Halloween Loggings

WFME on 1560 kHz moved about 15 miles west from Queens, New York, to West Orange, New Jersey, and have been running a continuous test from their new transmitter site. In the evening, they are easy pickings and I entered them in the log at 0330 UTC on October 31. The new transmitter site is about 90 miles to the southwest.

Also on the 31st (at 0408), I logged a new navigational beacon: WG on 248 kHz in Winnipeg, Manitoba, 1300 miles to the northwest.

Both loggings were with the ICOM IC-R8600 and Hy-Gain 18AVT/WB-A vertical antenna (for WFME) and the 120-foot Loop on Ground antenna (for WG).

LuG (Loop under Ground) Antenna

Last post, I wrote that I would be doing a lot of antenna work during the next few weeks. A few days later, my lawn mower ate another Loop on Ground (LoG) antenna! That is two springs in a row that I lost a LoG to the mower, so I decided that I would not put down another LoG unless I could find a workaround for my hungry lawn mower.

I decided to bury the antenna just deep enough to avoid the mower, but not too deep as to affect reception. I bought some new RG6 coax, heavier gauge enameled copper wire, Channel Master balun and a saw-tooth border edger to slice open 120 feet of lawn.

It took about an hour to slice the lawn and another hour to put down the copper wire generously using lawn staples to keep the wire below ground level. By the way, the stainless steel lawn staples seem to have no effect on the operation of the antenna. Another by the way, I turned the new antenna about 30° counter-clockwise compared to the old LoGs so that its axes now lie 0°/180° and 90°/270°.

After connecting the balun and coax and running the coax up to the shack, I anxiously turned on the IC-R8600 and I was very disappointed. All signals were weak. There were no signals on frequencies that I normally hear signals and 1600 to 1710 kHz was totally dead. [There is a Department of Transportation Travelers Information Station (DOT TIS) 3 miles away on 1670 that blasts in here normally and there was nothing to hear on 1670 with the new antenna.]

I thought maybe the antenna being sunk in the ground was the cause even though at the most, the antenna was only a half-inch below the surface. So I went out and lifted the whole antenna out of the ground and returned to the radio, but it did not make any difference.

My next guess was that the new balun might be the culprit, so I swapped it for the old balun and 1600 to 1710 kHz came back to life, but all the signals were still weak or non-existent. That left the coax and the copper wire as culprits. Except for a break in the enameled copper wire, I could not figure out how the wire could be bad. That left the coax, so I replaced the new RG6 coax with the old RG59 and that solved the problem. Bad RG6!

I pushed the copper back down into the ground and the signal levels were exactly the same with the antenna on top of the lawn and with the antenna underground by 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch depth.

Next day, I cut the lawn and the antenna survived.

3047 Miles on 365 kHz

Longwave band conditions were very good overnight and I logged four new navigational beacons including one that represents the longest distance navigational beacon in my log. 

Here are last night's log entries:

At 0512 UTC, AQE on 230 kHz in Greenville, North Carolina, transmitting 25 watts, 474 miles to the south-southwest

At 0516 UTC, EZF on 237 kHz in Fredericksburg, Virginia, transmitting 25 watts, 333 miles to the southwest

At 0521 UTC, UDG on 245 kHz in Darlington, South Carolina, transmitting 25 watts, 624 miles to the south-southwest

At 0542 UTC, PAL on 365 kHz in Guayaquil, Ecuador, 3047 miles to the south. The power output of PAL is not listed. 

PAL's signal was not the weakest received here overnight and I did not think much of it except that it was a new entry in the log. And then I looked it up and was shocked to see what I had worked, bettering my previous navigational beacon DX by almost 1100 miles! Not to mention that PAL was off the side of my new Loop on Ground (LoG) antenna.

The ICOM IC-R8600 was my receiver with the 128-foot LoG.

Slow Week

I am very happy with the performance of my new 128-foot Loop on Ground (LoG) antenna. I heard a lot of DX this past week, but only one new log entry: WSVS on 800 kHz transmitting 10,000 watts from Crewe, Virginia, 414 miles to the southwest at 2139Z on the 20th.

Receiver was the ICOM IC-R8600.

For what it’s worth, the main lobe of my LoG is approximately 105° and 285° according to the antenna’s theory.

Three Adds

UPDATED BELOW

Three new entries in the log – two AM and one FM – the two AM courtesy of my new 128-foot Loop on Ground (LoG) antenna.

