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Hunting For NDBs In CLE283
24 August 2022 | by 
Time marches on and once again, it's CLE time. This is an opportunity for you to discover the KIWI SDR online network and to put it to use for hunting NDBs ... either close to you or on the other side of the world!
For example, 'AA' near Fargo, ND, transmitted on 365 kHz and its upper sideband CW identifier was tuned at 366.025 kHz while its lower sideband CW ident could be tuned at 363.946 kHz. Its USB tone was actually 1025 Hz while its LSB tone was 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 organizers comes the following CLE info:
Hello all
Here are the final details for our special 283rd listening event which starts this coming Friday.
Joachim and I are grateful for the questions, suggestions and help in the last few days. Thanks also to Martin, who has made some changes that improve the way RWW handles logs that have been made at remote receivers.
Days: Friday 26 August - Monday 29 August
Times: *Midday on Friday to *Midday on Monday,
local time at your chosen REMOTE RX
QRG: Normal LF/MF frequencies (190 - 1740 kHz)
NDBs: A MAXIMUM of 100 normal NDBs (not DGPS, Navtex, Amateur, .. )
(That’s not intended to be a target to reach!)
Please check that you will be following the help given in the Early Advice, sent last Saturday, and in the later contributions to the List.
Send your CLE log to the List, preferably as a plain text email (not in an attachment) with ‘CLE283 FINAL’ in its subject line.
Please show on EVERY LINE of your log:
# The date (e.g. '2022-08-27' or just the day no. '27') and UTC*
# kHz (The beacon's nominal published frequency)
If you don’t know it, please visit https://rxx.classaxe.com where you will find all the details.
# The Call Ident.
*UTC is the same everywhere of course - but
*Midday local time can always be checked from your browser by entering e.g. time timbuktu (try it now!)
Show those main items FIRST on each line, before other optional details such as Location, Distance, etc. If you send any interim logs during the event, please also send your 'FINAL', complete one.
Please make your log interesting to everyone by giving details of the listening location and brief details of the receiver there thatyou were using.
We will send the usual 'Any More Logs?' email at about 19:00 UTC on Tuesday so you can check that your log has been found OK.
Do make sure that your log has arrived on the List at the very latest by 08:00 UTC on Wednesday 31 August. We will then hope to complete making the combined results within two or three days.
Good listening
Brian and Joachim
(CLE Coordinators)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is additional information to help you in CLE283:
CLE283 – further guidance
Please be aware that, because most of the available Web-SDRs can be shared with a number of other users, there may occasionally be a need to wait your turn to use a particular one.
If you plan to participate in our upcoming CLE, you can use any one remote receiver for your loggings, stating its location (and web-address if possible) and with the owner’s permission if required.
You may NOT also use another receiver, to make further loggings for the same CLE.
Here’s a list of what can be found on the internet and there are definitely many more.
Kiwi receiver map : http://rx.linkfanel.net/
The KiWi-receivers are amongst the most popular web-controlled remote-receivers and there are many of them to explore all over the world.
Simply select a receiver from the map and it will start playing.
The KiWi-software is easy to use. For beacon hunting I found that it is best to switch to CW mode, fully zoom in and set the bandwidth to about 40 Hz by dragging the left and/or right side of the bandwidth indicator until the bandwidth suits your needs.
Type “h” or “?” to see a list of keyboard shortcuts. Also a right-click in the waterfall or frequency scale will bring up a Kiwi-specific menu.
WebSDR receiver List and map : http://www.websdr.org/
You can select a receiver from the list by clicking on the displayed link. However, you should make sure it supports the desired frequency band by observing the information in column “Frequency Range” because not all receivers do support the NDB-Band.
However, the wide band web-sdr at the University of Twente does and it is, by far, the most popular receiver using the websdr-software.
There’s also a search box near the top of the page allowing you to specify the frequency range.
To access the receivers-map, you have to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the web page.
Clicking on the icon for a particular receiver displays an info-box which shows the available frequency ranges as well as a link to start the receiver.
GlobalTuners : https://www.globaltuners.com/
GlobalTuners provides access to remotely controlled radio receivers all over the world.
You can tune the receivers to listen to any desired frequency band.
