[IRCA] TWO DX-ERS AND THE ECLIPSE

[DXer]

Is the rumor true that Trump wants to re-use parts of the array in 
a Canadian border wall?


Adding the Mexican wall, this can become a Faraday cage for you guys. LOL

Regards,

Vince
Ottawa,ON
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[IRCA] Last Call - birthday wishes for Ian McFarland

[R. Colin Newell]

Assembling his HUGE birthday card for his Tuesday birthday -

Don't get left out - I am up to 36 birthday greetings for Ian (formerly of
RCI and NHK)

You can send your wishes to be via rnewell AT shaw.ca
SUBJECT - Happy Birthday Ian

or e-mail me via my contact form at dxer.ca

Thanks everyone!

-- 
Colin Newell - Editor and creator *of *Coffeecrew.com
 and DXer.ca  -
VA7WWV | Twitter @CoffeeCrew | Victoria - Canada
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Re: [IRCA] TWO DX-ERS AND THE ECLIPSE

[Nick Hall-Patch]

S, it will be sort of like those electric dog fences, only for 
people.  How did you think we got the funding?




At 16:52 16-07-17, Chuck Hutton wrote:
Is the rumor true that Trump wants to re-use parts of the array in a 
Canadian border wall?



Chuck



From: IRCA  on behalf of Neil 
Kazaross 

Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2017 8:20 AM
To: Mailing list for the International Radio Club of America
Subject: Re: [IRCA] TWO DX-ERS AND THE ECLIPSE

No joke here, Walt. Mark got a really great deal on surplus CAT 5 in bulk
and I've spent three weeks doing almost nothing but modelling the setup in
EZNEC.  73 KAZ

On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 3:13 PM, Volodya S  wrote:

> Surely this is a joke.  it's not even April.  A 2k km CAT 5 line between
> your SDRs, and it's a mighty large Terabyte storage you have!   ;-)   Walt
>
> On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 12:02 PM, Mark Mobile 
> wrote:
>
> > There's been a lot of chatter in the Ham newsletters and the scientific
> > community about RF-signal measurements during the August 21st eclipse.
> But
> > not much has appeared in the "DX" newsletters.  In the hope of
> stimulating
> > an exchange about proposed listening methodologies, we want to share the
> > eclipse-monitoring plan of two DX-ers...Nick Hall-Patch and myself.
> >
> > We plan to take advantage of a technology that wasn't available during
> the
> > last major eclipse: the Software-Defined Radio (SDR).  To give all
> signals
> > an equal chance, the Medium-Wave antennas used will be high-gain
> > omni-directional.  The SDR listening posts at Nick's Victoria British
> > Columbia home and my cabin in North-Central Minnesota will be connected
> by
> > a balanced wire-pair, with the separated antennas forming a
> > Very-Long-Baseline Eclipse-Catcher Array ("VLBECA").  RF measurements
> will
> > be taken from 9.01 kHz through 66.666 MHz in 1.1-Hz increments.
> >
> > For connectivity between us to form the VLBECA, we will use pair 3
> > (green/white) of special Cat-5 cable with pink jacketing.  (From our
> recent
> > desert DXPedition we found the pink outer jacket to be the best color for
> > optimal velocity factor in the Cat-5, and we were already aware that an
> > odd-numbered pair would maintain better polarity.)
> >
> > The exact distance between our two locations is 1,359.37 miles (or
> > 2187.69395328 kilometers if you're Canadian).  Since there are a lot less
> > miles than kilometers along the VLBECA, we chose to save money by buying
> > the connecting cable by the mile rather than the kilometer, and that
> meant
> > purchasing our Cat-5 in the United States.
> >
> > Further input on velocity factor from the National Bureau of Standards
> > (NBS) led us to choose stranded rather than solid wire for the Cat-5.
> This
> > created some contention between Nick and myself, since stranded copper is
> > more expensive.  However, when we realized the Cat-5 route took us
> through
> > the Bakken Oil Fields of North Dakota, we knew the superior mechanical
> > performance of stranded wire would provide additional integrity against
> > rough handling.
> >
> > For Cat-5 pair 3 termination consistency on the two ends, we asked for
> > bids for a pair of 2.2:1 matching transformers that would match the
> Cat-5's
> > native 110-ohm impedance to the 50-ohm input of the 273 dB-gain RF
> > amplifier.  However no one could meet our specifications.  So we ended up
> > using the Western Electric 111C "repeat coil" since this device is known
> to
> > significantly reduce Group Delay https://www.jmu.edu/wmra-eng/
WMRA Engineering Resources - James Madison 
University

