Research Project - Ultralight DXing Results

[pb_lonny]

Research Project - Ultralight DXing Results
Ultralight DXing: Research Project - Ultralight DXing Results

I am just starting a new project, this is to map a number of medium wave stations at various times of the day / night over a long time period during different weather patterns / events, both locally and at the transmitter location.

I have selected 25 stations, these are a mix of Tasmanian, Victorian, New South Wales and South Australian stations, these are running between 2KW and 50KW.

531 3GG
540 7SD
549 2CR
558 7BU
585 7RN
594 3WV
621 3RN
693 3AW
747 7PB
774 3LO
855 3CR
900 7AD
954 2UE
1008 HPON – Launceston
1080 HPON - Hobart
1116 3AK
1179 3RPH
1224 3EA
1260 3SR
1341 HPON - Geelong
1377 3MP
1395 5AA
1440 1SBS
1503 3KND
1593 HPON - Melbourne

Results on the stations received at each time and information about this will be published on my blog as I log and record this.

LONGTERM ULTRALIGHT DXING PROJECT DB
This is a database I have designed to assist with logging my results as part of this project. A copy of this database will be uploaded to the ultralight dxing Yahoo group.

Screen capture: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1KLpMsCO5.../kkR9cuRnODY/s1600/LTULDXProject_23012015.JPG

 

[ka3jjz]

Paul, you might also want to post this over on the dxer.ca website. There are a few folks there that are doing ultralite DXing, so you might attract more attention over there.

Mike

 

[pb_lonny]

Thanks, I will check that site out.

 

[pb_lonny]

Note: As I have gotten a bit behind with entering these in to my database and publishing them on my blog (Ultralight DXing) I have decided to do the last three days as a single lot.

Date: 25/01/2015
Time: 10:35 - 10:45
Location: Home, Launceston Tasmania
Weather: Sunny with recent rain. Warm and some cloud cover.
531 - 3GG: 2
540 - 7SD: 5
549 - 2CR: 1
558 - 7BU: 4
585 - 7RN: 4
621 - 3RN: 5
693 - 3AW: 4
747 - 7PB: 4
774 - 3LO: 5
855 - 3CR: 3
900 - 7AD: 3
954 - 2UE: n
1008 - HPON (Launceston) : 5
1080 - HPON (Hobart): 3
1116 - 3AK: c
1179 - 3RPH: c
1224 - 3EA: n
1260 - 3SR: c
1341 - HPON (Geelong): 1
1377 - 3MP: c
1395 - 5AA: n
1440 - 1SBS: n
1503 - 3KND: n
1593 - HPON (Melbourne): n
Notes: Session produced some interesting results with 3RN again powering in with a great signal, much better than a number of Tasmanian stations. The top end of the band was again dead with only one station logged (poorly) above 100KHz.100KHz.

--------------------------------------------------
Date: 26/01/2015
Time: 6:15 - 6:35
Location: Home, Launceston Tasmania
Weather: A cool morning with a clear sky and fine weather.
531 - 3GG: 2
540 - 7SD: 5
549 - 2CR: 1
558 - 7BU: 2
585 - 7RN: 3
621 - 3RN: 4
693 - 3AW: 4
747 - 7PB: 3
774 - 3LO: 4
855 - 3CR: 1
900 - 7AD: 2
954 - 2UE: c
1008 - HPON (Launceston) : 5
1080 - HPON (Hobart): 2
1116 - 3AK: 3
1179 - 3RPH: 2
1224 - 3EA: 3
1260 - 3SR: 2
1341 - HPON (Geelong): 1
1377 - 3MP: 3
1395 - 5AA: c
1440 - 1SBS: 1
1503 - 3KND: c
1593 - HPON (Melbourne): 2
Notes: A nice early morning session with some good signals received in the mid - high end of the band. 3AW on 693KHz was a stand out signal with good audio.

