Wednesday 20 July 2022

Hunting For NDBs in CLE282

   

YLD-335 Chapleau, ON  (ve3gop.com)


It's CLE time once again. This is a challenge for all newcomers to NDB listening and the ultimate test of your medium frequency receiving capabilities. Can you meet the challenge?
'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.
 
It's back to a normal activity with a frequency span of 335.0 - 349.9 kHz.

A good target for all NA listeners is YLD on 335 kHz in Ontario. Listen for its upper sideband CW identifier on 335.405 kHz. I believe it is slated for decommissioning shortly ... hopefully I'm not too late for this one.

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, 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 full details for this weekend's co-ordinated listening event.
It is open to everyone including CLE new-comers:

    Days:       Friday 22 July - Monday 25 July

    Times:     Start and end at midday, your LOCAL time

    Range:     335.0 - 349.9 kHz


Wherever you are, please join us and log the NDBs that you can positively identify that are listed in this busy frequency range (it includes 335.0 kHz but not 350 kHz) plus any UNIDs that you come across there.

Very short and very long logs are welcome (in-between ones are good too!)

Send your CLE log to the List, preferably as a plain text email (not in an attachment) with ‘CLE282 FINAL’ in its subject line.

    Please show on EVERY LINE of your log:


       #  The date (e.g. '2022-07-23' or just the day no. '23') and UTC (the day changes at 00:00 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.

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.

Always make your log interesting to everyone by giving details of the listening location and brief details of the receiver, aerial(s), etc., that you were using.


We will send the usual 'Any More Logs?' email at about 19:00 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 at the very latest by 08:00 UTC on Wednesday 27 July.  We will then hope to 
complete making the combined results within a day or two.


You can check on all CLE-related information from the CLE Page


   
http://www.ndblist.info/cle.htm


It includes a link to seeklists for the Event from the Rxx Database.

Good listening

 

   Brian and Joachim

   (CLE Coordinators)

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

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

Location:  Surrey,  SE England       (CLE coordinator)

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

 

(Reminder:  If you wish you can use a remote receiver for your loggings, stating its location and owner -  with their permission if required.

A remote listener may NOT also use another receiver,  whether local or remote, to obtain further loggings  for the same CLE)

These listening events serve several purposes. They

• determine, worldwide, which beacons are actually in service and on-the-air so the newly-re-vamped Rxx online database can be kept up-to-date

• 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!

 

Monday 4 July 2022

Neophyte Twins - An Update


Blog readers may recall my last two construction projects, the ‘Neophyte’ 1-tube regenerative receiver and a matching ‘Neophyte’ 1-tube crystal-controlled transmitter. The receiver turned out to be an exceptionally good performer once some slight tweaks were made to the original design published back in 1968.

It worked so well that I then decided to build a simple 1-tube transmitter to physically match the receiver and put together another circuit from the 60s using a 5763. Once I had the pair working well together, I set myself a goal of Worked All States on 40m CW with the tiny pair. I had a tremendous amount of fun during the cold winter nights and slowly worked my way through the list of states, eventually working and confirming all 50 states.
 



When the winter of ‘21-‘22 rolled around, I did another silly thing and set the goal of yet another Worked All States, this time on 80m CW which would offer a much bigger challenge for the little pair.
 
Over a period of about 7 months I once again managed to work all 50 states, mainly all on 3560kHz, with most of the contacts being made shortly before or shortly after my dinner hour of 1800 local time. There turned out to be a lot of good ears out there and fine bunch of great CW ops, all able to pull my signal through the noise. It was fascinating to hear the difference in propagation from one night to the next while operating at the same time period each night. Most nights produced no new states as they seemed to come in bunches, with December 9, 2021 being particularly good, producing IA, ID, MI, ME, PA and AL, while February 21, 2022 brought NH, MS and AK.
 
After working all 50 states, it took several more weeks to gather all of the prized cards.
 

80m WAS QSLs - thanks guys!

Looking back at the past two winters of nightly CW fun, it’s nice to recall just how much pleasure was derived from such a tiny investment in construction time, let alone cost. Everything, including the unused mini-boxes, was found in my parts collection with the exception of the 5763 tube in the transmitter. My junk box has been growing ever since my interest in radio began as a pre-teen back in the late 50s, smitten with the magic of radio. Fancy multi-thousand dollar radios offer truly amazing performance, but for me, can often make things too easy, removing much of the magic.
 
Next winter’s new one-tube project, circa 1936, is now in the mock-up testing phase and should provide some challenging DX fun on 10, 15 and 20m as Solar Cycle 25 breaths new life into the higher bands … stay tuned for an update soon!