www.jmu.edu
Notice: Listing of equipment info links are informative in nature 
and do not constitute any endorsement of any manufacturer or vendor 
by WMRA, James Madison ...




> > archive/repeatcoil.pdf
> >
> > To guard against inaccuracies in the eclipse schedule, we agreed to begin
> > recording at both monitoring stations at 0301 UTC July 27th, and to
> > conclude at 1921 UTC, September 31st.  For the SDRs, 5600 Terabyte
> storage
> > devices were acquired from Best Buy.
> >
> > Since we will be measuring signals expected to be at the very limits of
> > receiver noise performance, we spent a good deal of time thinking about
> > continuous battery power since, because of possible eclipse-schedule
> > inaccuracies, we don't want to stop the recordings during the above
> period,
> > lest we miss something.  Fortunately we were able to negotiate access to
> > the battery rooms of the phone companies at our respective locations.
> For
> > Nick, that's BC Telus (formerly BC Tel; formerly the Victoria & Esquimalt
> > Telephone Company and the New Westminster & Burrard Inlet Telephone
> > Company) and, for me, the Upsala MN Telephone Company (formerly the
> Upsala
> > MN Telephone Company).  Connectivity to these battery 

Re: [IRCA] TWO DX-ERS AND THE ECLIPSE

[Chuck Hutton]

Is the rumor true that Trump wants to re-use parts of the array in a Canadian 
border wall?


Chuck



From: IRCA  on behalf of Neil Kazaross 

Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2017 8:20 AM
To: Mailing list for the International Radio Club of America
Subject: Re: [IRCA] TWO DX-ERS AND THE ECLIPSE

No joke here, Walt. Mark got a really great deal on surplus CAT 5 in bulk
and I've spent three weeks doing almost nothing but modelling the setup in
EZNEC.  73 KAZ

On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 3:13 PM, Volodya S  wrote:

> Surely this is a joke.  it's not even April.  A 2k km CAT 5 line between
> your SDRs, and it's a mighty large Terabyte storage you have!   ;-)   Walt
>
> On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 12:02 PM, Mark Mobile 
> wrote:
>
> > There's been a lot of chatter in the Ham newsletters and the scientific
> > community about RF-signal measurements during the August 21st eclipse.
> But
> > not much has appeared in the “DX” newsletters.  In the hope of
> stimulating
> > an exchange about proposed listening methodologies, we want to share the
> > eclipse-monitoring plan of two DX-ers...Nick Hall-Patch and myself.
> >
> > We plan to take advantage of a technology that wasn't available during
> the
> > last major eclipse: the Software-Defined Radio (SDR).  To give all
> signals
> > an equal chance, the Medium-Wave antennas used will be high-gain
> > omni-directional.  The SDR listening posts at Nick's Victoria British
> > Columbia home and my cabin in North-Central Minnesota will be connected
> by
> > a balanced wire-pair, with the separated antennas forming a
> > Very-Long-Baseline Eclipse-Catcher Array ("VLBECA").  RF measurements
> will
> > be taken from 9.01 kHz through 66.666 MHz in 1.1-Hz increments.
> >
> > For connectivity between us to form the VLBECA, we will use pair 3
> > (green/white) of special Cat-5 cable with pink jacketing.  (From our
> recent
> > desert DXPedition we found the pink outer jacket to be the best color for
> > optimal velocity factor in the Cat-5, and we were already aware that an
> > odd-numbered pair would maintain better polarity.)
> >
> > The exact distance between our two locations is 1,359.37 miles (or
> > 2187.69395328 kilometers if you're Canadian).  Since there are a lot less
> > miles than kilometers along the VLBECA, we chose to save money by buying
> > the connecting cable by the mile rather than the kilometer, and that
> meant
> > purchasing our Cat-5 in the United States.
> >
> > Further input on velocity factor from the National Bureau of Standards
> > (NBS) led us to choose stranded rather than solid wire for the Cat-5.
> This
> > created some contention between Nick and myself, since stranded copper is
> > more expensive.  However, when we realized the Cat-5 route took us
> through
> > the Bakken Oil Fields of North Dakota, we knew the superior mechanical
> > performance of stranded wire would provide additional integrity against
> > rough handling.
> >
> > For Cat-5 pair 3 termination consistency on the two ends, we asked for
> > bids for a pair of 2.2:1 matching transformers that would match the
> Cat-5’s
> > native 110-ohm impedance to the 50-ohm input of the 273 dB-gain RF
> > amplifier.  However no one could meet our specifications.  So we ended up
> > using the Western Electric 111C “repeat coil” since this device is known
> to
> > significantly reduce Group Delay https://www.jmu.edu/wmra-eng/
WMRA Engineering Resources - James Madison 
University
www.jmu.edu
Notice: Listing of equipment info links are informative in nature and do not 
constitute any endorsement of any manufacturer or vendor by WMRA, James Madison 
...



> > archive/repeatcoil.pdf
> >
> > To guard against inaccuracies in the eclipse schedule, we agreed to begin
> > recording at both monitoring stations at 0301 UTC July 27th, and to
> > conclude at 1921 UTC, September 31st.  For the SDRs, 5600 Terabyte
> storage
> > devices were acquired from Best Buy.
> >
> > Since we will be measuring signals expected to be at the very limits of
> > receiver noise performance, we spent a good deal of time thinking about
> > continuous battery power since, because of possible eclipse-schedule
> > inaccuracies, we don’t want to stop the recordings during the above
> period,
> > lest we miss something.  Fortunately we were able to negotiate access to
> > the battery rooms of the phone companies at our respective locations.
> For
> > Nick, that’s BC Telus (formerly BC Tel; formerly the Victoria & Esquimalt
> > Telephone Company and the New Westminster & Burrard Inlet Telephone
> > Company) and, for me, the Upsala MN Telephone Company (formerly the
> Upsala
> > MN Telephone Company).  Connectivity to these battery rooms will use
> > fabric-covered lamp cord acquired from Mark Connelly.  We believe the
> color
> > of the lamp cord fabric will not impact the Group Delay.
> >
> > 

Re: [IRCA] TWO DX-ERS AND THE ECLIPSE

[Nick Hall-Patch]

Hi Walt,

One of the beauties of being retired is that it 
can be April Fool's Day every day of the year, 
though more and more the joke is only on the 
retiree.  No, we won't go into that.


As to this proposal...shortly afterwards I was 
reading a trade journal, and saw an article to do 
with further offshore wind power in the North 
Sea...some of the "all we have to do is develop 
XYZ" I read there make 273dB gain amplifiers and 
the like look almost feasible.Maybe Mark 
missed his calling as a pitch man for a high tech 
firm looking for government handouts.


best wishes,

Nick


At 20:13 15-07-17, Volodya S wrote:


Surely this is a joke.  it's not even April.  A 2k km CAT 5 line between
your SDRs, and it's a mighty large Terabyte storage you have!   ;-)   Walt

On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 12:02 PM, Mark Mobile  wrote:

> There's been a lot of chatter in the Ham newsletters and the scientific
> community about RF-signal measurements during the August 21st eclipse.  But
> not much has appeared in the “DX” 
newsletters.  In the hope of stimulating

> an exchange about proposed listening methodologies, we want to share the
> eclipse-monitoring plan of two DX-ers...Nick Hall-Patch and myself.

