tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-308006402024-02-07T06:04:41.746-08:00Utility PlanetUtility Planet is the official blog for the column of the same name in The Spectrum Monitor. It replaces Utility World in the discontinued Monitoring Times magazine. Utilities are all VLF/LF/MF/HF (and sometimes low-band VHF) radio communications except broadcasting, CB, and non-emergency amateur. If you understood the last sentence, you know enough to read this blog.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1385125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30800640.post-42707044027696270192021-06-28T15:35:00.001-07:002021-06-28T15:35:54.538-07:00Night of Nights 2021 is back on Pt. Reyes!From MRHS:The National Park Service has notifed MRHS President Richard Dillman that the annual Night of Nights event can be run in the Park, and that limited staff access is permitted to ready station equipment and facilities for the event. It is a major milestone to return to BL and RS for Night of Nights, but we must operate under strict guidelines with limited numbers of vaccinated crew atHugh Stegmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04085771628468764366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30800640.post-70916760606806751472020-10-30T12:59:00.002-07:002020-10-30T13:02:26.969-07:00WRJG440 Special Operation SaturdayFrom MRHS:
Special Bulletin 8/27/2020
MARITIME RADIO HISTORICAL SOCIETY
29 October 2020
"Special Edition"
Dedicated to the True Believers Worldwide
Executive summary:Call sign - WRJG440 Frequencies 8438.3, 12993.0 Mode - CW Power - 1 kw Date - Saturday 31 October Time - 1000 PDT/ 1700Z Duration - Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30800640.post-41619205470474299362020-07-12T12:04:00.000-07:002020-07-12T12:07:18.136-07:00KPH Night of Nights is ham bands this yearUsual time, 0001 UTC as July 12 turns into the 13th, but on amateur frequencies. From "RD:"
Night of Nights 12 July
When:
Sunday, 12 July 2020
Description:
Night of Nights
http://www.radiomarine.org/
12
July every year. The first
transmission will be at 0501pm Pacific time (0000 UTC 13 July).
As most True Believers probably know by now, the Point Reyes National Seashore has closed the park Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30800640.post-50699175481188532092020-07-07T10:52:00.000-07:002020-07-07T10:52:23.707-07:00MARS Announces HF Skills ExerciseFrom ARRL Letter:
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30800640.post-2698935464654756132020-01-10T15:57:00.000-08:002020-01-10T15:59:43.169-08:00No problem with sdr.hu KiwiSDR list going members only!Some people got pretty upset about this. The fact is, however, that sdr.hu was only peripherally involved with KiwiSDR. The receivers incorporate code built on a fork of its owner's earlier OpenWebRX program, for which he gets compensation. There are four other ways to get to the receivers without logins, brain-melting CAPTCHAs, and requirements that you have a ham call or make one upUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30800640.post-29149513418669286702019-10-07T10:45:00.000-07:002019-10-07T10:45:41.554-07:00Noble Skywave exercise is this monthNoble Skywave is an interesting global military exercise, which is run in the manner of a ham radio contest. Teams get points for each HF contact, and distance counts. It is run out of Canada
They do it every year in the fall "DX Season." The aim is to develop HF interoperability proficiency. The Canadian Forces Joint Signal Regiment (CFJSR) is the lead. Typical participants include regular, Hugh Stegmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04085771628468764366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30800640.post-82022338069814415942019-09-07T16:38:00.001-07:002019-09-07T16:41:46.495-07:00WRC-19 will not consider reassigning 2 metersIARU:
The CEPT Conference Preparatory Group
met this week in Ankara, Turkey. Items of interest to the amateur
service which were finalised were:
- Agreement to a European Common
Proposal (ECP) on allocating 50-52 MHz to the amateur service in Region 1
on a secondary basis with a footnote listing those countries where the
amateur service will have a primary allocation in the band 50-50.5 Hugh Stegmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04085771628468764366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30800640.post-46065710143098360932019-09-02T15:11:00.000-07:002019-09-02T15:13:21.987-07:00Hurricane Watch Net is on 7268 LSB20 meters has been wretched today due to a persistent geomagnetic storm. Instead of the usual daytime 14325 kHz USB, they are using 7268 kHz LSB. Signals are good into the US East Coast. One amateur relayed an emergency station setting up in Nassau, Bahamas. The message was that the weather station is destroyed, and the US consulate evacuated.