--------------------------------------------------
Date: 27/01/2015
Time: 20:10 - 20:25
Location: Home, Launceston Tasmania
Weather: Mild with heavy cloud cover and an approaching storm front.
531 - 3GG: 2
540 - 7SD: 5
549 - 2CR: 1
558 - 7BU: 3
585 - 7RN: 4
621 - 3RN: 4
693 - 3AW: 4
747 - 7PB: 3
774 - 3LO: 4
855 - 3CR: 2
900 - 7AD: 2
954 - 2UE: c
1008 - HPON (Launceston) : 5
1080 - HPON (Hobart): 2
1116 - 3AK: 1
1179 - 3RPH: 1
1224 - 3EA: 2
1260 - 3SR: c
1341 - HPON (Geelong): 2
1377 - 3MP: 2
1395 - 5AA: c
1440 - 1SBS: c
1503 - 3KND: 1
1593 - HPON (Melbourne): 2
Notes: Signals were generally good for the time of night. 3GG on 531KHz had bad mixing with 2PM on the same frequency. 7BU on 558KHz was very weak. 7AD on 900KHz was also very weak and signal level was very poor. 3AK on 1116KHz was down in the noise and had some mixing from 4BC from Brisbane. Overall an enjoyable session and I hope to be able to undertake a session slightly later in the night soon to compare results.

 

[pb_lonny]

Date: 01/02/2015
Time: 20:10 - 20:30
Location: Backyard, Home, Launceston Tasmania
Weather: Cooling down after a warm day, some cloud cover and light winds
531 - 3GG: 2
540 - 7SD: 5
549 - 2CR: 1
558 - 7BU: 2
585 - 7RN: 4
621 - 3RN: 4
693 - 3AW: 4
747 - 7PB: 5
774 - 3LO: 4
855 - 3CR: 3
900 - 7AD: 2
954 - 2UE: 1
1008 - HPON (Launceston) : 5
1080 - HPON (Hobart): 3
1116 - 3AK: 1
1179 - 3RPH: c
1224 - 3EA: 2
1260 - 3SR: 2
1341 - HPON (Geelong): 3
1377 - 3MP: 4
1395 - 5AA: 1
1440 - 1SBS: 2
1503 - 3KND: 3
1593 - HPON (Melbourne): 1
Notes: A good session in my backyard, away from domestic noise. Good signals from 1224KHz up were a surprise given the normal results for this part of the band, these good results were also repeated during my "full band" Ultralight DXing session which I undertook just after this.

 

[pb_lonny]

Date: 02/02/2015
Time: 8:05 - 8:20am
Location: Home, Launceston Tasmania
Weather: Cool to mild with some cloud cover
531 - 3GG: 2
540 - 7SD: 5
549 - 2CR: c
558 - 7BU: 3
585 - 7RN: 4
621 - 3RN: 5
693 - 3AW: 4
747 - 7PB: 3
774 - 3LO: 4
855 - 3CR: 2
900 - 7AD: 2
954 - 2UE: n
1008 - HPON (Launceston) : 5
1080 - HPON (Hobart): 2
1116 - 3AK: c
1179 - 3RPH: c
1224 - 3EA: 1
1260 - 3SR: n
1341 - HPON (Geelong): 2
1377 - 3MP: 1
1395 - 5AA: c
1440 - 1SBS: c
1503 - 3KND: c
1593 - HPON (Melbourne): c
Notes: A good morning session before getting in to my jobs for the day. Signals received were as expected with 7BU and 7AD again producing very poor signals. The top half of the band was again dead.

