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PTD - 400 kHz Potsdam, NY

This coming weekend will see another monthly CLE challenge. This time the hunting grounds will be 400.0 - 419.9 kHz.

 


For those unfamiliar with this monthly activity, a 'CLE' is a 'Co-ordinated Listening Event', as NDB DXers around the world focus their listening time on one small slice of the NDB spectrum.




A nice challenge in this one is to hear PTD on 400kHz located in Potsdam, New York. It's a 25-watter but is rarely logged out west. I have heard it only once, back in January, 2010. Listen for its USB CW identifier (with your receiver in the CW mode) on 401.010 and its LSB ID on 398.984 kHz.

MF propagation this past week has been very good and signals in this frequency range should be propagating well if things stay undisturbed for the weekend.

When tuning for NDBs, put your receiver in the CW mode and listen for the NDB's CW identifier, repeated every few seconds. Listen for U.S. NDB identifiers approximately 1 kHz higher or lower than the published transmitted frequency since these beacons are modulated with a 1020 Hz tone approximately.

For example, 'AA' near Fargo, ND, transmits on 365 kHz and its upper sideband CW identifier is tuned at 366.025 kHz while its lower sideband CW ident can be tuned at 363.946 kHz. Its USB tone is actually 1025 Hz while its LSB tone is 1054 Hz.

Often, one sideband will be much stronger than the other so if you don't hear the first one, try listening on the other sideband.

Canadian NDBs normally have an USB tone only, usually very close to 400 Hz. They also have a long dash (keydown) following the CW identifier.

All NDBs heard in North America will be listed in the RNA database (updated daily) while those heard in Europe may be found in the REU database. Beacons heard outside of these regions will be found in the RWW database.


From CLE organizer Brian Keyte, G3SIA, come details via the The NDB List Group:


Hi all,

Our 238th coordinated listening event starts on Friday.    
This frequency range is not packed with signals for any of us, but
the current excellent conditions should give us some nice surprises.
Do join in, even if you only have an hour or so to spare over the weekend.

     Days:    Friday 23 Nov - Monday 26 Nov 2018
     Times:   Start and end at midday your LOCAL time
     Range:   400 - 419.9 kHz

(Apologies to Listeners ‘down under’ - not much to listen for in this range
at summer time.  Could listen via a remote receiver instead?  See below)

Just log all the NDBs that you can identify with nominal (listed)
frequencies in the range - it includes 400 kHz, but not 420 kHz -
plus any UNIDs that you come across there.

Please send your final log to the List (no attachments and ideally
in a plain text email) with ‘FINAL CLE238’ in its title.
Show on each line:

    #   The Date (e.g.  '2018-11-23' etc.  or just '23' )
    #   The Time in UTC (the day changes at 00:00 UTC).
    #   kHz  - the nominal published frequency, if known.
    #   The Call Ident.

Please show those main items FIRST.  Other optional details such
as Location and Distance go LATER in the same line.
As always, of course, tell us your own location and brief details
of the equipment that you were using during the Event.

We will send the usual 'Any More Logs?' email at about 18:00 UTC
on Tuesday so that you can check that your log has been found OK.
Do make sure that your log has arrived on the List by 09:00 UTC
on Wednesday 28 November at the very latest.
The combined results should then be completed within a day or two.

You can find full details about current and past CLEs from the CLE page
http://www.ndblist.info/cle.htm  It includes access to CLE238 seeklists
for your part of the World, prepared from the previous loggings in Rxx.

Good listening - enjoy the CLE.
      Brian and Joachim
---------------------------------------------------------------
From:      Brian Keyte G3SIA      ndbcle'at'gmail.com
Location:  Surrey,  SE England     (CLE coordinator)
---------------------------------------------------------------

  (If you would like to listen remotely  you could use any one remote
  receiver for your loggings, stating its location and owner and with their
  permission if required.  A remote listener may NOT also use another
  receiver, local or remote, to make further loggings for the same CLE)



Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Updated radiokitguide at http://radiokitguide.com

This is a list I maintain of available radio kits on the Internet.

Feel free to suggest any that I missed.

–Neil W2NDG

Neil Goldstein, W2NDG, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New York, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

My LNR Precision MTR5b always comes away with me and for good reason. It’s small, portable and xyl friendly. It does however, suffer from a lot of wires and bits loosely hanging around. Mrs g7kse regularly takes the opportunity to ‘tidy’ stuff up. This means I can no longer find it. This is ok at home because it hasn’t gone far but a pain when I’m not at home.

Ikea has long been a source of cheap stuff and their chopping boards are just the thing to make into a small flight deck. The one I got is approximately 24cm by 15cm and came as a pack of two with a much larger one that is in use in the kitchen.

I thought the first thing to do would be make up a small tray that I can sit the MTR5b into and then still that to the board. Duly designed and 3d printed. Next up was a small notebook like the boys in blue use, after that some magnets for my palm key (it has a magnetic base). Lastly some velcro tape and 4 m4 nuts, bolts and washers. he optional part is a DC buck converter (just be careful to check dimensions as they change shape and size a bit) that I use to regulate the voltage to 12v (I got carried away and made a really bad case for it)

I thought I’d sink the magnets into the board at then epoxy them in. Mainly because its polypropylene and nothing sticks too well to these waxy plastics. All this took was a bit of careful dremelling and you’re done. The notebook is clipped to the board and the velcro strips stuck down onto the back. The ast ting to do was put 6 feet on it so I didn’t scratch any surface I carelessly chucked the thing on. Here’s a few photos and a link to the parts on Thingiverse.

 

 

 

Alex Hill, G7KSE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, UK. Contact him at [email protected].

Welcome to Episode 259 of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this episode, we talk with Pierros Papadeas, SV1QVE, of the SatNOGS project. We take a deep look into the Open Space Foundation, SatNOGS and the linked satellite ground station network they have put together. We look under the covers at the software and hardware that make the project work, talk about its past and its future direction, and much more information about satellites in amateur radio, rotators, single-board computers, networking, aggregated information databases and much more. Thank you for listening. We hope you enjoy.

73 de The LHS Crew

Russ Woodman, K5TUX, co-hosts the Linux in the Ham Shack podcast which is available for download in both MP3 and OGG audio format. Contact him at [email protected].

With constructors and hobbists looking at sourcing electronic components, even the hard to get stuff along with a bit of added value for money.  I have started a component list with suppliers from the far East.


Access it from the top right under Pages: Far East Component suppliers.


Or from this link: http://g1kqh.blogspot.com/p/far-east-component-suppliers.html



Hope you all find it useful?
Steve, G1KQH, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from England. Contact him at [email protected].

AmateurLogic.TV Episode 123 is now available for download.

Part 1 of George’s DTMF Radio Control project. Tommy with Easy D-Star Programming using CSV files. Emile supports TourDeCure Nawlins. And another AmateurLogic Foreign Food Taste Test featuring Rum Butter from the UK.

1:29:28

Download
YouTube

George Thomas, W5JDX, is co-host of AmateurLogic.TV, an original amateur radio video program hosted by George Thomas (W5JDX), Tommy Martin (N5ZNO), Peter Berrett (VK3PB), and Emile Diodene (KE5QKR). Contact him at [email protected].