Pirate Report from Dunlo, PA, USA 8 November 2009

[Dave Valko]

8 NOVEMBER 2009: Having finished the coax lead-in filter chokes (and), I was anxious to test the completed basic Perseus mobile setup. Fortunately the weather was beautiful, so it wasn’t discomforting at all to lay out 2 parallel BOGs through the dark woods, one for the Perseus and one for the NRD-535D which I brought along to make the comparison tests. It took about a half hour to lay out the wire and get everything setup. R. Paardenkracht was already on when I started listening and was pleasantly surprised at the signal level on the Perseus. When I checked on the NRD, I was even more surprised to find it wasn’t quite as strong. Noise floor levels were about equal. Subsequent checks of R. East Coast Holland, Orion R., R. Nac. Arabe Saharaui Democratica, and North Korea were all slightly stronger on the Perseus. Even with the AGC off on the NRD, the Perseus still came out on top by a slight margin. By the way, I didn’t use any attenuation on the Perseus so I wouldn’t loose any signal strength. To limit any interaction, I routed the BOG from the NRD on the passenger floor, over the drivers side, out the window, around to the back side of the Jeep, and out through the woods. By 0815, I was wondering if I was losing some signal by the circuitous route, and decided to change it by bringing it under the Perseus coax lead-in and straight into the passenger side window (the usual old way). There was very little difference with this changed orientation. Even though it wasn’t a scientific hard data-numbered comparison test, the results were pretty conclusive. The Perseus was slightly better. I’m quite pleased and will be using this Perseus setup in the future.

Conditions didn’t look very promising. The 5 mhz MUF was worrisome. In general, it appeared to be average at best relative to the last couple years. The atmospheric noise was low. There was a lot of quick fading. On thing that really shocked me was how late signals stayed in. I was still getting signals and even a little audio from apparently R. Northpole at 1100 when the laptop battery ran out!! That can be expected in early January, but not the beginning of November!! In fact, it was already starting to get light with twilight underway at 1100. I wish I could have stayed to see when the signals actually disappeared.

RX: Microtelecom Perseus SDR with ARR preamp, JRC NRD-535D
ANT: Two equal 315' Beverages (BOG) both at 50°. Both parallel and separated by about 40 feet.
QTH: Pennsylvania State Game Lands #26
Duration: 0725-1100 UTC
Solar Indices: Solar Flux = 75 A Index = 0 K Index = 1 No storms. 5 mhz MUF over a portion of the north Atlantic again.
WX: Mainly starry. Very warm, in the mid-50’s (around 12° C.)!!

6209.77 R. Paardenkracht Pop mx. Anne Murray. Schlagers and Dutch Pops. 0749 morning greeting, ID, Paardenkracht spelled out phonetically quickly. More IDs and back to mx. Some really beautiful peaks around 0815. “Come and Get Itâ€

[Trans Europe]

Hello Dave,

wow.....didn`t expect this report!
Thank you very much for listening and doing so well to hear ID`s etc.

Hope that conditions will improve soon!

Kind regards,

Hans.
Trans Europe Radio.

[Altrex]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for your logs, always much appreciated.
Good to see you heard Altrex again.
Hope it will be better the comming weeks.

best regards,

Radio Altrex

[JoJo]

Hello Dave, thanks again for this report and experiment-share much appreciated.