any longwave listeners?

[ridgescan]

...do any voice or code transmissions ever happen anymore between 030-500KHz? I have that ability now with the R-75 but it's a barren wasteland except for what sounds like a few radio markers?

[zz0468]

I'm quite active listening to that frequency range. There's very little marine cw anymore, and I've never copied any voice other than TWEB's from aero NDB's - and that's been years since I've heard voice.

What's on there now? Still lots of NDB's in the 200-520 KHz range, and on rare occasions the KPH project fires up on 425 KHz CW to runs ship traffic. They were operating last night, as a matter of fact. If you have FEC SITOR capability, there are regular marine weather broadcasts around 500 KHz, with published schedules available on the net.

Beacon chasing is a lot of fun, and with the right software, you can add DGPS stations to the list. Although there's nothing much of interest to actually listen to, it's a good test of one's receiver to try to copy some of the LF time signals - WWVB on 60 KHz, and JJY in Japan on 40 KHz, for example. There's also the military comm stuff, which is encrypted data - impossible to understand, but neat to actually hear.

There are lots of natural noises to be heard, too... lightning crashes, and whistlers, among others. So, not exactly a barren wasteland, but not a great place for 'content'. Most of what you will here is merely telling you that it exists.

Edit: Winter, at the bottom of the sunspot cycle is an excellent time to listen to LF. That means... right NOW.

[ka3jjz]

Antennas there tend to be pretty specialized - loops are a great choice here.

If you get into longwave heavily, this is where you want to be...

http://www.lwca.org/

73 Mike

[zz0468]

Originally Posted by ka3jjz

Antennas there tend to be pretty specialized - loops are a great choice here.

Yep. I have a shielded non-resonant loop on a tv rotator that is quite effective. I also have a dedicated shielded loop for a LORAN C receiver used for the house frequency standard.

Indoor loopsticks give excellent results, and if it's still available, the one from Palomar worked well.

[lanbergld]

I go through the longwave band at least once a night. I've logged numerous beacons, for example the other night I snared a little 25 watt beacon out of Ohio -- a good 600 miles from me. Some nights though I can hardly get any beacons. As I said in another post, its like going fishing.

One of the main the reasons I keep going back to longwave is that I'm trying to get my first European LW broadcast station. (They still have stations on longwave, there, like we do here on medium wave). No luck yet. I have picked up some distant sounds on the given frequencies, but not strong enough that I could positively ID a European broadcast station.

And aside from natural sound effects, there's also elevators! Yes that's right. If you live near an elevator you can hear the thing wizzing up & down the chute on longwave. It makes a sound like something from those old Jetsons cartoons.

Larry Lanberg
Richmond VA

Some radios past and present:

Icom IC-R75
Yaesu FRG-100
Kenwood R1000
Kenwood R2000
Realistic DX-400
Palstar R30C
Realistic DX-402
Kaito KA2100
Kaito KA1103
AOR AR-2002
Yaesu FRG-9600
Yaesu VR-120D
Yaesu VR-5000

[zguy1243]

Did a quick sweep of the low freqs there. I am hearing what sounds like Spanish music on 45 Khz here in North Georgia on my Racal 6790.

[k9rzz]

I frequent longwave quite frequently in the winter. My vertical with tuner is too noisy but my random wire (70ft) works okay. I have had good luck with EWE's (Google that one if you're not familiar) bringing in some of the Euro/Afro broadcasters in (not easy here in the midwest) and one time heard Iceland _really_ well. Currently working on an 8 foot resonant loop that is very quiet to noise and actually works well in non-resonant mode too. I love chasing the Canadian NDBs.

[lanbergld]

Originally Posted by zguy1243

Did a quick sweep of the low freqs there. I am hearing what sounds like Spanish music on 45 Khz here in North Georgia on my Racal 6790.

Listen closely to it, if you can. Might be an image of a strong local Hispanic station. I get those. If you have a variable capacitor on your rig (tuner; antenna trimmer) you can tell the images. The images will appear at the extreme positions, far left or far right.

To the best of my knowledge, the longwave broadcast frequencies are:

153 kHz
162 kHz
171 kHz
180 kHz
189 kHz
198 kHz
207 kHz
216 kHz
225 kHz
234 kHz
243 kHz

You can see the pattern there, 9 kHz spacings. The BBC uses, I believe, 189 or 198 kHz. And I also understand that the FCC allots a small portion of the longwave band to "experimental broadcasters", and that this is somewhere in the 400 kHz range.

Larry Lanberg
Richmond VA

[lanbergld]

Originally Posted by k9rzz

I have had good luck with EWE's (Google that one if you're not familiar) bringing in some of the Euro/Afro broadcasters in (not easy here in the midwest) and one time heard Iceland _really_ well. Currently working on an 8 foot resonant loop that is very quiet to noise and actually works well in non-resonant mode too. I love chasing the Canadian NDBs.

Good catch with Iceland! And thanks for the tip on EWE's. I wasn't familiar with them and indeed I had to Google it.

I think my main obstacle with longwave broadcasters is that I'm so in the inner city. I'm actually in the midst of a cluster of high rises & other tall buildings. I suppose I'm rather fortunate to get as many distant low power beacons as I have. I, like you, build my own antennas for these purposes -- loops.

But of course this challenge makes it all the more fun.

Larry Lanberg
Richmond VA

[tmfok7]

Originally Posted by lanbergld

One of the main the reasons I keep going back to longwave is that I'm trying to get my first European LW broadcast station. (They still have stations on longwave, there, like we do here on medium wave). No luck yet. I have picked up some distant sounds on the given frequencies, but not strong enough that I could positively ID a European broadcast station.

