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I was doing some cleaning around the house the other day and came across a QSL card of the very first contact I made.  It was June 6th, 1989 and I was pounding out CQ with my Bencher BY-1 Iambic paddle. I had a script all made up with a step by step CW QSO contact information. As I very well remember things did not go as planned.  I now know I just was experiencing what any new green CW op would experience. I was listening to the code that was being sent and writing it down on paper but then I missed a letter and started to concentrate on the missed letter. This meant I missed even more code and was lost in no time. I had to do I mental reset and carry on. At some points, I fell into the bad habit of counting dits and dahs and not hearing the rhythm again it was panic setting in. When it came time to send I wanted to for some reason send just a bit faster than I was receiving well that did not work out too well when I was receiving and the code was coming back at me just a bit faster! While on the subject of sending I did find myself messing up letters and having to send words again. Then frustration set in which made it worse, but I did complete the QSO. As stressful as it may have seemed I was thrilled and could not wait for my next contact. 

At that time my station setup was the Icom IC-745 it was second hand but I loved it and had served me for many years.  My antenna was the Crushcraft R4 vertical antenna which for my location was the best solution. I did not own the house I was living in so a tower and beam were out of the question. Also, the lot was small so no room for ground radial. The R4 answered my needs as it did not need ground radials and had a very small footprint. As stated earlier I had the Bencher BY-1 key.

Can any of you remember your first contact and the gear you were using at the time? 

It's CLE time again!

'CLE's are 'Co-ordinated  Listening Events, and NDB DXers around the  world focus their listening time on one small slice of  the NDB spectrum.

Propagation on MF has been excellent this past month and hopefully will continue to be good.

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. These databases have recently been re-vamped and are slicker than ever before!

From CLE coordinator Brian Keyte (G3SIA), comes the following CLE info:

Hello All

 

It is time to confirm the details of our special Holiday Listening Event for you.  

 

Between local midday on 25^th December and local midday on 3^rd January you are invited to ‘make a flight of your choice’ by logging NDBs along the way (as many pilots would have done in the old days!).

The main challenge is that you will be using your own receiver, probably from your home, for ALL your loggings.  (Or you could use one Remote receiver if you prefer that).

 

Your log format can look just the same as usual for normal CLEs, but, very important, you must log your chosen NDBs in the correct time sequence for your journey.  Your time between making two consecutive NDB loggings for your log could be minutes, hours - or even days!   However, you won’t be able to go back and fill in a missed NDB earlier in your flight unless you re-log the NDBs from that one.   It means that a bit of pre-planning will be very useful - and fun.

At the end of this email we have added a HELP SECTION of ‘Extras’  which include advice on how you can use the RWW database for your planning, with the help of its maps that show all of the known NDBs Worldwide.

 

You could choose a flight to your favourite holiday destination, or make a ‘round trip’ with interesting places along the way, or go a   L O N G  way, finishing far away, as NDB reception allows.   You could choose to start – and/or to finish – at ANY active NDB that you can log.   There is plenty of scope for you to choose something unusual and we hope that a lot of interesting and varied flights will be made.

 

In the Extras Section below there is also the log of an imaginary ‘flight’ using the real, active NDBs on a round trip between Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires in South America - and the flight map that was made from it. 

In the CLE Combined Results we hope to include all of the separate flight maps, each of them made from our CLE flight logs.  Each reporter’s map will probably sit nicely in a separate Excel Sheet of the results.  (E.g. in Europe’s results, ‘CZE my’ in extra Sheet1, ‘DEU hw’ in extra Sheet2..  .  and in Rest of the World’s results, ‘AUS SA rw’ in extra Sheet1, etc. .. )

 

Here are a few things to think about:

 

You could choose to start your flight from any NDB of your choice

- or from your local NDB.

- or from your ‘Home’ (your usual QTH) – just add the word HOME on the line immediately above your first NDB logging.  

- or from your chosen Remote receiver - just add the word REMOTE on the line immediately above your first NDB logging.  That remote receiver is your temporary ‘home’ for this CLE and ALL your loggings must be made using it.