Be aware that this webpage requires a login to access any of the available receivers.
Also, for most of the receivers, listening time has been limited by the operators.
SDR-Console :
You can use Simon Brown’s marvelous software SDR-Console to listen to a huge number of remote receivers.
Simply download SDR-Console from https://www.sdr-radio.com/download#Release and install it on your PC.
Once the radio selection screen is displayed upon start of the software, select tab “Server”, click on button “Definitions”, click on “Search” and select “V3 Server”.
Then click on button SDRSpace.com and select a receiver from the list.
Perseus SDR :
Each Perseus Receiver comes with a server module which allows sharing of this Rx via the internet.
You can select those receivers via the Perseus server-map : http://microtelecom.it/map/ServersMap.html
However, this requires a Perseus SDR and the Perseus Software to be installed on your pc.
Please be aware, that listening to a Perseus server needs some forwarding of TCP/UDP-Ports in your firewall.
- Forwarding port 8014 (UDP Protocol) to your computer (if you are behind a router);
- “Unblocking” the Perseus software in Windows Firewall (automatically requested by Windows o/s at the first run)
Please refer to the manual (Client-Server Perseus Software Reference - EN02.pdf) which comes with the Perseus software for more information.
This webpage provides a good start if you are searching for a web-receiver.
You can search by selecting
- a preview page
- a table showing information of the available bands and location info as well as the type of receiver
- a map
- the receiver type (Kiwi-receivers, WebSDR receivers and OpenWebRX receivers)
OpenWebRx is a clone of the “Kiwi SDR-Software” and allows to put all kinds of SDR receivers on the internet using a small Linux PC like the RaspBerry Pi.
Here is some additional advice from Martin Francis, the designer of the RWW database:
And remember, if you are using a radio in Australia for example - choose RWW as your system; if your receiver is in Europe REU will be your choice; if it's in the Caribbean, you will choose RNA.
You can use the filtering capabilities in the RXX system to give you likely targets - so if that remote radio is in New Zealand, you can show signals that have been heard IN New Zealand.
And if the radio you choose is already in the RXX system, you can go to 'Personalise' and select that actual radio to see distances and bearings to each station in your targets list.
NOTES ON LOGGINGS:
If you submit logs from a location NOT already listed in RXX, please include as much info as you can to help our admins get your logs uploaded and create a new profile for that location.
Please include the specific URL (website address) used to access the radio, together with the receiver owner's callsign if they have one, and the town, state / province (if it has one), country, timezone and Grid square.
Also include the location YOU remotely operated the radio from (YOU are the OPERATOR in this scenario), especially if you haven't submitted a log before.
These listening events serve several purposes. They
• determine, worldwide, which beacons are out-of-service or have gone silent since the last CLE covering this range
• will indicate the state of propagation conditions at the various participant locations
• will give you an indication of how well your LF/MF receiving system is working
• give participants a fun yet challenging activity to keep their listening skills honed
Final details can be found at the NDB List website, and worldwide results, for every participant, will be posted there a few days after the event.
The NDB List Group is a great place to learn more about the 'Art of NDB DXing' or to meet other DXers in your region. There is a lot of good information available there and new members are always very welcome. As well, you can follow the results of other CLE participants from night to night as propagation is always an active topic of discussion.
You need not be an NDB List member to participate in the CLEs and all reports, no matter how small, are of much value to the organizers.
Remember - 'First-time' logs are always VERY welcome!
Reports may be sent to the NDB List Group or e-mailed to CLE co-ordinator, Brian Keyte (G3SIA), whose address appears above. If you are a member of the group, all final results will also be e-mailed and posted there.
Please ... give the CLE a try ... then let us know what NDB's can be heard from your location! Your report can then be added to the worldwide database to help keep it up-to-date.
Have fun and good hunting!
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].