> We plan to take advantage of a technology that wasn't available during the
> last major eclipse: the Software-Defined Radio (SDR).  To give all signals
> an equal chance, the Medium-Wave antennas used will be high-gain
> omni-directional.  The SDR listening posts at Nick's Victoria British
> Columbia home and my cabin in North-Central Minnesota will be connected by
> a balanced wire-pair, with the separated antennas forming a
> Very-Long-Baseline Eclipse-Catcher Array ("VLBECA").  RF measurements will
> be taken from 9.01 kHz through 66.666 MHz in 1.1-Hz increments.

> For connectivity between us to form the VLBECA, we will use pair 3
> (green/white) of special Cat-5 cable with pink jacketing.  (From our recent
> desert DXPedition we found the pink outer jacket to be the best color for
> optimal velocity factor in the Cat-5, and we were already aware that an
> odd-numbered pair would maintain better polarity.)

> The exact distance between our two locations is 1,359.37 miles (or
> 2187.69395328 kilometers if you're Canadian).  Since there are a lot less
> miles than kilometers along the VLBECA, we chose to save money by buying
> the connecting cable by the mile rather than the kilometer, and that meant
> purchasing our Cat-5 in the United States.

> Further input on velocity factor from the National Bureau of Standards
> (NBS) led us to choose stranded rather than solid wire for the Cat-5.  This
> created some contention between Nick and myself, since stranded copper is
> more expensive.  However, when we realized the Cat-5 route took us through
> the Bakken Oil Fields of North Dakota, we knew the superior mechanical
> performance of stranded wire would provide additional integrity against
> rough handling.

> For Cat-5 pair 3 termination consistency on the two ends, we asked for
> bids for a pair of 2.2:1 matching 
transformers that would match the Cat-5’s

> native 110-ohm impedance to the 50-ohm input of the 273 dB-gain RF
> amplifier.  However no one could meet our specifications.  So we ended up
> using the Western Electric 111C “repeat 
coil” since this device is known to

> significantly reduce Group Delay https://www.jmu.edu/wmra-eng/
> archive/repeatcoil.pdf

> To guard against inaccuracies in the eclipse schedule, we agreed to begin
> recording at both monitoring stations at 0301 UTC July 27th, and to
> conclude at 1921 UTC, September 31st.  For the SDRs, 5600 Terabyte storage
> devices were acquired from Best Buy.

> Since we will be measuring signals expected to be at the very limits of
> receiver noise performance, we spent a good deal of time thinking about
> continuous battery power since, because of possible eclipse-schedule
> inaccuracies, we don’t want to stop the 
recordings during the above period,

> lest we miss something.  Fortunately we were able to negotiate access to
> the battery rooms of the phone companies at our respective locations.  For
> Nick, that’s BC Telus (formerly BC Tel; formerly the Victoria & Esquimalt
> Telephone Company and the New Westminster & Burrard Inlet Telephone
> Company) and, for me, the Upsala MN Telephone Company (formerly the Upsala
> MN Telephone Company).  Connectivity to these battery rooms will use
> fabric-covered lamp cord acquired from Mark Connelly.  We believe the color
> of the lamp cord fabric will not impact the Group Delay.

> Once the recordings have been made (assuming there really IS an eclipse)
> Nick and I will meet in Salt Lake City Saturday October 7th late afteroon
> to review all the recordings, and we plan to publish our results here and
> in QEX on Sunday October 8th.

