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Thursday, November 19, 2009

Mid-Week Report


Started building a 24 inch box loop Monday. It is made from 1 x 2 inch furring strip, the cross notched at the center and screwed together. Left is to wind the wire and install the variable capacitor. Am planning to use a small transistor-radio variable cap, due to not having a standard sized one at the moment, though not sure if it will work yet.

Checked for JOUB-774, Akita, Japan three times this week. It has not been in at a strength where audio is recoverable, just a carrier present. Carrier is present on 594 KHz, presumably another Japanese station. The Tecsun PL-600 makes tuning for carriers very easy in SSB mode with the nice BFO knob.

Just at sunrise this morning I caught both KKOH-780, Reno, NV (50KW) and KAZM-780, Sedona, AZ, playing tag with each other for superiority. Not sure of KAZM's power at that time as it was just minutes before sunrise. It runs 250W nighttime and 5KW daytime. WBBM-780, Chicago, IL, was long gone by that time of course.

Strung 180 feet of wire across the property early in the week. Unfortunately, I am right near a power line and the noise on the BCB band is rather objectionable. I think I'll give up on the long wire this winter since I'm in town and go strictly with the loops and tunable loopsticks.

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