SOTA 23 cm QSO with N0OY
While planning for the 2022 Colorado 14er Event, I decided to focus on making some long-distance contacts on 1.2 GHz (23 cm). Last year, Dave/W0ADV and I worked summit-to-summit (S2S) at a distance of 244 km (152.6 miles), which is my best result so far. See my previous post here…
For this year’s event, I wanted to beat that distance so I checked in with the usual SOTA activators that use the 23 cm band, wondering if any of them would be on summits that would support such an effort. I was thinking in terms of another S2S contact using portable FM handheld radios. I identified a few summits in the San Juan mountains that might work, from Pikes Peak or Mount Evans. Also, northern New Mexico has some potential summits, but I did not find anyone interested in activating them.
Knowing that Lauren/N0LD has done quite a bit of VHF/UHF operating from Pikes, I figured he would have some insight concerning summits that are workable from Pikes. We connected via telephone and discussed some options. In that conversation, he suggested I reach out to two hams that have serious 23 cm stations in Kansas: N0LL and N0OY. This shifted my thinking away from S2S contacts to working a UHF station out on the plains. (Kansas has a noticeable lack of SOTA summits.) Pikes Peak (W0C/FR-004) is well-suited to this approach, being easy to access with a road to the top and an excellent radio horizon to the east. I sent an email to Larry/N0LL and Pete/N0OY to see if they were available. Larry replied that his 23 cm gear was currently off the air but Pete said that he was available to give it a try.
The distance from Pikes Peak (W0C/FR-004) to N0OY is almost 400 miles, so the FM handheld radio approach was probably not going to work. My ICOM IC-9700 was the way to go, with 10 watts of RF power to a Yagi antenna. Pete used an ICOM IC-705 to drive a transverter that supplies 50 watts of RF to an 8-foot dish antenna at 45 feet. I chuckled when I heard this because the IC-705 is a popular SOTA rig…just not usually found on 23 cm.
Joyce/K0JJW and I made it to the summit a bit early and immediately set up for the 23 cm attempt. Normally, we operate on the west side of the summit, away from the visitors center and most of the tourists. For 23 cm, I wanted the best shot possible to the east, so we walked over to the boardwalk on the north side of the summit. It sticks out enough to give an excellent view due east.
Once I was set up, I sent a text message to Pete asking him to start transmitting my direction on 1296.1 MHz. We had agreed to start with CW, our most efficient mode, and perhaps later try SSB. He started with a series of CW dashes and I could easily pick up his signal. Joyce pointed the antenna for me, finding the best direction to peak the signal. Pete’s signal was not terribly strong, but solid copy, only a few dB above my noise floor. Because he was running more power than me (about 7 dB), I was concerned that he would not be able to hear me. I called him using CW and initially, he did not respond. We kept trying and my signal came up a bit at his end and we were able to complete the contact. Conditions were marginal enough that we did not try SSB. (Sorry, Joyce missed out on this one…she doesn’t work CW.)
SOTA Requirements
Although we drove to the summit of Pikes Peak, we made sure we were SOTA compliant. Our normal approach on a drive-up summit is to load up our backpacks with a portable station and hike some distance away from our vehicle. My IC-9700 is not exactly a compact transceiver but it is portable enough to transport some distance and it can be powered using a small Bioenno battery. I’ve carried this size radio (often an FT-991) on other SOTA activations, hiking a mile or two with it. It certainly adds weight to my pack, but it is manageable. The antenna was a Comet CYA-1216E, about 5 feet long, with 16 elements and a specified gain of 16.6 dBi.
So this is my new personal best for 23 cm SOTA:628 km, 392 miles. My thanks go to Pete/N0OY for getting on the air and giving this a try. His station was doing more than half the work with this radio contact. I’ve done SOTA QSOs like this with other weak-signal VHF/UHF operators. They may not be active SOTA chasers but they like the challenge of completing a difficult contact. I really appreciate them getting on the air with me. It’s all part of having fun messing around with radios.
This raises the question of what’s next?
Maybe I can get N0OY to move his station another 50 km to the east for another attempt. Probably not.
Stay tuned.
73 Bob K0NR
The post SOTA 23 cm QSO with N0OY appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.
Bob Witte, KØNR, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Colorado, USA. Contact him at [email protected].
Amateur Radio Weekly – Issue 251
APRS and voice repeater on ISS now operating simultaneously
Simultaneous operations of the ARISS voice repeater and digital APRS communications on the Space Station is now a reality.
