[Premium-Rx] Beacon Hunting

[Henry Kolesnik]

I've been using my Kenwood TS-2000 for the NDB disease.  I call it a disease 
because when I was in grade 7 I bought a military surplus receiver that was 
a TRF.  The coils plugged into the side  and as I recall some real nice 
green felt lining something.  It was cheap, like $3.00 and after the shop 
teacher helped me build a power supply all we could get was some CW tones. 
So for quite some time all I did was listen to NDBs or whatever they called 
them in the 1950s in central Alberta.  Later I found a BCB coil but I could 
never stay away from the NDBs.  I was also able to hear real weird noises 
from approaching dust and thunderstorms.
In the TS-2000 you can move a jumper to make it much more sensitive on BCB 
and VLF.  This thing tunes down to 30 Kc and yo can fool it with the RIT and 
get it down to 10 Kc.
I haven't compared it to my HP 3586C or Cubic 3030A but the 2000 has 300 
memories and I've programmed about 30 NDBs and let it scan.  That prevents 
the disease from wasting more time.

73
Hank WD5JFR
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <ToddRoberts2001 at aol.com>
To: <premium-rx at ml.skirrow.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 10:25 PM
Subject: Re: [Premium-Rx] Beacon Hunting


> In a message dated 3/30/2005 7:51:26 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
> sid at leben.com
> writes:
> Not having experience in using many different receivers, I was wondering
> what some of the opinions might be for under 500Kc reception of these AM
> DSB beacons.  I listen on CW with narrow BW's.
>
> Most "AM DSB" beacons you are hearing in the U.S.A. are actually 
> transmitting
> A2A which is a continuous carrier on the designated frequency and another
> keyed carrier usually 1020Hz higher - a form of single-sideband AM. This 
> can be
> confirmed by tuning across the beacon in the CW mode with a sharp filter. 
> You
> will hear the continuous carrier on the designated channel, say 216 KHz 
> and as
> you tune higher you will hear the keyed carrier 1020 Hz higher on 
> 217.02KHz.
> If you tune below 216KHz you will not hear the other "sideband" 1020Hz 
> lower.
> This was done to help conserve spectrum space. It will sound like a tone
> modulated carrier when listening with a standard AM detector. I have been 
> listening
> to NDBs for over 25 years and I would have to say the Drake R8A is my 
> favorite
> when listening to these in the AM mode. The R8A has the preamp enabled 
> below
> 500 KHz which gives very good sensitivity for beacon hunting and for 
> hearing
> the occasional AWOS voice modulated weather observation beacon. The 2.3KHz 
> and
> 1.8KHz bandwidths and the passband tuning are just about ideal for getting
> in-between the crowded signals in the beacon band in the AM mode. An 
> outboard
> audio DSP filter is helpful for eliminating heterodynes. For digging into 
> the
> NDBs in CW mode there are receivers out there with better CW filters than 
> the
> Drake and there are many choices out there for good CW receivers that will 
> tune
> this range.  73 Todd WD4NGG
>
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