WKBK on 1290 kHz in Keene, New Hampshire, transmitting 5 kW, 97 miles to the north-northeast

WETB on 790 kHz in Johnson City, Tennessee, transmitting 72 watts, 626 miles to the southwest

WATR on 97.7 MHz. This is a new FM outlet for longtime AM station WATR, which is located two blocks from my parent’s home in Waterbury, Connecticut. They are in test mode for a few hours each day and I don’t know how much power they are running, nor their transmitter’s location. (I asked by email, but received no response.) Assuming they are transmitting from their AM transmitter site in Waterbury, they are 8 miles to the south-southwest.

Equipment used: ICOM IC-R8600 receiver for all three, 128-foot LoG antenna for the two AM stations and ICOM AH-7000 discone antenna for the FM station.

Update: WATR FM on 97.7 MHz is a translator for WATR AM (1320 kHz). Its callsign is W249DY and it is transmitting 250 watts from West Peak in Meriden, Connecticut, 7 miles line-of-sight to the southeast.

Bigger LoG Antenna Addendum

Two things regarding the new 128-ft Loop on Ground antenna:

1. I forgot to mention that the signals from the new LoG antenna were so strong that my IC-R8600 receiver’s OVF (Overflow) indicator lit up tuning throughout the AM band indicating that an excessively strong signal was being received. To fix that, I turned the RF gain down from 90% to 84%.

2. For the isolation transformer, I used an inexpensive 300 to 75 ohm balun – the kind that often came with old VCRs and TVs that have F-connector inputs. I collected a few over the years and put one to good use. 

Bigger LoG Antenna

Yesterday was a rare 73℉ November day – perfect weather for antenna work. So I put down a 128-foot Loop on Ground (LoG) antenna to replace the 60-foot LoG that my lawn mower ate during the summer.

Over twice the size of the old LoG, I expected the new LoG to outperform the old LoG and I was not disappointed!

Tuesday evening, I tuned the whole AM band listening to each station I encountered, which I found on almost every channel from 530 to 1710 kHz. I switched between the LoG, an 80-meter dipole and a Hy-Gain 18AVT/WB-A vertical to compare reception of each station and in nearly all comparisons, the LoG outperformed the 80-meter dipole often by 5, 10 and even 20 dB according to the ICOM IC-R8600 receiver S-meter (the vertical was left in the dust). Worst case – in three comparisons, the LoG was only equal to the 80-meter dipole.

Whereas the old LoG was deaf on longwave, the new LoG outperformed the 80-meter dipole, the antenna I usually use on longwave. I even logged a new navigational beacon with the new LoG: HXO in Oxford/Huntsboro, North Carolina, transmitting 25 watts, 478 miles to the south-southwest.

I am very pleased with the new antenna and will take measures to keep it away from my lawn mower’s blades. 

780 Bounty

The following announcement appeared on the IRCA mail list Saturday:

“With special thanks to Chief Engineer Daniel Appellof, and Broadcaster/DX’er Paul Walker, we have arranged for a DX Test tonight for KKOH 780 Khz in Reno, Nevada. At approximately midnight Pacific time, KKOH will switch to 50 KW Non-directional. They plan to run 15-20 minutes of DX Test material that we have provided.

“This material includes sweep tones, Morse Code IDs at 700 hz (10 words per minute), telephone off-hook sounds, and vintage voice sounders for the station. The sweep tones and telephone sounders are especially good at cutting through noise, and should give many DX’ers a chance to log the station. 

“After the test period, KKOH 780 will power down the transmitter for additional maintenance. This will provide a ‘silent period’ for West Coast DX’ers to log new stations on 780 Khz.”

WBBM in Chicago dominates 780 here and I did not think I would hear anything but WBBM if I got up at 3 AM local time to hear the test. But as luck would have it, the cat woke me up at 2:50 AM and since I was up, I went to the radio shack, turned on the IC-8600, tuned to 780 and at 07:59 UTC, turned on the recorder function of the 8600.

WBBM was loud and clear as usual, although it did experience two deep fades during the 20 minutes of  monitoring 780, but the fades did not help me hear much from KKOH. However, when WBBM was at full strength, I did copy Morse code from KKOH at 08:05:00 UTC.

Then from about 08:07:30 on, Radio Coro was very copyable playing salsa music under WBBM.

So it was a very productive morning – a new state and a new country in the log. KKOH in Reno, transmitting 50,000 watts, 2429 miles to the west and Radio Coro in Coro, Venezuela, transmitting 15,000 watts 2079 miles to the south.

I was continuously switching between antennas during the test and I heard the KKOH Morse code on the 80-meter dipole and Radio Coro on both the dipole and the 60-foot Loop on Ground (LoG) antenna.

