Surfin': Still QSLing Those Radio Memories

This week’s Surfin’ considers the QSL card for one more time.

Did you know that Surfin’ is a weekly column published on ARRLWeb that features Web sites related to Amateur Radio, specifically, and radio, in general? If you have any suggestions for Surfin’, please contact WA1LOU using the e-mail link to the right.

Surfin': Looping Into the 21st Century

In this week’s Surfin’, read all about new loop antennas we can use to chase DX. Then come back here to post your comments, if any.

By the way, Surfin’ is a weekly column published on ARRLWeb features Web sites related to Amateur Radio, specifically, and radio, in general. If you have any suggestions for Surfin’, please contact WA1LOU using the e-mail link to the right.

LDE hoax

In this week's installment of Surfin' about long-delayed echoes (LDEs), Whitey Doherty, K1VV, recalled "hearing about an LDE incident many years ago, must be at least 40 years ago, when TV channels went off the air at midnight. Someone said a program showed up on the screen, a snowy picture, but it was a broadcast from six years previously. It lasted several minutes. Can’t recall where or exactly when I heard that or read it.”

Today, Ric Wayman, K7DLX, e-mailed me that this story is an urban legend and, in fact, an LDE hoax. You can read all about it at the Urban Legends Reference Pages web site.

Surfin': Long-Delayed Echoes -- Again, Again, Again...

Long-delayed echoes (LDEs) is again the subject of Surfin'. After you read Surfin', you can leave your comments here.

By the way, Surfin’ is a weekly column published on ARRLWeb that finds and features Web sites that are related to Amateur Radio, specifically, and radio, in general. If you have any suggestions for Surfin’, please contact WA1LOU using the e-mail link to the right.

more long-delayed echo e-mail

This week’s Surfin‘ about long-delayed echoes has generated additional interesting e-mail today.

David Burger, VK2CZ, wrote:

I enjoyed your summary of LDE info, including the Oslo summary too... I've been licensed here in Australia since 1974 and have encountered LDE's around 1977 / 1978 on the 15m band during my degree course. In more recent times, I currently use a 'very very ' large 10m antenna array and have encountered LDE's on some DX stations (VE2 and western EU) from here over the past 6 years or so... ie not my own echo's, but delays between the DX main signal and then replications of their signals.. These type of signals were last heard in Dec'06 during the ARRL 10m contest I did -->> http://www.qsl.net/vk2mb/vk8aa.html [ note: I didn't describe the signals however, but you can see what I've done]

Being an engineer (PE) with a very pragmatic & practical bent... I simply put this down to the effects of signal progression in a waveguide - where it is possible to have a signal moving through a waveguide down to 1% to 2% of the speed of light or less... These are all classical worked examples in microwave handbooks... where the signal frequency is near the cut-off frequency limit for a waveguide...

But I am very very confident the ionosphere can 'fabricate' a sizable waveguide style duct over short periods... and while this would and could explain a single signal delay, some discontinuity in the 'ionospheric waveguide' could generate return loss blips... hence echo's. I've no way to 'test' this idea.. but maybe info from ionosondes might help explore it..

Anyway, I figured I'd share my idea with you... as I sort of took this for granted for the past 25 years that every engineering student who studied microwaves could see this effect if practice on HF.

The idea of unknown aliens or X-Files may appeal to some, but after being immersed in engineering forensics for many years, most things can be explained.. anyway - it makes sense to me..

Sverre Holm, LA3ZA, responded to David and carbon-copied me:

Thanks for your interesting info on possible LDE's. I have never heard any myself, except for the echoes I describe on http://www.qslnet.de/member/la3za/prop/

Here I have recorded JA3YBK coming in simultaneously over three different paths which most likely are short-path, long-path, and short-path w/ extra trip around the earth. Of course this is not an LDE, but rather short-delayed echoes, but they are still interesting.

Terry Glagowski, W1TR, also e-mailed me today with the following:

I had the experience of an LDE back in the mid 1990's maybe about 1994 or 1995…

I was located in Spokane, WA and it was late evening, not quite midnight…

I was talking to some W6 and W7 stations in CA, OR, WA on 160 meters and I heard the LDE echo on my own transmission… about 1/3 second.

I also tried it on 75 meters and the same thing happened!

The other stations I was talking to could not hear anything on my signal or theirs...

This went on for about an hour, and then dissappeared altogether and I have never observed it since !

I wrote a letter / email to ARRL describing this (tech dept) and several possible explanations were given from different articles available at the time… The most likely, that my signal followed a discontinuity in the magnetic flux lines down to the southern hemisphere and bounced back from there.

That would explain the time of 1/3 second, but I didn't do sufficiently precise or formal recordings / documentation of the phenomenon to go any further with it… too bad! There was no perceptable doppler shift that I could discern.

Finally, Whitey Doherty, K1VV, wrote:

Another excellent posting... We have experienced LDEs in several contests ... our sigs on CW coming around 1/7 of a second later ... confused me the first time I heard it ... we have worked some DX during contests that the same thing happened ... it seemed like their CW sign was coming from several directions at once...with delays .. almost impossible to copy the CW ...

I remember hearing about an LDE incident many years ago ... must be at least 40 years ago ... when TV channels went off the air at midnight .. Some one ... don't recall where it said a program showed up on the screen .. snowy picture ... but it was a broadcast from 6 years previously ...it lasted several minutes ... can't recall where or exactly when I heard that or read it.

