the carrier slowly increase and get louder and 
louder as they peaked the system.   Anyway we picked up the tune up  
session and the broadcast. Signal report using the standard RST system 
was R 2 to 3      S 2 to 3  and T of 9. If you are not familiar with the 
RST system see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RST_code

I had the APRS on and it should still be on Google APRS or just enter 
K4CHE without any dash or slant bar etc.  Not sure how long the data 
stays stored on Google.
http://aprs.fi/#!mt=roadmap&z=11&call=a%2FK4CHE&timerange=3600&tail=3600

                                   Mission Accomplished    .      .   . 
the smaller loop worked fine, signals very weak but easily picked out of 
the noise.  Set up was easy, take down was wet.

A spooky place at oh dark thirty but the rain was warm reminding me of 
another far off place.
          A Christmas Eve adventure in Delaware.
I will try to post some photos and loop construction info.
Now off to finish wrapping presents.

Merry Christmas
Z