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Band I Italian STL

Tuesday 16 June 2015 saw a big Sporadic E opening in the UK. I managed to work SV2RJO on 6m cw which was confirmed on LOTW – super fine business! He’s a distance of 2,154 km from me which is about the furthest I’ve worked on single hop Es. Last night we had some interesting short range Es and I worked F2DX in Sorges France which is a distance of 704 km – two 6m single hop extremes!

I’ve almost achieved my very modest goals for this season which was to get to 60 DXCC on 6m (achieved with Macedonia and Greece) and 225 locator squares (1 to go).

On Tuesday I checked for Italian STLs on Band I and found:

52.60 Radio Radar, Castel di Casio/Casola (bo)
54.37 Simply Radio (tivoli) (rm)
56.50 MEP Radio Organizzazione (P. Net), Rieti/Frazione Campoforogna (Monte Terminillo) (ri)

http://www.fmlist.org/fm_logmap.php?datum=2015-06-16&omid=2121&band=ALL&target=ALL&rxin=ALL

No sign of the two Jonica Radio outlets or AFN on 48.50.

Elad FDM-S2 Not Deaf!

During the Whitsun week I tested the Perseus FM+ against the Elad FDM-S2 at the Carcassonne QTH. Now here’s the rub……..I identified a dodgy F female to BNC male adapter. And on testing the FM+/Elad/XDR I found they are all about the same sensitivity on 93.3 RNE Radio Nacional Cataluña from Rococorba – slight edge to the XDR. So I take it back (see previous post 21 April 2015) – the Elad is not deaf on Band II. Leaves me with some egg on my face but I’m happy that the discrepancy between receiving in London and Carcassonne has been resolved.

So why do some dxers find the Elad deaf? Dodgy connectors? Sample variations? Hmmmmm………….

First Band I Video of the Season

Had a decent opening on 14 May with TV DX from Belarus and Ukraine seen, as well as some OIRT logged and 6m stations from Latvia, Ukraine, Sweden and Finland! As we know my Band I video pass band is full of carriers, baby alarms etc and I was playing with a HS Pubs R1 Notch filter. The first video below is without the filter in line. The second video is with it in line and after I had played with the notch frequency and depth in order to try and reduce the patterning interference (from a baby alarm I’m sure).

 

R1 Ukraine 1+1 TV (no notch filter)

R1 Ukraine 1+1 TV (notch filter in line)

Here are the same two videos but using an older avi to mp4 converter app.

No Notch

Notch

Band II: Elad FDM-S2 vs Sony XDR vs RTL Dongles

I was at the Carcassonne QTH over Easter and I was wanting to do a test on Band II in between the Elad FDM-S2, Sony XDR (Konrad modded), E4000 generic dongle and an ezcap R820T2 dongle. The QTH is in a rural location and I can hear several Catalan stations over 100 km away through the gaps in the Pyrenees.

First I had to order and have delivered a 6m 3mm thick 50mm diameter alum pole to replace a 2mm thick one which had collapsed at the top bracket due to the high winds – the worst part of living in the area – no doubt. I reinstalled a couple of FM5s in H and V orientation. Feedlines come into shack and into a Maplin 2-way F switch. Then output from switch goes into a Maplin 4-way splitter (no pre-amp). So with one switch I can switch between H and V signals.

For the tests I beamed at 120 degrees on 102.2 Mhz – Catalunya Ràdio from Rocorba – 25kw and a distance from me of 139 km. (data from FMlist), and used H polarised twig.

Sony XDR was as usual superb – good signal on 102.2. Next came a generic E4000 dongle which gave up some audio in SDR# – not good though.The Elad and the R820T2 dongle had no audio on 102.2.

I was surprised the Elad was so poor – I can now see why pre-amps are required. I did not bring the Perseus FM+ but I will do next time.

I finally checked the powerful 103.6 Flaixbac outlet from Maçanet de Cabrenys at a distance of 103 km. FMlist says the power is 0.2 kw. I’m pretty sure it’s much higher than that. It’s audible in many locations in Aude and Pyrenees Orientales. At my QTH it powers in, and the XDR was rocking, both dongles were about the same while Elad had audio but trailed the dongles.

I was so surprised by how poor the Elad was that I by-passed the 4-way splitter on 102.2 – to no avail. I am very surprised that there has been no real outcry about high poor the Elad is out of the box on Band II. It certainly is not deaf on MF.