 | | The LOWDOWN This Month
In the November 2008 issue of the club publication:
- "DX Downstairs" Kevin Carey presents members' LF and VLF loggings.
- "On The Air" Experimenters operating on the 160-190kHz and 136kHz bands... and...
- "The Top End" MedFER and HiFER beacon lists... and...
- "The LF Notebook" Conducted by John Davis. News of LF radio happenings for, from, by, and about LWCA members.
- "Natural Radio" Conducted by Mark Karney. What's happening to the solar wind? Also, the flight of the IBEX, and news about Project INSPIRE receiver kits.
- "News From the Old World" Alan Gale keeps us informed of LF experimentation on the "other side of the pond." Includes word that the popular AOR7030 receiver is nearing the end of production.
- "Compact Receiving Loop Antenna Project" Gregg van der Sluys describes a tuned loop of convenient dimensions, covering the 150-430 kHz range, along with a balun for it, and a useful low-pass filter and preamp.
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| | The LOWDOWN Last Month
In the October 2008 issue of the club publication:
- "DX Downstairs" Kevin Carey presents members' LF and VLF loggings.
- In Memoriam: Howard Mortimer, WB2ZWI Kevin Carey's reminiscences of Mort, who passed away in August.
- "On The Air" Experimenters operating on the 160-190kHz and 136kHz bands... and...
- "The Top End" MedFER and HiFER beacon lists... compiled by John Davis.
- "WD2XSH Status Report" Dr Fritz Raab reports on summer activity by the ARRL 505 kHz license group. (Available here as a PDF file.)
- "News From the Old World" Alan Gale keeps us informed of LF experimentation on the "other side of the pond."
- "LOWDOWN Bookshelf" Harry Weber calls attention to a QEX article on ferrite rod antennas.
- QSLs from Richard Palmer.
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| | Reception Reports Needed
Dr. Fritz Raab, W1FR, the coordinator of the ARRL experimental license for a possible future 505 kHz ham band, invites reception reports of the participating stations. Propagation has been very good as we enter the quieter months, and listener reports from any interested monitor will help advance the experiment. You can find more information at www.500kc.com.
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| | New Subscriptions and Renewals
The club's publisher, Bill Oliver, advises that bank policies and concerns about taking checks in the LWCA name have been resolved. It is no longer necessary to use his name instead of LWCA. For subscription rates and other information, see our About the LWCA page.
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General Topics of Interest
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| | Related Longwave Sites
•William Hepburn's DX Information Centre features many kinds of DX resources, including much on services found at LF and VLF; for example, regularly updated lists of NAVTEX and TWEB (Transcribed Weather) stations, LF/VLF time signals, and longwave broadcasters. Visit the site at its new location:
DX Information Centre. Don't overlook the pages for higher frequencies, and the propagation forecasts as well.
•Radio Waves Below 22 kHz Renato Romero's eclectic collection of topics pertaining to both manmade and natural radio signals from near DC to the upper end of audibility. Includes the VLF Open Lab, and articles by many contributors...some fairly orthodox, and some not. Visit: www.vlf.it
•Whistler Receiver Online Hear a NASA Project INSPIRE receiver in near-real-time from Huntsville, Alabama. Lots of sferics, including tweaks and occasional whistlers, should be audible, particularly in the hours just before dawn at the receiving site. Listen to the receiver through the SpaceWeather INSPIRE page and get more background on whistlers and related phenomena from this NASA news headline.
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| | QRSS and WOLF Software
Rik Strobbe's QRSS software (for transmitting extremely slow CW) is usually available from our file library, but while it is temporarily out of service, you can obtain QRSS and Rik's other useful software at the ON7YD download page.
Continuing Development of Argo. Alberto di Bene regularly posts the latest version of Argo, a receiving tool for displaying slow CW, that performs FFT spectral analysis and displays it in ways optimized for QRSS. Many of the transoceanic LF amateur records were set using Argo at the receiving end. Argo has somewhat similar performance to Spectran, but interacts better with the user's soundcard and is customized for QRSS modes.
Slow CW for Linux. Claudio Girardi (IN3OTD) has released the next version of his Slow CW software for users of the Linux operating system, alpha 0.3.1. The program (called glfer) contains both transmit and receive capability, the latter including an FFT-based spectrum analyzer somewhat similar to those found in popular Windows Slow CW programs.
As with much open-source software in the X-world, you have to compile the C source code yourself. Users will also need additional code libraries. Links to those, plus downloadable source code, can be found at Claudio's glfer page.
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