Have you tried listening to this working the gray line? It's going to require you be up very early in the morning, but might work!

[k9rzz]

Originally Posted by tmfok7

Have you tried listening to this working the gray line? It's going to require you be up very early in the morning, but might work!

I'm not positive, but I don't think greyline is that pronounced on longwave as it is on MW or SW. Certainly your best bet will be sometime between local sunset and EU / AF sunrise (0500z or so). Some days are better than others, so just keep at it! I listen for carriers first, then if they are loud I'll keep tabs in case sigs build up.

Nice freq. list: http://mediumwave.de/

[AlmostHandy]

I just turned on my shortwave radio tonight to play around with it. It can pick up LW from 150-519kHz.

It's such a little tuner. With the stock telescopic antenna, I didn't expect to hear anything, but I picked up something that sounded like NPR or other similar boring news. It was on 252.

[zz0468]

Originally Posted by k9rzz

I'm not positive, but I don't think greyline is that pronounced on longwave as it is on MW or SW. Certainly your best bet will be sometime between local sunset and EU / AF sunrise (0500z or so). Some days are better than others, so just keep at it! I listen for carriers first, then if they are loud I'll keep tabs in case sigs build up.

Nice freq. list: http://mediumwave.de/

I've never had much luck with grayline propagation on lw. What I have had luck with is when the entire path is in darkness, and the later the better. Right after sunset, D layer absorption is still too high.

One tool that you guys might use is Google Earth. Put a placemark on your location, and the location of the station you want to hear, turn on the sun, and scroll the time bar back and forth until both you and your target station are in darkeness. That's likely the best time to hear anything in LW. Your listening window may turn out to be a bit inconvenient, and a bit short, but that's the way it goes... For example, if I want to listen to the Voice of Russia, I have about an hour from 5am local to 6am local to try it. In the summer, there IS no time that would work.

I've been able to detect JJY in Japan on 40 KHz with this technique.

[lanbergld]

Originally Posted by tmfok7

Have you tried listening to this working the gray line? It's going to require you be up very early in the morning, but might work!

Hi and thanks for the response. I'm actually unfamiliar with that term "grey line". If that means monitoring the radio during the early morning hours, well, that's actually what I do (and is why I go to work with dark bags under my eyes). But maybe I'd better look that term up anyways. I might be missing something.

It seems odd in a way. I can receive little 25-watt NDBs from several states away & my medium wave reception is also extremely strong using the very same homemade loops -- but the 500 kW broadcasters using AM mode are not making it to me. And I'm on the Atlantic Seaboard. So I'm going to reference grey line and see what it is I may be missing here.

Larry Lanberg
Richmond VA

[ka3jjz]

If you want to learn about longwave, and do some homebrewing (a topic which has largely gone by the wayside in some hobbies), then you want to belong to the Longwave Club of America. They have an extensive website, and I wouldn't doubt they have their own mailing lists as well. Very well known and respected club in the hobby....73 Mike

[lanbergld]

Oh yes, I've known about LWCA for some time. And I've got my grayline info. Turned out I was familiar with the concept, just not the name nor was I aware that the line could be demarcated using software. Very interesting. Now I have a grayline viewer at my disposal. So I'm glad I checked back in on this thread.

Thanks.

Larry Lanberg
Richmond VA

[Dpritch]

First, I agree that the LWCA is a great resource for beginners or veteran LW DX'ers. I normally concentrate on beacon DX (over 370 logged from 46 states / provinces). It is rare to hear any European broadcast DX here in the Midwest. However, I managed several loggings under extremely good conditions two weeks ago. I have a .wav file of BBC Radio 4 at 198 KHz. with a clear ID at 0400 hours. It is interesting, because you can hear two beacons with their Morse ID on the same frequency. Equipment used was my Yaesu FT1000MP transceiver with a G5RV antenna at 30 feet. You really need synchronous AM detection to have any chance to pull broadcast stations out of the noise. If anyone's interested, send me an e-mail and I'll be happy to send you the .wav file.

Dave
W9QL

[ka5lqj]

Originally Posted by AlmostHandy

I just turned on my shortwave radio tonight to play around with it. It can pick up LW from 150-519kHz.

It's such a little tuner. With the stock telescopic antenna, I didn't expect to hear anything, but I picked up something that sounded like NPR or other similar boring news. It was on 252.

My, my,

NPR on Long-wave. The ÜberLeft will stop at nothing to get their Anti-GOD, Anti-American messages out, LOL! The ONLY things worth listening to on NPR is "Car Talk" & "Prairie Home Companion", ROFL! The rest is like listening to CNN, M$NBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC. The ONLY thing I watch on CNN is Lou Dobbs, then I switch over to FOX or SPEED to watch NASCAR.

Respectfully,
73,

Don/KA5LQJ

[joe_disco_electronics]

OK... what am I hearing? Im listening to AM 790 WPRV on my clock radio yet every minute I hear a CW ID of RR. Yep! RR. Im sure it must be some sort of intermod but RR?

[ka5lqj]

Joe,

I don't happen to have a long-wave beacon list in front of me, but it sounds like a "harmonic" of a beacon. Maybe one of the other "gentlemen" here might be able to find it in a list.

European and South American AM Broadcast band stations use a 9khz spacing, instead of the 10 khz the U.S. uses. (Dang metrics, LOL!)

Respectfully,
73,

Don/KA5LQJ
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