Recent Loggings

Three new loggings to tell you about including two graveyard stations!

CJLV on 1570 kHz at 0100Z Jan 18, transmitting 10kW from Laval, Quebec, 273 miles to the north.

WICY on graveyard frequency 1490 kHz at 2315Z Jan 20, transmitting 1kW from Malone, New York, 232 miles to the north-northwest

WWSC on graveyard frequency 1450 kHz at 2358Z Jan 21, transmitting 940 watts from Glens Falla, New York, 121 miles to the north-northwest

All stations were heard on my ICOM IC-R8600 receiver and 60-ft Loop on Ground (LoG) antenna.

Loop on Ground Antenna Logging

Today at 0015 UTC, I logged my first new station with my new Loop on Ground (LoG) antenna: WWRK on 970 kHz in Florence, SC, transmitting 31 watts, 632 miles to my south-southwest!

Receiver is my ICOM IC-R8600.

Loop on Ground Antenna Test

I assure you that there is a Loop on Ground (LoG) antenna in this photo.

Over the long weekend, I tested my newly installed Loop on Ground (LoG) antenna.

I compared the LoG’s reception with the other antennas installed here at WA1LOU by noting the signal strength of 23 random stations across the AM band using the dBμ reading [absolute voltage (Terminated)] of my ICOM IC-R8600 receiver. (The other antennas here are an 80-meter dipole, a Hy-Gain 18AVT/WB-A vertical and a ICOM AH-7000 discone.)

The following stations were used in the comparison: WMCA on 570 kHz, WPRO 630, WFAN 660, WOR 710, WGY 810, WNYC 820, WCBS 880, WLAT 910, WPKX 930, WNTY 990, WINS 1010, WBZ 1030, WTIC 1080, WMRD 1150, WWCO 1240, WSPR 1270, WATR 1320, WFNW 1380, WVEI 1440, WFED/WFIF 1500, WQEA416 1670, WPTX 1690 and WRCR 1700.

I ran the test on three consecutive mornings and on one evening. In general, the results were consistent during all four runs of the test. The only anomaly was hearing WFED loud and clear on 1500 kHz at 1447 UTC on 29 November. WFED is always loud and clear at night here, but is usually down in the mud under WFIF during daylight. Go figure.

After the first and second run of comparisons, I eliminated the vertical and discone antennas from the test to save time because the dipole consistently scored higher than the vertical and discone.

On average, the LoG performed 8.5 dBμ units higher than the 80-meter dipole. With a 22 dBμ unit difference, WSPR had the greatest signal improvement on the LoG. Right behind WSPR were WBZ, WWCO, WATR and WVEI with 17 dBμ improvement on the LoG.

The dipole performed equal to or slightly better (by 1 or 2 dBμ units) with WPRO (daytime only), WGY (daytime only), WCBS (all times), WLAT (all times) and WNTY (all times). WPRO and WGY were stronger on the LoG in the evening by 9 and 6 dBμ units respectively, which represents a 11 and 7 dBμ swing between day and night.

Overall, the LoG performed better at the top and bottom of the AM band and less so in the middle of the band (810 to 1150 kHz) except for one outlander: 50kW WTIC 1080, which is line-of-site from here. WTIC consistently scored in the low to mid 70’s dBμ-wise.

The first three tests were run under dry conditions, while the fourth test was run with the antenna covered with about six inches of snow. The snow did not seem to have any effect on the performance of the LoG.

In conclusion, I am very impressed with the LoG antenna. It is a keeper and I plan to install a larger version in the spring.

Loop on Ground Antenna

Wednesday, 40 degrees, breezy, overcast, rain in the forecast – a good day to put up a new antenna – NOT. But I was not to be deterred by Mother Nature.

Actually, I did not put up a new antenna; I put down a new antenna: a Loop on Ground (LoG) receive-only antenna as described by Matt Roberts, KK5JY: 60 feet of insulated

wire stapled to the earth in a square configuration (15 feet per side).

I had prepared the wire the day before the install, so it only took about two hours to complete the install. The most time-consuming part was running the RG-6 into the radio shack from outdoors.

I was not sure how well the antenna would perform. Due to the holiday, I did not have a lot of time to give the antenna a thorough test, but the initial results were very good. Tuning through the AM band for about 30 minutes Wednesday evening, nearly all the stations I checked were stronger on the LoG antenna than on my other antennas (80-meter dipole, Hy-Gain 18AVT/WB-A vertical, ICOM AH-7000 discone).

After I digest today’s Thanksgiving feast, I plan to devote a lot more time to kicking the tires of the LoG and I will report my findings here.