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Author Topic: Ham Receivers on Longwave. How's your's?  (Read 78011 times)

N8YX

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RE: Ham Receivers on Longwave. How's your's?
« Reply #45 on: August 24, 2018, 03:06:28 PM »

They aren't ham rigs, but I have a couple of Mackay Marine receivers (3030AR, 3031A) that work very well for low-band reception.Thinking about pairing them up with some Digital Audio Corp processors and seeing how effective the setup is at removing LF QRN.
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VE7PJR

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RE: Ham Receivers on Longwave. How's your's?
« Reply #46 on: August 28, 2018, 03:56:32 PM »

I use an Icom IC-7200. I used to think it was pretty deaf at MW and below until I changed antennas.

I also use a 200-foot Loop-on-Ground feeding a DX Engineering RTR-2 that adds a receive antenna port to any radio. The RTR-2 is also optioned with receiver overload protection and an outboard preamp.

I find that the unboosted loop is quieter (somewhat less sensitive to QRN), hence it's easier to pick out signals -- mostly CW in my case. Turning on the preamp tends to amp up the noise faster than the signal but sometimes it's useful.

I can get a lot of regional NDBs in the evening...I'll wait for winter to see what things look like when it's really quiet.

Most of the time I use "internal filtering" (my ears) to separate signal from noise. I have "stacked" the preamps in the RTR-2 and the Icom and while it can be REALLY noisy it can also bring up a signal I'm trying to follow if diddling with the dual passbands and the manual notch filter don't do the trick.

73,

Chuck VE7PJR
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WD4ELG

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RE: Ham Receivers on Longwave. How's your's?
« Reply #47 on: August 28, 2018, 06:19:24 PM »

I have been tinkering with my TS480SAT for the past few nights on 474.2, listening to WSPR and JT9.  I am SHOCKED at how well it receives on that band.  I have a new appreciation for this rig.
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KK4CUL

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RE: Ham Receivers on Longwave. How's your's?
« Reply #48 on: January 06, 2019, 11:03:31 PM »

Sorry for the post necromancing, but I'll throw in another hearty vote for the IC-7410.

Equipment:
   *Icom IC-7410, fully stock with the extra 3 & 6KHz roofing filters.
   *Jetstream JTPS31MB Switching PSU (creates a LOT of birdies - I can make them shift frequency by adjusting the LCD brightness  ;D )
   *LnR Precision EF-Quad (66' 40m, 20m, 25m, and 10m) end-fed half-wave with wire traps, ~40ft coax and 1:1 isolation UN-UN as the coax enters the shack

40 meters was quiet here tonight around 12:30AM Eastern time.  Started tuning the AM BCB and heard stations on top of each other every 10KHz, plus some Spanish and French speaking stations so assumed Canadian and Mexican DX was coming in.  Got bored and tuned down remembering my Tecsun PL-600 could pick up a few beacons in the LW band.  Heard a strong pulsing carrier around 368KHz and turned to CW mode, changed the Filter 3 settings to Sharp, 3KHz roofing filter, and 50Hz wide.  Jotted down the call and could barely turn the VFO before hearing more.  Some were literally right on top of each other, making copying the call sign very difficult.  Sometimes I'd just hear the hash or birdies from the switcher PSU, but by turning on the NB, switching between the ATT and PreAMP1&2, and adjusting the CW pitch I could pull in one or two different stations pretty much every 500-1000Hz.  I ended up jotting down about 30 of them before realizing it was 1:30AM and I have to be at work in 8 hours.

My location is suburban with a good amount of industry -- QuadGraphics (old Rand McNally), LEDVance (old Osram-Sylvania), Yokohama, a large paint factory, a large sign making company, lots of car dealership lots with large sodium lights or LED lights, etc.  But it's incredible how well the noise blanker and adjustable filter work to obliterate QRM.  I REALLY need to learn CW because digging the signal out is fun enough, but "feeling" the pattern and tone of two overlaying signals and picking them out from each other was a lot of fun.
« Last Edit: January 06, 2019, 11:05:42 PM by KK4CUL »
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K3EY

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RE: Ham Receivers on Longwave. How's your's?
« Reply #49 on: January 09, 2019, 02:11:31 PM »

Interesting Thread

Another Beacon Site

http://www.fivegulf.com/ndb/?freq=&pm=0&call=nm
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N1UK

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RE: Ham Receivers on Longwave. How's your's?
« Reply #50 on: February 05, 2019, 06:34:11 PM »

I was listening to  station on 252KHz tonight on my Icom 7610.  I think it must be Radio Algeria.


73 Mark N1UK
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G8YMW

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RE: Ham Receivers on Longwave. How's your's?
« Reply #51 on: February 06, 2019, 05:06:11 PM »

I was listening to  station on 252KHz tonight on my Icom 7610.  I think it must be Radio Algeria.


73 Mark N1UK
There was a station in Ireland on that frequency.
It used to be "Atlantic 252" been shut down a good number of years
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73 de Tony

N3DT

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RE: Ham Receivers on Longwave. How's your's?
« Reply #52 on: February 13, 2019, 07:48:50 AM »

My TS2000 tunes down to 60KHz. I don't see anything wrong with the way it works down there. The best antenna I have for it though is the high 80M dipole. I've been thinking about trying the BUG (beverage under ground), that is my electric dog fence wire connected as an antenna. It surrounds about 4 acres or so.
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N4AEQ

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RE: Ham Receivers on Longwave. How's your's?
« Reply #53 on: February 27, 2019, 10:50:34 AM »

My receivers, using 160m vee-dipole
 
    Kenwood R2000           Fair
    Icom 706mk2g            Fair
    Icom 745                    Better
    Yeasu ft 890                Good
    SDR dongles               Very good

    The SDR dongles were used with ELF/HF upverter form janilab, ebay. I have two upverters from them, the 1st was a HF upverter and didn't work well below 160m, the ELF/HF works down to dc, however I don't see them listed anymore. I bought mine in July of 2017

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