 

The same NDB must NOT be logged more than once because your map would no longer be able to show your route – we would have to delete any same-NDB loggings after the first one.

However if you choose to start and end your flight at the same NDB (e.g. your nearest) that WILL be OK.

In normal CLEs we sometimes get the same log time for consecutive loggings.   If this happens in your flight log PLEASE show the first one as 1 minute earlier (or the second one 1 minute later).   If you don’t do that your flight map may go to the wrong NDB first and so have a strange zig-zag there.

PSKOV users - this applies to you too, after you have found your actual logging times (please see the Extras Section 3 below)

 

We don’t want to set a limit to anyone’s total count of NDBs (= loggings = flight ‘legs’).  However, please bear in mind that the further away you go and/or the more NDBs you visit, your map will quickly become complex and hard to appreciate.   Flights with a lot of zig-zagging and very long legs between loggings should also be avoided if you can.   

 

Our thanks to those who have contacted us since the ‘Extra Early Advice’.  There are already some good ideas and ‘themes’ for flights.  We could mention what their ideas are, but that would ‘Steal their Thunder’!

 

Please look out for our Final Details about the Event on about 22^nd December.   It will have a little more quite important advice on log making, etc.      

 

Good planning!

  Brian and Joachim

 

 

 

HELP SECTION ‘EXTRAS’

 

-----------------------------------------------------

 

1.  USING  RWW  TO PLAN YOUR FLIGHT:

 

You will find the amazing (Worldwide) database RWW very helpful. 

 

Go to   https://rxx.classaxe.com/rww/signals

 

Select   New (top right)   then  Signals (left)  and  √NDB  (in the lower box).

  

Then select your chosen RWW Focus (Region) and, if needed, States, Countries or Grid Squares. 

Finally choose   Status: Active    and, in the bottom line,  Map                                                                

 

And – you’re away!

 

---------------------------------------------

 

2.  A SAMPLE ‘FLIGHT’:

 

Here is our ‘dummy run’ – an inland flight from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, via Paraguay and Uruguay, to Buenos Aires in Argentina and back along the Atlantic coast.  That would be practicable if you live in the south of Brazil or if you could find a good Remote receiver there  (It would be a near miracle for any of us listening in Europe - and maybe from North America as well!)

The flight started and ended at NDB  330 YLA in Rio.

 

Test Log for a CLE263 ‘Flight’:

(any of the usual log formats will be OK)

 

Dec.

dd           UTC       kHz        Ident      Location                 Cou.  

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

26           2205      330        YLA        ILHA (RJ)                 BRA   

26           2236      285        BBC        Barbacena (MG)   BRA   

26           2341      325        VGH       Varginha (MG)      BRA   

27           0013      310        PSN        Piracununga(SP)   BRA   

27           0255      380        BRU       Bauru (SP)              BRA                  

28           2317      320        MRN      Maringa (PR)         BRA                  

29           0024      200        CDE        Cascavel                 BRA                  

29           0259      307        P             Posdas                    ARG                  

29           1947      275        URG       Uruguaiana            BRA                  

29           2020      260        TBO       Tacuarembo           URG                  

29           2129      280        P             PALMERO B.Aires ARG   

31           1915      239        LS           Capitan Corbeta    URG   

31           1945      312        UI           Chui (RS)                 BRA   

31           1951      290        RG          Canal                       BRA   

31           2048      300        FB           Tramandai (RS)     BRA   

31           2209      280        JGN        Jaguaruna              BRA   

31           2211      235        NVG       Naveagantes(SC)  BRA   

31           2219      320        NX          Domel (PR)            BRA   

31           2307      330        PP           Metro (SP)             BRA   

31           2323      430        TBE        Taubate (SP)          BRA    

31           2344      330        YLA        ILHA (RJ)                 BRA   

                                                                                                        

Flight Map, made from the above log:

 

(We may choose a different program to make the flight maps)

 

---------------------------------------------------------------

 

3.  GUIDANCE FOR PSKOV USERS:  

 

It seems that the rules for this CLE (log-times in sequence with NDB stop-overs, no two logs having the same minute) collide with the way the PSKOV Log Feature works.