I replied to Whitey that I thought I had read about it in one of Frank Edward's Stranger Than... books.

long-delayed echoes still again

Dave Newkirk, AB2WH, e-mailed the following update regarding this week's Surfin', which talks about long-delayed echoes:

Although Bill Continelli's "Installment #31" says "After the early 70's, reports of, and interest in Long Delayed Echoes diminished. Today, they are just a question mark in amateur radio history," QST told a different story in O. G. Villard, Jr, W6QYT, "The Magnetospheric Echo Box--A Type Of Long-Delayed Echo Explained," October 1980 QST, p 11.

My father and several coworkers heard LDEs on a State Police interzone (shortwave CW) circuit just below 3 MHz in the 1960s. I think he mentioned that incident in "How's DX?" circa 1970.

T-bird redux

I have been using Mozilla Thunderbird for a few days now and I am happy to report that it is an excellent e-mail program and I plan to continue using it.

Surfin': Don't Stop Surfin'

“Don't Stop Surfin'” is the title of this week’s installment of Surfin‘. After you read it, you can post your comments, if any, back here.

By the way, Surfin’ is a weekly column published on ARRLWeb that finds and features Web sites that are related to Amateur Radio, specifically, and radio, in general. If you have any suggestions for Surfin’, please contact WA1LOU using the e-mail link to the right.

morning visitor identified

After doing some research, it seems that my Saturday morning visitor is an Eastern Box Turtle or Terrapene carolina carolina and he is a female and not a male.

According to this web page, my visitor is a rarity because it's normal habitat is "coastal regions and river valleys, rarely going above 500’ altitude." I encountered my visitor at over 900' altitude.

Surfin': Becoming a Pipsqueak -- Revisited

QRP is again the topic of my weekly online column, Surfin'. After you read it, leave your comments (if any) here.

MacLoggerDX 4.2.8 released

This just in from Dog Park Software that version 4.2.8 of  MacLoggerDX has been released and can be downloaded from http://dogparksoftware.com/MacLoggerDX.html

New in version 4.2.8:

* Fix for DirecWay proxy QRZ Online QSL jpegs
* Better parsing of QRZ Online QSL JPEG's.
* Open Port retry limit.
* Added Band Decoder support for FT-2000 etc.
* Added Ten-Tec RX350 Driver.
* Added 56,000 baud for Ten-Tec Orion II

garden update

It has been a month since the last "garden update" and besides all the growth of vegetation, the big news is that I picked four ripe tomatoes, two yellow squash, and a large handful of beans (Kentucky Wonders) during the past week.

The bell peppers have grown very strangely this year. The plants are huge with lots of vegetation and height (I've never seen pepper plants as tall), but there has been very little actual pepper production. I noticed a few tiny peppers on the plants last night, but they have a long way to go and the weather is already showing signs of autumn.

The four active boxes take over a gallon of water every day

garden update

Time for another garden update!

It is almost eight weeks since I planted seeds and seedlings in the Earthboxes and so far, we have eaten some home grown romaine lettuce and broccolli.

The broccolli production was poor. The plants grew and looked healthy, but the heads were slow in appearing. When they finally showed up, the weather turned hot and their growth slowed down and were on the verge of flowering. I assume the unusual wet June weather was the culprit and was also the reason why peppers were slow showing up on the pepper plants (I noticed the first signs of peppers only a day or two ago.)

I cut down the broccolli plants after I took this photo and planted broccolli seeds for a fall harvest.

Meanwhile, the tomatoes, beans, and squash are doing well. I think the June weather had a negative effect on their growth, too, but at least the tomatoes started showing up on the tomato plants weeks ago.

Surfin': What on Google Earth!

Read this week’s installment of Surfin': What on Google Earth!, then leave your comments here.

Surfin' Update: Customizing Firefox for Ham Radio

Here are instructions on how to install the items mentioned in this week’s installment of Surfin’: Customizing Firefox for Ham Radio:

Propfire

1. From http://www.n0hr.com/Propfire.htm, click on the propfire.xpi link to download it to your computer.


2. From Foxfire, select File > Open File to open the propfire.xpi file that you downloaded to your computer.


3. Foxfire opens a Software Installation window to install propfire.xpi. Click the Install Now button.


4. Quit Foxfire and restart it to complete the installation.

Call Sign and APRS Search Engine Plug-ins

1. Go to the referenced web site.


2. Click on the appropriate link to install the search engine plug-in.


3. Foxfire opens an Add Search Engine window; click on the Yes button to add the search engine. The new search engine will appear as a selection in the pull-down Search menu in the upper right corner of the Foxfire window.

moved postings from old blog

Today, I moved all the postings from my old blog to this blog. Postings from January 1 to January 16 are from the old blog.

new photos online

I added some new photos I shot this past week to the Photos page.

The moon photo was the best of nine I shot Wednesday evening and it took some heavy duty Photoshopping to make the ring appear in the photo.

The other photos are from my weekly Saturday morning run with the dogs (QT Pie and Pumpkin Pie) at the Farmingbury Golf Course in Wolcott. Last year, most of our runs were on snow; this year, on grass. The dogs love running unleashed out in the open; I wish they could do it all year long.

The photo of the right of way (ROW) of the long gone Waterbury and Milldale Tramway down Southington Mountain is actually five photos stitched together using PhotoStitch, a program that Canon bundled with my camera.

added photos page

I added a photos page today.

weird weather continues redux

The weird weather in these parts continues with daytime high temperatures in the 40s and 50s this past week. Got up to 55 yesterday.

I checked this morning and some crocuses are poking up out of the ground here.

Update: Surfin': Sounds Like Packet Radio

Some folks wrote that they are having trouble hitting the Sound Card Packet web site featured in last week's Surfin'. If you are having trouble, try this page instead.