It also appears that Internet weather stations in Hugh Stegmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04085771628468764366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30800640.post-8194727666949828782019-08-30T16:59:00.000-07:002019-08-30T16:59:34.246-07:00Dorian hurricane aircraft was heard on HF todayYou can still hear them.
A UDXF member reports hearing NOAA 42 on 8918.00 kHz, working New York oceanic ATC on the Caribbean (CAR) MWARA net. This is a WP-3 operated by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (the "weather bureau"). The pilot reported that he was going operational below 15,000 feet.
Sometimes the USAF "Hurricane Hunters" come up on these frequencies. Their Hugh Stegmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04085771628468764366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30800640.post-71083043764824722142019-07-11T12:20:00.000-07:002019-07-11T12:21:14.833-07:00Revised frequency list for Night of Nights XXThe heroic True Believers of KPH have made some more transmitting antennas active after the damage last winter. Here is the revised frequency list for Night of Nights XX, which begins tomorrow (US time) at the traditional 0001 UTC. That's July 13 on the Prime Meridian, but still July 12 (local time/date) in North America, including at the station location in Point Reyes National Seashore.
The Hugh Stegmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04085771628468764366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30800640.post-85620106088461811112019-07-02T14:25:00.001-07:002019-07-02T14:31:07.674-07:00Will hams lose two meters?That is the question, and the answer will come at this year's WARC-19 and the future WARC-23. The re-allocation of the entire two meter band was not widely opposed at a European meeting, when France brought up a Thales proposal to use it for some kind of commercial airband cellular service.
As we know only too well, governments consider corporations to be more important than people, and they Hugh Stegmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04085771628468764366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30800640.post-64421610682395810542019-02-01T10:58:00.000-08:002019-02-01T10:58:20.194-08:00No more weather warnings on WWV/WWVHARRL Letter:
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30800640.post-62907296091811027582019-01-31T11:59:00.000-08:002019-01-31T11:59:20.410-08:00KPH/KFS/K6KPH resume partial operation on SaturdayWith the government shutdown over, the National Park Service has re-opened the KPH receive building to normal use. All call signs should be on-air this Saturday.
But, as always, there's a catch. A strong storm took down trees, destroying a number of feedlines to antennas. The damage includes broken poles and snapped wires, and generally it's a mess. Repairs will take time and cost money. Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30800640.post-3753698414650566702019-01-26T15:13:00.000-08:002019-01-26T15:13:10.995-08:00Reception of NOJ Kodiak AK FAX on 26 Jan 19Here's a screen shot from about 15 minutes ago, on the 12 MHz frequency via the SDR at KPH using the big TCI antenna in a low-noise location. Faxes received in this manner usually print just fine, so the problem is not caused by remote Internet reception.
Note the extremely noisy signal, the downward displacement of the white tone, the absence of a black tone, and the distortion Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30800640.post-31881682094862691622019-01-24T15:39:00.001-08:002019-01-24T15:39:16.367-08:00Will they ever fix Kodiak FAX?For several weeks now, all NOJ radiofax transmissions from USCG in Kodiak, AK have been off-frequency and severely distorted. It's possible to get something resembling a chart by tuning to wherever the white frequency is at the moment, but even then it's fuzzy at best.
Signal strength is not the problem, because the distortion happens on all frequencies and time slots, regardless of the Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30800640.post-67194124301455626852019-01-19T14:17:00.000-08:002019-01-19T14:17:45.946-08:00Russian Military "Squeaky Wheel" (S32) Now Even SqueakierThe Russian "Squeaky Wheel" marker has been around for many years. It's a channel marker for a military network. It used to be designated XSW, but then Russian voice traffic appeared, and it was changed to S32.
Today, however, the sound has changed, at least for now. It's now three audio frequencies instead of two, so the "wheel" really needs oil. This spectrogram was made from the UUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30800640.post-90833662688471448682019-01-17T14:15:00.002-08:002019-01-17T15:23:00.778-08:00San Francisco HFDL is using System Table 51I sent my column in this morning, so it was time for something
important to happen. It always does after I don't have time to put it
in.