> Please let us know if you think we’ve missed anything in our planning.
> Nick and I are both “elderly” and we want 
to get 

Re: [IRCA] TWO DX-ERS AND THE ECLIPSE

[Neil Kazaross]

Yes, of course, Mark. Certainly you don't want phasing errors to mess up
that great array pattern.  73 KAZ

On Sun, Jul 16, 2017 at 11:07 AM, Mark Mobile  wrote:

> A friend reminded me that we probably should specify oxygen-depleted
> copper for the Cat 5.  We think oxygen-depleted copper is necessary for a
> uniform velocity factor in pair 3 of a copper wire cable.''
>
>
> Cheers!
>
> Mark Durenberger, mobile
>
>
> -Original Message- From: Neil Kazaross
> Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2017 10:20 AM
> To: Mailing list for the International Radio Club of America
> Subject: Re: [IRCA] TWO DX-ERS AND THE ECLIPSE
>
>
> No joke here, Walt. Mark got a really great deal on surplus CAT 5 in bulk
> and I've spent three weeks doing almost nothing but modelling the setup in
> EZNEC.  73 KAZ
>
> On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 3:13 PM, Volodya S  wrote:
>
> Surely this is a joke.  it's not even April.  A 2k km CAT 5 line between
>> your SDRs, and it's a mighty large Terabyte storage you have!   ;-)   Walt
>>
>> On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 12:02 PM, Mark Mobile 
>> wrote:
>>
>> > There's been a lot of chatter in the Ham newsletters and the scientific
>> > community about RF-signal measurements during the August 21st eclipse.
>> But
>> > not much has appeared in the “DX” newsletters.  In the hope of
>> stimulating
>> > an exchange about proposed listening methodologies, we want to share the
>> > eclipse-monitoring plan of two DX-ers...Nick Hall-Patch and myself.
>> >
>> > We plan to take advantage of a technology that wasn't available during
>> the
>> > last major eclipse: the Software-Defined Radio (SDR).  To give all
>> signals
>> > an equal chance, the Medium-Wave antennas used will be high-gain
>> > omni-directional.  The SDR listening posts at Nick's Victoria British
>> > Columbia home and my cabin in North-Central Minnesota will be connected
>> by
>> > a balanced wire-pair, with the separated antennas forming a
>> > Very-Long-Baseline Eclipse-Catcher Array ("VLBECA").  RF measurements
>> will
>> > be taken from 9.01 kHz through 66.666 MHz in 1.1-Hz increments.
>> >
>> > For connectivity between us to form the VLBECA, we will use pair 3
>> > (green/white) of special Cat-5 cable with pink jacketing.  (From our
>> recent
>> > desert DXPedition we found the pink outer jacket to be the best color >
>> for
>> > optimal velocity factor in the Cat-5, and we were already aware that an
>> > odd-numbered pair would maintain better polarity.)
>> >
>> > The exact distance between our two locations is 1,359.37 miles (or
>> > 2187.69395328 kilometers if you're Canadian).  Since there are a lot >
>> less
>> > miles than kilometers along the VLBECA, we chose to save money by buying
>> > the connecting cable by the mile rather than the kilometer, and that
>> meant
>> > purchasing our Cat-5 in the United States.
>> >
>> > Further input on velocity factor from the National Bureau of Standards
>> > (NBS) led us to choose stranded rather than solid wire for the Cat-5.
>> This
>> > created some contention between Nick and myself, since stranded copper
>> > is
>> > more expensive.  However, when we realized the Cat-5 route took us
>> through
>> > the Bakken Oil Fields of North Dakota, we knew the superior mechanical
>> > performance of stranded wire would provide additional integrity against
>> > rough handling.
>> >
>> > For Cat-5 pair 3 termination consistency on the two ends, we asked for
>> > bids for a pair of 2.2:1 matching transformers that would match the
>> Cat-5’s
>> > native 110-ohm impedance to the 50-ohm input of the 273 dB-gain RF
>> > amplifier.  However no one could meet our specifications.  So we ended
>> > up
>> > using the Western Electric 111C “repeat coil” since this device is known
>> to
>> > significantly reduce Group Delay https://www.jmu.edu/wmra-eng/
>> > archive/repeatcoil.pdf
>> >
>> > To guard against inaccuracies in the eclipse schedule, we agreed to >
>> begin
>> > recording at both monitoring stations at 0301 UTC July 27th, and to
>> > conclude at 1921 UTC, September 31st.  For the SDRs, 5600 Terabyte
>> storage
>> > devices were acquired from Best Buy.
>> >
>> > Since we will be measuring signals expected to be at the very limits of
>> > receiver noise performance, we spent a good deal of time thinking about
>> > continuous battery power since, because of possible eclipse-schedule
>> > inaccuracies, we don’t want to stop the recordings during the above
>> period,
>> > lest we miss something.  Fortunately we were able to negotiate access to
>> > the battery rooms of the phone companies at our respective locations.
>> For
>> > Nick, that’s BC Telus (formerly BC Tel; formerly the Victoria & >
>> Esquimalt
>> > Telephone Company and the New Westminster & Burrard Inlet Telephone
>> > Company) and, for me, the Upsala MN Telephone Company (formerly the
>> Upsala
>> > MN Telephone Company).  Connectivity to these battery rooms will use
>> > fabric-covered 