 

[pb_lonny]

Date: 03/02/2015

Time: 9:40 - 9:55

Location: Windsor Park, Riverside. Launceston Tasmania

Weather: Fine. Warm with light cloud cover

531 - 3GG: 2

540 - 7SD: 4

549 - 2CR: c

558 - 7BU: 3

585 - 7RN: 4

621 - 3RN: 5

693 - 3AW: 3

747 - 7PB: 3

774 - 3LO: 5

855 - 3CR: 1

900 - 7AD: 1

954 - 2UE: c

1008 - HPON (Launceston) : 5

1080 - HPON (Hobart): 2

1116 - 3AK: c

1179 - 3RPH: c

1224 - 3EA: c

1260 - 3SR: c

1341 - HPON (Geelong): 1

1377 - 3MP: c

1395 - 5AA: c

1440 - 1SBS: c

1503 - 3KND: c

1593 - HPON (Melbourne): c


Notes: A quick session while out and about from the office. Results were as expected with 7SD on 540KHz being a little bit down in signal level compared to normal.

 

[pb_lonny]

Long Term UltraLight DXing Project - Graph until 3/2/2015
I have just started to graph the results of my sessions to date. I have found that the bottom half of the band generally preforms better and this is reflected in this graph.


http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6HqCwbrOa...Z6gCBc/s1600/LTULDXingProject_03022015JPG.JPG

 

[majoco]

Broadcast band propagates by the ground wave in daytime. The longer the wavelength, the longer the ground wave, which is what prompted early investigators to put up huge antennas and huge powers at lower frequencies to cover large distances. They gave shortwaves to experimenters as they thought they were useless as they didn't work as well - the ground wave dissipated too quickly.

 

[pb_lonny]

Long Term Ultralight DXing Project Results - 03/02/2015 - Session 2

Date: 03/02/2015
Time: 15:25 - 15:40
Location: Royal Park, Launceston Tasmania
Weather: Fine, warm - hot with no clouds and moderate winds.
531 - 3GG: 4
540 - 7SD: 5
549 - 2CR: 0
558 - 7BU: 5
585 - 7RN: 4
621 - 3RN: 5
693 - 3AW:4
747 - 7PB: 4
774 - 3LO: 4
855 - 3CR: 3
900 - 7AD: 4
954 - 2UE: 0
1008 - HPON (Launceston) : 5
1080 - HPON (Hobart): 1
1116 - 3AK: 0
1179 - 3RPH: 0
1224 - 3EA: 0
1260 - 3SR: 0
1341 - HPON (Geelong): 1
1377 - 3MP: 1
1395 - 5AA: 1
1440 - 1SBS: 0
1503 - 3KND: 0
1593 - HPON (Melbourne): 0
Notes: Yesterday afternoon my wife was unwell and resting following her operation last week. I took our daughter for a walk and sort of just kept going where I ended up at our local Bunnings. On the walk back I stopped at Royal Park and did a quick session. Results were an improvement on what I normally hear with some signal levels in the lower parts of the band, most stations were a signal point better than normal.

 

[pb_lonny]

Long term Ultralight DXing Project Results - 05/02/2015


Date: 5/2/2015
Time: 15:00 - 15:10
Location: Bradys Lookout, West Tamar. Tasmania
Weather: Fine and warm to hot, very clear sky.
531 - 3GG 2
540 - 7SD 4
549 - 2CR 1
558 - 7BU 4
585 - 7RN 2
621 - 3RN 5
693 - 3AW 3
747 - 7PB 2
774 - 3LO 5
855 - 3CR 2
900 - 7AD 4
954 - 2UE 0
1008 - HPON LTON 5
1080 - HPON HBT 1
1116 - 3AK 1
1179 - 3RPH 0
1224 - 3EA 1
1260 - 3SR 0
1341 - HPON GLG 3
1377 - 3MP 0
1395 - 5AA 0
1440 - 1SBS 0
1503 - 3KND 0
1593 - HPON MELB 0
Notes: Yesterday afternoon I had to head out of the office down to another one of our sites which was a 40km round trip, this would take me past one of my favourite Ultralight DXing spots which is Bradys Lookout, based on this I grabbed my radio case and took this with me. On the drive back I stopped and had my afternoon break sitting at this location where I did some loggings for my long term ultralight dxing project.

