472KHz Sunday CW Net

[Ham4CW]

While in conversation with GM0WEZ the subject of a CW net of 472KHz came up. I didn't even realise this was a 'thing' so I thought I would have a go to see if I could here anything.

Because I only had short notice of this event there was not much time to set up anything efficient, so I resorted to trying a Tecsun PL-365 handheld receiver, and used the extended ferrite rod I have for it.

Guess what , it actually worked! Although there were various noises from PSU, TVs, PCs and gawd knows what else polluting the band I did manage to hear the net down there.

Readability was varying from R1 to R3 at absolute best due to all of the QRM, but I managed to catch (I think), G3FGJ, G4XIZ, and M0JXM (apologies if I misheard any of the calls).

In order to find a clearer signal I ventured away from the house to the bottom of the garden, where I did find the QRM to be much weaker. However, a neighbours dog who is a member of the anti-CW league decided to 'jam' the signal by barking his tail off! bh

Oh well, it's a start I guess. bd

73, Mark...

 

[GM0WEZ]

FB Mark. Radcom had reported a conventional (not QRSS) CW activity net around 9am Sundays - unfortunately I missed it!. I will have a listen next week with SDR fed with PA0DRT mini whip and append results to this thread.

Getting a signal out is harder - I have the QRP Labs Ultimate 3S with 472kHz output filter, though that is very QRP for this band. And at present I just have a vertical so I'd need to reconfigure it as an inverted L. Which might be worth doing anyway now as winter is coming and I spend more time on the lower bands.

I have had good MW results with portable SW receiver (Sony SW7600) and a Tecsun MW loop (about a foot across) simply held near it. I don't know if it will tune to 472kHZ but I think probably not. Some homebrew might be necessary.

Canine QRM is an issue at this QTH too. We have a pug, Monty, and for some reason CW sets him off. I suppose he thinks it sounds like the doorbell.

 

[Ham4CW]

Well, I had another quick listen again this morning, and even with heavy QRM from a neighbours' washing machine and various other sources of Chinese origin, I managed to hear some of the Sunday morning net on 473kHz in the UK.

I also decided to have a look and see if the stations were showing up on one of the MF grabbers, lo and behold they were.

The image below if from G3YXM Dave Picks' excellent grabber that can be found at http://www.wireless.org.uk/grab/

The page auto-refreshes approx. every 5 minutes to display the latest upload from Dave's monitoring station located in the Birmingham area of the UK. The page has images from the 472kHz grabber and the 136kHz grabber that he runs.

If you look at the 472khz band grab below it's possible to see the trace from one of the stations at 473,000 Hz (473 kHz) on the image (red broken line).

73, Mark...