Re: [IRCA] TWO DX-ERS AND THE ECLIPSE

[Mark Mobile]

A friend reminded me that we probably should specify oxygen-depleted copper 
for the Cat 5.  We think oxygen-depleted copper is necessary for a uniform 
velocity factor in pair 3 of a copper wire cable.''



Cheers!

Mark Durenberger, mobile


-Original Message- 
From: Neil Kazaross

Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2017 10:20 AM
To: Mailing list for the International Radio Club of America
Subject: Re: [IRCA] TWO DX-ERS AND THE ECLIPSE

No joke here, Walt. Mark got a really great deal on surplus CAT 5 in bulk
and I've spent three weeks doing almost nothing but modelling the setup in
EZNEC.  73 KAZ

On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 3:13 PM, Volodya S  wrote:


Surely this is a joke.  it's not even April.  A 2k km CAT 5 line between
your SDRs, and it's a mighty large Terabyte storage you have!   ;-)   Walt

On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 12:02 PM, Mark Mobile 
wrote:

> There's been a lot of chatter in the Ham newsletters and the scientific
> community about RF-signal measurements during the August 21st eclipse.
But
> not much has appeared in the “DX” newsletters.  In the hope of
stimulating
> an exchange about proposed listening methodologies, we want to share the
> eclipse-monitoring plan of two DX-ers...Nick Hall-Patch and myself.
>
> We plan to take advantage of a technology that wasn't available during
the
> last major eclipse: the Software-Defined Radio (SDR).  To give all
signals
> an equal chance, the Medium-Wave antennas used will be high-gain
> omni-directional.  The SDR listening posts at Nick's Victoria British
> Columbia home and my cabin in North-Central Minnesota will be connected
by
> a balanced wire-pair, with the separated antennas forming a
> Very-Long-Baseline Eclipse-Catcher Array ("VLBECA").  RF measurements
will
> be taken from 9.01 kHz through 66.666 MHz in 1.1-Hz increments.
>
> For connectivity between us to form the VLBECA, we will use pair 3
> (green/white) of special Cat-5 cable with pink jacketing.  (From our
recent
> desert DXPedition we found the pink outer jacket to be the best color 
> for

> optimal velocity factor in the Cat-5, and we were already aware that an
> odd-numbered pair would maintain better polarity.)
>
> The exact distance between our two locations is 1,359.37 miles (or
> 2187.69395328 kilometers if you're Canadian).  Since there are a lot 
> less