As you can see from the results above the signals were comparable to what I normally log at this time of the day. Some loggings of note are below.
- 7SD on 540KHz was slightly down being “good” not “excellent”.
- 7BU on 558KHz was up slightly on its average of 3.2 at 4.
- 7AD on 900KHz was also up to 4, 2.2 being the average for this station.
- HPON (Geelong) on 1341KHz was again a good performer, coming in at a good solid 3, above its average of 1.5

 

[pb_lonny]

Long Term Ultralight DXing Project Results - 09/02/2015 - Tailrace Park

Date: 09/02/2015
Time: 17:00 - 17:15
Location: Tailrace Park, Riverside. Tasmania
Weather: Warm - hot with a strong breeze.
531 - 3GG 4
540 - 7SD 5
549 - 2CR 1
558 - 7BU 5
585 - 7RN 3
621 - 3RN 4
693 - 3AW 3
747 - 7PB 4
774 - 3LO 5
855 - 3CR 2
900 - 7AD 5
954 - 2UE 0
1008 - HPON LTON 5
1080 - HPON HBT 2
1116 - 3AK 0
1179 - 3RPH 0
1224 - 3EA 1
1260 - 3SR 0
1341 - HPON GLG 3
1377 - 3MP 1
1395 - 5AA 0
1440 - 1SBS 0
1503 - 3KND 0
1593 - HPON MELB 0
Notes: Yesterday afternoon I took our daughter for a walk to the Tailrace park, I found a nice cool spot under a tree (see map below) and logged some stations as part of my long term Ultralight DXing project.

The results as seen above were very positive with most of the lower band stations coming in at good signal levels. Both 7BU and 7AD had excellent signal levels; close to the best I have heard them for this time of the day. 3GG was coming in very strong was a good solid 4. 3LO also easily hit a 5 and was a pleasure to listen to.

Link to some photos and video from this location.
Ultralight DXing: Long Term Ultralight DXing Project Results - 09/02/2015 - Tailrace Park

 

[N8IAA]

Ducks and gulls to keep the toddler busy, or, is that how you transport all of your equipment
Larry

 

[pb_lonny]

Ducks and gulls to keep the toddler busy, or, is that how you transport all of your equipment
Larry

Nope, a 10 week old was in the pram

 

[pb_lonny]

Long Term Ultralight DXing Project - 14/02/2015 & 15/02/2015 - Hobart

Date: 14/2/2015 & 15/02/2015
Time: 23:35 - 23:50 & 7.25 - 7.40
Location: Hobart CBD, Tasmania
Weather: Warm and overcast with recent rain
531 - 3GG 0
540 - 7SD 1
549 - 2CR 0
558 - 7BU 0
585 - 7RN 5
621 - 3RN 1
693 - 3AW 0
747 - 7PB 5
774 - 3LO 0
855 - 3CR 0
900 - 7AD 0
954 - 2UE 0
1008 - HPON LTON 1
1080 - HPON HBT 5
1116 - 3AK 0
1179 - 3RPH 0
1224 - 3EA 0
1260 - 3SR 0
1341 - HPON GLG 0
1377 - 3MP 1
1395 - 5AA 0
1440 - 1SBS 0
1503 - 3KND 0
1593 - HPON MELB 0
Notes: Over the weekend just been my wife, daughter and I spent a night in Hobart, about 180km south of my home DXing location. Due to a number of factors my DXing time was limited to a short period on the Saturday night and again the next morning from our hotel room. Overall the results from this location were very disappointing, except for the three local Hobart stations, a hint of 7SD on 540KHz and HPON on 1008KHz from Launceston and surprisingly a weak signal from 3MP on 1377KHz the band was dead. Most frequencies in my long term ultralight dxing project group were full of noise and in a couple of cases some very weak traces of a signal could be heard on other frequencies but nothing at a level where I could record them as anything more than a 0.
In the future I hope to explore some different areas of Hobart, as a reference point I had a look at my ultralight dxing report from when we were last down in Hobart in March 2014 (Ultralight DXing: Ultralight DXing Report - Hobart Tasmania) in that case I logged 67 stations, we did stay at a different hotel that time on the other side of the CBD and I suspect this had a lot to do with the major difference in how many stations I was able to receive. A couple of photos and a graph showing the difference between my average signal level and what I received on the weekend is at this link:
Ultralight DXing: Long Term Ultralight DXing Project - 14/02/2015 & 15/02/2015 - Hobart

 

[pb_lonny]

DB4LTULDXProject

A few months ago I started working on a simple text based database program for logging the results as a part of my long term ultralight dxing project. This is a simple custom database I have designed for this purpose.

