Why 90.9 MHz?

Today, I turned on the radio at 1340 UTC and there was a strong station on 90.9 MHz. It was a public radio station (NPR), but there were no hints as to its identity (no call sign, location, etc.) and it faded away after about 15 minutes.

If you have been following along lately, you may have noticed that my recent DX loggings have been on 90.9 MHz.*

Why 90.9?

Located in the midst of highest elevations in the county, there are only a handful of FM channels that are dead here during normal propagation. All suffer from splatter from strong signals on adjacent channels except for 90.9 MHz.

Adjacent to 90.9 are stations 37 and 27 miles away, so 90.9 is very clean under normal circumstances. If I hear anything on 90.9, it is likely to be something new (to me), so I sit on 90.9 rather than scan up and down the band because 90.9 is the most likely FM channel where I will hear DX.

* June 18: WHRM in Wausau, Wisconsin, 871 miles; July 15: WLFE south of Miami, Florida, 1204 miles; July 23: KUNI in Cedar Falls, Iowa, 971 miles

KUNI in Cedar Falls

Wednesday at 1540 UTC, I logged KUNI on 90.9 MHz transmitting 94 kilowatts from Cedar Falls, Iowa over a 971-mile path. The sporadic-E reception was very brief – two strong snips of audio that luckily included the station identification. Equipment used: ELAD FDM-S2/FDM-SW2 receiving system and ICOM AH-7000 discone antenna!

August 2020 PSR Available

The August 2020 issue #145 of TAPR’s quarterly newsletter is now available here and from the TAPR website Library. The contents of the PSR #145 is as follows:

• Virtual ARRL/TAPR DCC, Sept. 11-12
• TAPR at QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo
• TAPR Directors Election
• Donate to TAPR
• TAPR and COVID-19
• multi-TCC: A Multi-Channel Timestamping Counter
• TAPR at Hamcation
• TAPR Wear Available
• Experimenting with WSPR Using Raspberry Pi
• Write Here!
• On the Net
• The Fine Prine
• Our Membership App

“Life of Miami” logged

Loud and clear, we heard WLFE on 90.9 MHz transmitting 100 kilowatts from Cutler Bay, Florida (that’s south of Miami) over a 1204-mile path. Equipment used: ELAD FDM-S2/FDM-SW2 receiving system and ICOM AH-7000 discone antenna!

2020 ARRL/TAPR DCC Update

The 39th Annual ARRL and TAPR Digital Communications Conference (DCC) will be a virtual conference on September 11 and 12, using Zoom video communications and YouTube video-sharing platforms.

Registered DCC attendees participating via Zoom will be able to interact with presenters and other attendees via a chat room as well as raise a virtual hand to ask questions. Click here to register (you don’t need a Zoom account to register).

Non-registered DCC attendees can watch the live stream for free on YouTube, however, non-registered DCC attendees will not be able to ask questions or chat. No registration is required for YouTube access (the YouTube URL will be announced and posted on this webpage preceding the DCC).

DCC registration is free for TAPR members and $30 for non-members. Members receive a 100% discount at checkout. Click here to register.

Non-members who would like to join TAPR and receive the free DCC pass can simply add TAPR membership and DCC registration to their shopping carts. After checkout, they will receive the free DCC pass when their membership is processed.

Call for Papers and Speakers

Technical papers are solicited for presentation at the DCC. Papers will also be published in the Conference Proceedings. Authors do not need to present at the conference to have their papers included in the Proceedings. Submit papers via e-mail to Maty Weinberg, KB1EIB by August 15, 2020. Papers will be published exactly as submitted and authors will retain all rights.

Conference papers will be distributed as pdf’s to participants. Printed copies of the papers will be available for sale at Lulu (http TBD).

Also, speakers are invited to make presentations on topics of interest without submitting papers for the Conference Proceedings.

All speakers and presenters must contact Steve Bible, N7HPR to reserve a slot for your presentation. Indicate whether you need a 15- or 30-minute slot and if you need to present on a specific day (Friday, September 11 or Saturday, September 12). A pre-recorded presentation can be submitted in lieu of a live virtual presentation.

Paper and presentation topic areas include, but are not limited to software defined radio (SDR), digital voice, digital satellite communication, digital signal processing (DSP), HF digital modes, adapting IEEE 802.11 systems for Amateur Radio, Global Positioning System (GPS), Automatic Position Reporting System (APRS), Linux in Amateur Radio, AX.25 updates, Internet operability with Amateur Radio networks, TCP/IP networking over Amateur Radio, mesh and peer-to-peer wireless networking, emergency and homeland defense backup digital communications in Amateur Radio.

Lightning Talks

Ad hoc “lightning talks” on various topics of interest will be announced throughout the DCC. Registered attendees will be able to participate in any lightning talk that whets their appetite.

Hardware and Software Demos

Hardware and software demonstrations will be conducted during the DCC by means of Zoom’s breakout room feature.