ARRL
Inaugural Young Amateurs Radio Club Event
The inaugural Worked All YARC Zones event from September 1st to September 15th.
YARC
Tape measure antenna efficiency
Scrape the yellow paint and make a copper bath if high radiation performance is desired.
LU2ARZ
Volunteer Monitor program report for July 2022
Notices for unlicensed operation on 2-meter amateur frequencies were sent to two logging companies in Kettle Falls, Washington.
ARRL
Mini AM radio transmitter kit
A tiny $25 mediumwave transmitter kit.
SWLing Post
An off-grid wind and solar powered satellite image receiver
A very impressive remote off-grid radio satellite image receiver setup by DO3MLA.
RTL-SDR.com
Lightweight choke balun
A Choke balun using RG-316.
KK4Z
This weekend: International Lighthouse Lightship Weekend
The ILLW attracts over 500 lighthouse entries located in over 40 countries.
ILLW
Five types of operators you should want to be
Here are five examples that you can aspire to.
OnAllBands
Starlink ground stations successfully hacked
The hack is a modchip with an RP2040 and a MOSFET that crowbars the power rails.
Hack A Day
Video
Radio assembly line 1942 Holland
The Erres KY-418 radio set assembly line.
YouTube
Vintage SONY Japan manufacturing plants
Snapshots of Trinitron TV, video tape recorder, semiconductors, and more.
Computer History Archives Project
CornTenna QRP SSB
Today we find out if a green stalk of corn has enough conductance to radiate a 5 Watt QRP signal.
K0KLB
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Amateur Radio Weekly is curated by Cale Mooth K4HCK. Sign up free to receive ham radio's most relevant news, projects, technology and events by e-mail each week at http://www.hamweekly.com.
LHS Episode #477: Old Sol
Hello and welcome to the 477th episode of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this short-topics episode, the hosts cover the latest solar cycle, the upcoming next instance of the QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo, Kali Linux, contributions to Open Source from large corporations, a new version of PREDICT and more. Thank you for listening and have a great week.
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].
Contesting and Murphy what a mix!
Just taking a break from the WAE CW contest this morning (Sunday) and this contest has been an adventure! Issues with S.T.E.V.E (more about this after the contest in another post) and then Murphy showed up. A few days before any contest I get the PC, radio and N1MM+ contest logger going and make sure all is well, and it was.
Murphy had no issue waiting, I started contesting and things went wrong right at the get-go, as I was CWing "CQ CONTEST" a warning on my PC came up that I lost my internet connection. Then another message informed me my connection had been re-established. This just kept happening over and over and it was only when I was transmitting. This told me RFI was the issue, NEVER up until now have I ever had this issue but such is Murphy.
The contest at this point was a bit slow so I decided to investigate the issue further. I had a theory and that was my new PC motherboard has WIFI and uses two small antennas at the rear of the PC. I checked my settings and I was on WIFI, not LAN....so I thought. I removed the two small WIFI antenna thinking that they would be good at picking up RFI and thus could be the reason. I then set my LAN as the internet connection.
After restarting my PC I was back to contesting but this time there was the loss of internet connection but not as often. Thinking now it was possibly my LAN hub at the rear of the PC. I then connected my LAN (with toroidal chokes) directly to my PC. Again I had intermittent connection issues and I was sure it was still the WIFI and maybe the antenna female connector ends on the PC motherboard were picking up RF still. The issue happened less often so removing the antennas did help.
It was not off to the BIOS to shut the motherboard WIFI down.....going into the BIOS.....what could go wrong here?? Once in the BIOS, I clicked here and there and just could not find any WIFI settings. Closed the BIOS and restarted the PC.
Once restarted I knew something was wrong, the PC was really slow and jerky is the best way to describe it. I went to the internet to see what the hell I had done only to find the internet now was running as if I was on dial-up!
I have now gone from intermittent internet connection to a funky PC and very slow internet speed. Oh, and I also noticed that in my contest program N1MM+ I lost the contest macro setup and all my contacts. I have no idea what that has to do with the BIOS but it happened.
