From: gsantull@xxxxxxxxxxx
To: irca@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2011 13:36:53 -0400
Subject: Re: [IRCA] OFF TOPIC: Honolulu Band Scan
April 9, 2011
Mixing business with pleasure. Playing with the Kia Sedona rental car
radio, while waiting for someone to come and meet me resulted in
"expected" stations. Was amazed that the only other island AMer heard was
from nearby Lihue, Kaui. I remember one time I was in Honolulu and could
hear the West Coast stations during Hawaii daytime. Think car radios were
better in those days, at least they had external antennas! Could be
crappy Sedona AM section of the radio.
Here is what I heard. Asterisk is the "assumed" station calls, since many
didn't give them, preferring AM 650 etc. All were from Honolulu or Oahu
with the exception of KUAI/720 from Eleele, Kauai.
Keep in mind this is not a scientific "bandscan", just what I heard
sitting in my car at Ala Moana Park, Honolulu. No sign of KORL, wherever
they are. I was trying to hear the calls, a nostalgic listen since it was
my only Hawaiian station ever heard from Mainland, from New Jersey in the
60's and later from California in the 70's. Thought they were on some
frequency, but did not hear them. The Star Advertiser newspaper did not
list radio stations as they once did.
590 KSSK Oldies
650 KRTR Oldies
690 KHNR News/Talk
720 KUAI Mix of Hawaiian, AC and CW, very weak.
760 KGU Bloomberg Financial
830 KHVH Talk
880 KHCM Chinese?
940 KKNE AM 940, Hawaiian mx
990 KIKI Hawaiian mx and some talk
1040 KLHT Religious
1080 KWAI IRN news
1130 KPHI Spanish?
1210 KZOO Japanese
1270 KNDI Pacific Nations (Filipino, Vietnamese etc)
1370 KUPA Fox Sports
1420 KKEA University of Hawaii Sports
1460 KHRA Hawaiian
1500 KHKA Sports
1540 KREA Korean
George A. Santulli
Lovettsville, VA but on the road in Honolulu
> Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2011 06:48:53 -0700
> From: wb2bjh@xxxxxxxxx
> To: irca@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [IRCA] Working on the problem
>
> Using the two loops on the same frame will degrade the performance for
> the MW portion and probably the SW portion as well. This is because the
> proximity of the windings pretty much ensures that each will 'see' the
> other and therefore the resulting patterns will be somewhat skewed and
> the nulls likely reduced.
>
> I've used two air core MW loops in my basement shack - one 4' the other
> 2' for over 20 years and found that I needed to keep them about 4'
> apart in order to minimize unwanted interaction.
>
>
> Russ Edmunds
> 15 mi NNW of Philadelphia
> Grid FN20id
> <wb2bjh@xxxxxxxxx>
> FM: Yamaha T-80 & Onkyo T-450RDS w/ APS9B @15'; Grundig G8
> AM: Modified Sony ICF 2010's barefoot
>
>
> --- On Sun, 4/10/11, Tim Hills <thills@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > From: Tim Hills <thills@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Subject: [IRCA] Working on the problem
> > To: Shortwave-SWL-Antenna@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
> > Hard-Core-DX@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Mailing list for the International
> > Radio Club of America" <irca@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Date: Sunday, April 10, 2011, 1:21 AM
> > Thunderstorms moving through tonight.
> > Thought I'd jot down what I've learned and see if anyone has
> > any thoughts on improvements or something else I might try,
> > other than moving....
> >
> > I've been experimenting a bit with pulling usable signals
> > out of the RF soup I live in and thought I'd share some of
> > what I have found works so far. If you haven't seen my
> > earlier posts I have 3 5KW+ MW stations beaming directional
> > converging in my back yard and hash from high voltage lines
> > 60' from the house. Plus the usual semi-urban noise,
> > routers, street lights, etc. Also, my "shack" is in the
> > basement in conductive ground and the house has the
> > chickenwire reinforced plaster. Small lot and I want to be
> > as invisible as possible, everything in the low attic
> > preferably. It's a challenge but it's keeping me out of
> > mischief and honing skills I haven't used in a couple of
> > decades. ;)
> >
> > Changing both the preamp and loop from an unbalanced to
> > balanced design really cut down the power line hash and
> > going from JFETs (J310s) to MOSFETs (3N200s) with
> > appropriate changes in biasing on the inputs pretty much
> > cured the intermod problems and gives a much wider gain
> > control. The BF199 bipolars are the same in the output
> > stage. 10mA quiescent collector current gives best results.
> >
> > Air core and spiral windings seem more immune to the common
> > mode noise from the power lines than a solenoid and with a
> > tighter null. The lower common mode noise was counter
> > intuitive to me but I think the lower distributed
> > capacitance. It seems that in high ambient environments
> > ferrite rods have their own quirks that I plan on
> > investigating later.
> >
> > Right now I have 2 loops on the same wooden frame. 14 turns
> > CT covers the MW band, 4 turns CT covers from 3.5MHz to a
> > bit over 10MHz. 4 MVAM109s in series/parallel for remote
> > tuning, no pickup loop the signal is taken off the tuned
> > loop directly through the very high Z inputs of the preamp.
> > It's hung on a covered porch when in use with power, tuning
> > and gain controls running through Cat. 6 cable.
> >
> > Still working on the phased loop array. Better than 20 dB
> > front/back ratio so far at 1000 KHz.
> >
> > No formal logs kept so far but I'm having more fun
> > building than listening. Catch a station, go upstairs, turn
> > the loop, is it better or worse? I need to get a
> > rotator....
> >
> > When I get something workable by the average homebrewer
> > I'll post schematics and pics. When I work out the details
> > of the preamp if there's enough interest I'll make kits
> > available at cost/actual shipping.
> >
> > Now, about that twin coax the previous owners had hooked to
> > that dish....
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
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> > staff, or officers
> >
> > For more information: http://www.ircaonline.org
> >
> > To Post a message: irca@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >
> >
>
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>
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