PSKOV always automatically uses the start-time of a particular recording as the time logged for reception of the beacons on the recording. 

However, PSKOV users will know that the log-time issue can be solved by either using short recordings in Skimmer mode or, for longer recordings, finding the exact time of reception in Viewing Mode.   

 

The users have told us that the use of short recordings for this CLE is highly recommended.

Once a beacon has been found using Skimmer mode, it can be logged with the built-in Log Feature, then transferred by copy/paste to a CLE master log (e.g. in EXCEL or text editor) and changed to show the actual time of reception.

 

------------------------------------------------------

 

  If you are interested in some remote listening - maybe
  due to local difficulties - you could use any one remote
  receiver for your loggings, stating its location and with
  the owner's permission if required.
   ( e.g. see  kiwisdr.com )
  A remote listener may NOT also use another receiver,
  local or remote, to make more loggings for the same CLE.

These listening events serve several purposes. They

 This past weekend was the CQ WW CW contest which if I can I always partake in.  This year I made it a point to set aside the time to indulge.....well I'm retired now so it's really not all that hard to set the time aside. But this time around it was going to be a toss-up whether the monitor troubles I was having were going to give me issues.  In a nutshell, if the monitor was turned off it was a 50/50 chance I could be greeted with a black screen. If that was the case I then had to play around starting and restarting the PC and turning the monitor off and on to get it working again. My solution was during the day when I took a break from contesting was to leave the PC and monitor on. This seemed to work very well and it was only when the PC was turned off at night did I only have one time with issues trying to get the monitor up and working. 

 I was really looking forward to seeing how the new upswing in the solar conditions treated me with my 100 watts of power into a mediocre Endfed antenna. I did have plans to hit the airwaves on Friday evening but Julie and I decided to have a date night COVID style at home with a home-cooked meal and a movie. On Saturday and Sunday, I was able to spend a good amount of time in the operating chair. The new solar conditions made the contest a pleasure!

 There was really no dead bands from 10m to 80m in my case. The highlight for me was making contact on 2 occasions with Hawaii both times on 15m. There were other possible opportunities with some exotic places but the pile-up was that of a DXpedition. I did not want to waste valuable time to make or not make the contact. 

It was a pleasure to see 10m meters open and it had me rope some contacts in South America and Europe and well as the U.S. I also gave 80m a shot as I can use my external tuner  (AT200Pro II) to get a decent SWR. This opportunity netted me some U.S contact points. 

My score for sure is not going to be in the CQ WW CW record books but I really enjoyed this contest and the propagation brought even more joy and really had me staying in the radio chair to make contacts. 

Below is the score breakdown: 

Because I was operating at only 1 watt I also wanted to take the loss of my SWR into account. I checked with my antenna analyzer and the CW portion on 20m my SWR was 2.3:1. According to the power loss at various SWR readings chart at 2.3:1, I was in around 15% so this took my 1 watt down to 850 milliwatts. 

Below are the results of my QRPp contest efforts: 

Band     20m 

QSO     10

Score    300

Contacts and Miles per watt using grid square to grid square for millage  

1. OM7M        3720 miles  4376 miles per watt at .850 watts. 

2. OM3CGN    3795 miles 4464 miles per watt at .850 watts.

3. OL3Z           3515 miles  4135 miles per watt at .850 watts. 

4.OK7K          3503 miles 4121 miles per watt at .850 watts.          

5. OK1DOL    3478 miles 4091 miles per watt at .850 watts. 

AP-378 Mayne Island, BC

It's CLE time again!'CLE's are 'Co-ordinated Listening Events, and NDB DXers around the world focus their listening time on one small slice of the NDB spectrum.

This time the hunting ground is from 190.0 - 1740.0 kHz!

 
The challenge this time is to log just one (1) beacon from as many 'radio countries' as you can. In North America and other regions, an individual state or province counts as a radio 'country', so there are plenty of opportunities to fill your logbook.

Propagation on MF has been excellent this past week and hopefully will continue to be good.