After some reading on the internet on my laptop, I concluded the best thing to do was update the BIOS and MSI motherboards they make it very easy to do. My thought was, that whatever the heck I did will be undone by a BIOS update. After all, I have nothing to lose if I wanted I could reformat the hard drive and slide a backup clone image onto the drive from my backup files on another hard drive. I would have all my programs and setting from an earlier time. Some may think I could just use Windows system restore. In times of need, I have ALWAYS had system restore let me down with a final message after a restore that windows was unable to restore to an earlier date!!
The BIOS updated without any issues and when the PC restarted I was back to normal but the slow internet was still there and RFI seemed to be dropping the connection still. I just happened to go back to Windows 10 internet connections box (for the 100th time) but this time I noticed for some reason I was back on WIFI. I manually changed it back to LAN and the connection issue was gone and the surfing speed was back.
I decided to restart the PC and have a look at the Windows 10 internet connections box again. After the restart, I was back on WIFI again and it would seem for some reason each time the PC was restarted it would default back to WIFI. The very slow connection was due to the fact the antennas were removed and RFI was affecting the WIFI board via the female antenna connectors.
I then just right-clicked on the WIFI connection icon and clicked disable!! You know what folks that did the trick. Only if 2 hours earlier I had done just that I would not have messed with the BIOS, lost my N1MM+ contest settings, squeezed behind my desk to the rear of the PC and wasted 2 hours. Sometimes the solution is just a click away!!
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].
ICQ Podcast Episode 383 – International Lighthouse & Lightship Weekend 2022
In this episode, Martin Butler (M1MRB) is joined by Caryn Eve Murray KD2GUT, Edmund Spicer M0MNG, Ed Durrant DD5LP and Chris Howard M0TCH to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin (M6BOY) rounds up the news in brief and in the episode's feature Edmund Spicer M0MNG previews International Lighthouse and Lightships Weekend 2022.
We would like to thank our monthly and annual subscription donors for keeping the podcast advert free. To donate, please visit - http://www.icqpodcast.com/donate
ARISS contact with Summer Camp students at Kopernik Observatory and Science Center, Vestal, New York, USA
- A Radio Relic
- Two New Amateur Radio Bands for Canadian Hams
- Hams on SOTA Event Help Prevent Major Forest Fire
- Angola DXpedition Promises People the moon
- Failure in Launching Indian Schoolgirls’ Ham Satellite
- NRAO Program to Educate Emerging Generation of Scientists using Amateur Radio
- QSO Expo Returns for Autumn 2022 Show
- Remembrance Day Contest
- AP75PAK Celebrates 75th Anniversary of Pakistan
Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at [email protected].
Technician License Class – Black Forest, Colorado
The Technician license is your gateway to the worldwide excitement of Amateur Radio, and the very best emergency communications capability available!
We are once again offering our highly-successful Technician License Class in Black Forest, Colorado.
- Earn your ham radio Technician class radio privileges
- Pass your FCC amateur radio license exam right in class on the last day
- Multiple-choice exam, No Morse Code Required
- Learn to operate on the ham bands, 10 meters and higher
- Learn to use the many VHF/UHF FM repeaters in Colorado
- Find out how to participate in emergency communications
Schedule: in-person plus online
Sat Oct 15 9:00 am – 3:30 pm In Person
Sun Oct 16 4:00 – 5:30 pm Online (Zoom)
Tue Oct 18 6:00 – 8:00 pm Online (Zoom)
Sat Oct 22 9:00 am – 3:00pm In Person (includes Exam Session)
In-person sessions are held at the Black Forest Fire & Rescue Station 1, 11445 Teachout Road, Colorado Springs, CO 80908
Registration fee: $30 adults, $20 under age 18
Advance registration is required.
Note that the FCC now charges a $35 license fee, payable after you pass the license exam.
Students must have the required study guide: Ham Radio School Technician License Course, 2022 – 2026
Register
To register for the class, go to:
http://w0tlm.com/radio-classes/tech-registration
Any questions, contact Bob Witte KØNR [email protected]
Sponsored by the Tri-Lakes Monument Radio Association www.w0tlm.com
For more information on amateur (ham) radio visit www.arrl.org
The post Technician License Class – Black Forest, Colorado appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.
Bob Witte, KØNR, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Colorado, USA. Contact him at [email protected].
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