This time, it's HFDL rolling out System Table
number 51. It adds a new ground station, number 10. The coordinates, return to a site in southwestern
Korea. The Google Earth image is a bit old, but it does show a definite antenna farm under Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30800640.post-764615048794113732018-11-21T14:04:00.004-08:002018-11-21T14:04:32.301-08:00Kerkyra (Greece) taking Sellia Marina (Italy) NAVTEX skeds UFNThis affects both 490 and 518 kHz. Kerkya is using the same letters and time slots. The only differences are the transmitter location and government operators.
This notice was transmitted in NAVTEX bulletin KA69:
ZCZC KA69
051500 UTC NOV 18
KERKYRA RADIO NAVWARN 216/18
ITALIAN NAVTEX STATION
SELLIA MARINA (V) OFF AIR
HELLENIC NAVTEX STATION KERKYRA (K)
HAS ASSUMED RESPONSIBILITY
BROADCASTING Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30800640.post-3726514540218925432018-08-27T14:16:00.000-07:002018-08-27T14:16:32.271-07:00Freak magnetic storm causes wretched band conditionsYour radio isn't busted. A variety of events affecting the Earth's magnetic field have caused one of the longest geomagnetic storms in recent memory. The K index has reached 7 on a number of occasions in the last three days, and this is expected to continue on and off. K is back to 7 as of this writing.
Surface events such as ground currents in Norway have taken place. WeUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30800640.post-22909395558727094232018-08-23T15:26:00.000-07:002018-08-23T15:26:11.879-07:00Concern Rising within Amateur Radio Community over WWV Shutdown ProposalFrom ARRL Letter:
ARRL members and Amateur Radio clubs are expressing increased concern over the inclusion of WWV and WWVH on a list of proposed cuts in the White House's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Fiscal Year 2019 budget request. The proposed cuts, which only recently came to light, would also include the Atomic Clock signal from WWVB. Online petitions soliciting Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30800640.post-66203357989353813382018-08-16T14:55:00.000-07:002018-08-16T14:59:10.864-07:00Proposed NIST budget eliminates WWV/WWVHShit.
That's all I can say. This may be the first time anything to do with radio has made me ruin my vocabulary in public.
As our headline indicates, the proposed FY 2019 budget for the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology includes the elimination of WWV and WWVH:
-$6.3 million supporting fundamental measurement dissemination,
including the shutdown of NIST radio stationsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30800640.post-20871192810600615522018-07-17T12:04:00.000-07:002018-07-17T12:04:00.093-07:00My first decent fix with KiwiSDR TDoA modeI finally got a good fix on a station with the KiwiSDR TDoA extension. It's tricky, but for a system available to the public, it works amazingly well. The instructions that are given from the "Help" button are accurate. That's how you do it. The secret is indeed to use the minimum possible passband in IQ mode, and to pick relatively close receivers.
Here's a plot of the French Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30800640.post-8709562737557857222018-07-13T15:57:00.000-07:002018-07-13T15:57:03.404-07:00KiwiSDR introduces record and TDoA functionsYou've probably been playing around with the huge KiwiSDR network which can be reached from http://sdr.hu/ . Just this week, too late to put into the column, it has rolled out a new beta with a recorder and a Time Difference of Arrivial (TDoA) direction finder.
Both seem pretty slick. The recorder is self-explanatory. You click a big red button over on the top right of the control panel, and it Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30800640.post-78970446147919719602018-07-10T13:56:00.003-07:002018-07-10T13:56:53.546-07:00More Night of Nights XIXRD passes along the following:
The correct station phone number is:
+1 415-669-9646 . The number is answered only when the station is on the air.
We mentioned that on-air operations will start at 5:01pm Pacific time (0001Z 13 July) but didn't say how long operations will continue. We usually continue live operations until about 9:30pm Pacific time (0430Z). At that point K6KPH operations Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30800640.post-18344907723130068322018-07-10T12:04:00.000-07:002018-07-10T12:04:09.325-07:00Information for Night of Nights XIXIs it really 19 years?
Be that as it may, here is full information on the annual triumph of the human spirit also known as MRHS Night of Nights. Notice the absence of the US Coast Guard, not to mention WLO, which has left the air. Be that as it may, the fun continues.
MRHS:
NIGHT OF NIGHTS XIX INFORMATION
Yes,
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com