Ultralight DXing: Programming

 

[pb_lonny]

Date: 6/3/2015
Time: 6:10 - 6:22
Location: Home, Launceston Tasmania
Weather: Pre sunrise, cool
531 - 3GG: 3
540 - 7SD: 3
549 - 2CR: 2
558 - 7BU: 3
585 - 7RN: 4
621 - 3RN: 5
693 - 3AW: 5
747 - 7PB: 1
774 - 3LO: 5
855 - 3CR: 4
900 - 7AD: 2
954 - 2UE: 2
1008 - HPON (Launceston) : 5
1080 - HPON (Hobart): 2
1116 - 3AK: 3
1179 - 3RPH: 2
1224 - 3EA: 3
1260 - 3SR: 3
1341 - HPON (Geelong): 2
1377 - 3MP: 2
1395 - 5AA: 2
1440 - 1SBS: 1
1503 - 3KND: 2
1593 - HPON (Melbourne): 2
Notes: Due to a change in my work hours I am now getting up a little bit earlier each morning, over the past few mornings I have noticed that it is still dark when I get up, this lead to me getting up a little bit earlier again this morning to undertake a session for my long term ultralight dxing project before going to work.

At my 6:10am (local) start time I started at the bottom of the band and logged the signal level of each of my 24 check frequencies. As can be seen from the list above, three of the four stations which I rated as a 5 were from Victoria, the only Tasmanian station to reach this level was the HPON station on 1008KHz which is local to me. Again the stations at the lower end of the band which run higher power levels were the stand outs, by 1080KHz all stations were only able to be rated as a 2 or 3.

7SD on 540KHz was down in signal level and the best I could get this at was a 3. 7PB from Hobart on 747KHz was very poor with a lot of mixing; I suspect another station on this frequency was a cause of this, no ID of this could be heard.

Overall this was a very enjoyable session and the results were encouraging for future sessions at this time.

Paul
Launceston, Tasmania
7.5" loopstick equiped Tecsun PL-380
Ultralight DXing

 

[pb_lonny]

Long Term Ultralight DXing Project Results - 15/03/2015

Date: 15/03/2015
Time: 13:55 - 14:10
Location: Home, Launceston Tasmania
Weather: Fine and warm, some cloud cover
531 - 3GG: 2
540 - 7SD: 4
549 - 2CR: 1
558 - 7BU: 3
585 - 7RN: 5
621 - 3RN: 5
693 - 3AW: 3
747 - 7PB: 4
774 - 3LO: 4
855 - 3CR: 3
900 - 7AD: 3
954 - 2UE: 1
1008 - HPON (Launceston) : 5
1080 - HPON (Hobart): 3
1116 - 3AK: 1
1179 - 3RPH: 0
1224 - 3EA: 0
1260 - 3SR: 0
1341 - HPON (Geelong): 3
1377 - 3MP: 1
1395 - 5AA: 1
1440 - 1SBS: 1
1503 - 3KND: 0
1593 - HPON (Melbourne): 0
Notes: A good session at home, the first in about a week. Results were as I would expect with the signals between 1341KHz and 1440KHz being a bit of a surprise given the time of day and my location.

 

[k9rzz]

Hows the lightning crashes / static over there now? Minimal over here yet.

World Wide Lightning Location Network

 

[majoco]

World Wide Lightning Location Network

I was getting really excited about that storm Northwest of North Cape when I noticed the time at the bottom of the screen! What good is October 29th 2014?