A challenge target for listeners in North America is AP - 378kHz on Mayne Island, BC which is about 1/2 mile from me just down the beach! But 'AP' is a challenging target since, from what I can tell, has virtually no ground system. Although it has been heard as far south as Texas, it has never been heard further east than Nebraska. Listen for AP's upper sideband on 378.411kHz with your receiver in the CW mode.

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. These databases have recently been re-vamped and are slicker than ever before!

From CLE coordinator Brian Keyte (G3SIA), comes the following CLE info:

A remote listener may NOT also use another receiver, local or remote, to make further loggings for the same CLE.

These listening events serve several purposes. They

ZQT-263 Thunder Bay, ON (ve3gop)

It's CLE time again!


'CLE's are 'Co-ordinated Listening Events, and NDB DXers around the world focus their listening time on one small slice of the NDB spectrum.


This time the hunting ground is the slice from 260.0 - 269.9 kHz and 440 - 1740kHz.
 

Propagation on MF has been excellent this past week and hopefully will continue to be good.

A worthy target for listeners in North America is ZQT - 263kHz in Thunder Bay, southern Ontario, on the western shores of Lake Superior. ZQT has been logged from coast-to-coast but it's a challenging target. Listen for ZQT's upper sideband on 263.392kHz with your receiver in the CW mode.

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. These databases have recently been re-vamped and are slicker than ever before!

From CLE coordinator Brian Keyte (G3SIA), comes the following CLE info:

Hello all,

These are the final details for this weekend's Coordinated Listening Event which uses some challenging frequencies.

Any first-time CLE logs will also be very welcome, however modest.

 Days:    Friday 25 Sept. - Monday 28 Sept.

 Times:   Start and end at midday, your local time

 Target:  Normal NDBs  (not NAVTEX or amateur beacons)

      QRG:   260.0  -   269.9 kHz

      plus:    440.0  - 1740.0 kHz

Please log the NDBs you can identify that are listed in those ranges plus any UNIDs that you come across there.

North America has a modest number of active NDBs in both ranges.

For Europe listeners there are LOTS of targets in the hf range, but they are mostly well to the east, many of them also competing with strong Broadcasting Stations.

Australia has a few NDBs in both ranges.

You can find details of the beacons in these ranges, lists and maps, if you go to  http://www.ndblist.info/cle.htm  and click on the 'CLE SEEKLIST' link.

If you are disappointed by having very few likely targets, you could maybe listen instead via a remote receiver located nearer to the action?

See  kiwisdr.com  (previously available via sdr.hu) and please also see the important footnote below.

Send your final CLE log to the List, preferably as a plain text email, not in an attachment, with CLE260 and FINAL at the start of its title.

  #   The full Date (or Day no.)  e.g. ‘2020-09-25’ (or just ‘25’) and UTC (the day changes at 00:00         UTC)

  #   kHz (the beacon's nominal published frequency if you know it)

  #   The Call Ident.

Other optional details - Location, Distance, etc. - go LATER in the same line (or in footnotes) Any extra details about new UNIDs, especially strong ones that may be near to you (maybe their approximate direction, etc.) will help us to discover more about them. 

Please make your log useful to old and new members alike by ALWAYS including your own location and brief details of the equipment and aerial(s) that you were using.

We will send an 'Any More Logs?' email at about 19:00 UTC on Tuesday evening so you can check that your log has been found OK.

To be included in the combined results your log must arrive at the very latest by 08:00 UTC on Wednesday 30 Sept.

We hope to complete making the Combined Results within a day or two.

Good listening

Brian and Joachim

---------------------------------------------------------------------

From:      Brian Keyte G3SIA       ndbcle'at'gmail.com

Location:  Surrey,  SE England    (CLE coordinator)

---------------------------------------------------------------------

If you are interested in some remote listening - maybe due to local difficulties - you could use any one remote receiver for your loggings,stating its location and with the owner’s permission if required.

A remote listener may NOT also use another receiver, local or remote, to make further loggings for the same CLE.

These listening events serve several purposes. They