> miles than kilometers along the VLBECA, we chose to save money by buying
> the connecting cable by the mile rather than the kilometer, and that
meant
> purchasing our Cat-5 in the United States.
>
> Further input on velocity factor from the National Bureau of Standards
> (NBS) led us to choose stranded rather than solid wire for the Cat-5.
This
> created some contention between Nick and myself, since stranded copper 
> is

> more expensive.  However, when we realized the Cat-5 route took us
through
> the Bakken Oil Fields of North Dakota, we knew the superior mechanical
> performance of stranded wire would provide additional integrity against
> rough handling.
>
> For Cat-5 pair 3 termination consistency on the two ends, we asked for
> bids for a pair of 2.2:1 matching transformers that would match the
Cat-5’s
> native 110-ohm impedance to the 50-ohm input of the 273 dB-gain RF
> amplifier.  However no one could meet our specifications.  So we ended 
> up

> using the Western Electric 111C “repeat coil” since this device is known
to
> significantly reduce Group Delay https://www.jmu.edu/wmra-eng/
> archive/repeatcoil.pdf
>
> To guard against inaccuracies in the eclipse schedule, we agreed to 
> begin

> recording at both monitoring stations at 0301 UTC July 27th, and to
> conclude at 1921 UTC, September 31st.  For the SDRs, 5600 Terabyte
storage
> devices were acquired from Best Buy.
>
> Since we will be measuring signals expected to be at the very limits of
> receiver noise performance, we spent a good deal of time thinking about
> continuous battery power since, because of possible eclipse-schedule
> inaccuracies, we don’t want to stop the recordings during the above
period,
> lest we miss something.  Fortunately we were able to negotiate access to
> the battery rooms of the phone companies at our respective locations.
For
> Nick, that’s BC Telus (formerly BC Tel; formerly the Victoria & 
> Esquimalt

> Telephone Company and the New Westminster & Burrard Inlet Telephone
> Company) and, for me, the Upsala MN Telephone Company (formerly the
Upsala
> MN Telephone Company).  Connectivity to these battery rooms will use
> fabric-covered lamp cord acquired from Mark Connelly.  We believe the
color
> of the lamp cord fabric will not impact the Group Delay.
>
> Once the recordings have been made (assuming there really IS an eclipse)
> Nick and I will meet in Salt Lake City Saturday October 7th late 
> afteroon
> to review all the recordings, and we plan to publish our results here 
> and

> in QEX on Sunday October 8th.
>
> Please let us know if you think we’ve missed anything in our planning.
> 

Re: [IRCA] Duluth, Minnesota, call change

[John Sampson]

Appears to be NBC Sports.


> On Jul 15, 2017, at 9:46 PM, Forrester S  wrote:
> 
> Whats their format now?
> 
> Todd Skaine

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contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the IRCA, its 
editors, publishing staff, or officers

For more information: http://www.ircaonline.org

To Post a message: irca@hard-core-dx.com

Re: [IRCA] TWO DX-ERS AND THE ECLIPSE

[Neil Kazaross]

No joke here, Walt. Mark got a really great deal on surplus CAT 5 in bulk
and I've spent three weeks doing almost nothing but modelling the setup in
EZNEC.  73 KAZ

On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 3:13 PM, Volodya S  wrote:

> Surely this is a joke.  it's not even April.  A 2k km CAT 5 line between
> your SDRs, and it's a mighty large Terabyte storage you have!   ;-)   Walt
>
> On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 12:02 PM, Mark Mobile 
> wrote:
>
> > There's been a lot of chatter in the Ham newsletters and the scientific
> > community about RF-signal measurements during the August 21st eclipse.
> But
> > not much has appeared in the “DX” newsletters.  In the hope of
> stimulating
> > an exchange about proposed listening methodologies, we want to share the
> > eclipse-monitoring plan of two DX-ers...Nick Hall-Patch and myself.
> >
> > We plan to take advantage of a technology that wasn't available during
> the
> > last major eclipse: the Software-Defined Radio (SDR).  To give all
> signals
> > an equal chance, the Medium-Wave antennas used will be high-gain
> > omni-directional.  The SDR listening posts at Nick's Victoria British
> > Columbia home and my cabin in North-Central Minnesota will be connected
> by
> > a balanced wire-pair, with the separated antennas forming a
> > Very-Long-Baseline Eclipse-Catcher Array ("VLBECA").  RF measurements
> will
> > be taken from 9.01 kHz through 66.666 MHz in 1.1-Hz increments.
> >
> > For connectivity between us to form the VLBECA, we will use pair 3
> > (green/white) of special Cat-5 cable with pink jacketing.  (From our
> recent
> > desert DXPedition we found the pink outer jacket to be the best color for
> > optimal velocity factor in the Cat-5, and we were already aware that an
> > odd-numbered pair would maintain better polarity.)
> >
> > The exact distance between our two locations is 1,359.37 miles (or
> > 2187.69395328 kilometers if you're Canadian).  Since there are a lot less
> > miles than kilometers along the VLBECA, we chose to save money by buying
> > the connecting cable by the mile rather than the kilometer, and that
> meant
> > purchasing our Cat-5 in the United States.
> >
> > Further input on velocity factor from the National Bureau of Standards
> > (NBS) led us to choose stranded rather than solid wire for the Cat-5.
> This
> > created some contention between Nick and myself, since stranded copper is
> > more expensive.  However, when we realized the Cat-5 route took us
> through
> > the Bakken Oil Fields of North Dakota, we knew the superior mechanical
> > performance of stranded wire would provide additional integrity against
> > rough handling.
> >
> > For Cat-5 pair 3 termination consistency on the two ends, we asked for
> > bids for a pair of 2.2:1 matching transformers that would match the
> Cat-5’s
> > native 110-ohm impedance to the 50-ohm input of the 273 dB-gain RF
> > amplifier.  However no one could meet our specifications.  So we ended up
> > using the Western Electric 111C “repeat coil” since this device is known
> to
> > significantly reduce Group Delay https://www.jmu.edu/wmra-eng/
> > archive/repeatcoil.pdf
> >
> > To guard against inaccuracies in the eclipse schedule, we agreed to begin
> > recording at both monitoring stations at 0301 UTC July 27th, and to
> > conclude at 1921 UTC, September 31st.  For the SDRs, 5600 Terabyte
> storage
> > devices were acquired from Best Buy.
> >
> > Since we will be measuring signals expected to be at the very limits of
> > receiver noise performance, we spent a good deal of time thinking about
> > continuous battery power since, because of possible eclipse-schedule
> > inaccuracies, we don’t want to stop the recordings during the above
> period,
> > lest we miss something.  Fortunately we were able to negotiate access to
> > the battery rooms of the phone companies at our respective locations.
> For
> > Nick, that’s BC Telus (formerly BC Tel; formerly the Victoria & Esquimalt
> > Telephone Company and the New Westminster & Burrard Inlet Telephone
> > Company) and, for me, the Upsala MN Telephone Company (formerly the
> Upsala
> > MN Telephone Company).  Connectivity to these battery rooms will use
> > fabric-covered lamp cord acquired from Mark Connelly.  We believe the
> color
> > of the lamp cord fabric will not impact the Group Delay.
> >
> > Once the recordings have been made (assuming there really IS an eclipse)
> > Nick and I will meet in Salt Lake City Saturday October 7th late afteroon
> > to review all the recordings, and we plan to publish our results here and
> > in QEX on Sunday October 8th.
> >
> > Please let us know if you think we’ve missed anything in our planning.
> > Nick and I are both “elderly” and we want to get this eclipse right so we
> > don’t have to wait for the next one.
> >
> >
> > Cheers!
> >
> > Mark Durenberger, mobile
> >
> > ___
> > IRCA mailing list
> > IRCA@hard-core-dx.com
> >