KONG53 Day Three - alt-Loran Resolved!

The previous night and day was not bad at all. It started off early on with logs like WDZY-VA 1290, WFIF-CT 1500 and WHGT-MD 1590, peaking at 05z with lots of west or near-west coast stations, most notably KNBR-CA 680, KALL-UT 700, KCBS-CA 740, KABC-CA 790, KRLV-NV 920, KWSW-CA 980, KRSK-OR 1080, KJJC-UT 1230 and several others. In the afternoon a few New Zealand stations showed up like Newstalk ZB-1026 and 1035, RNZ National-1143 and a strong signal from Te Upoko o Te Ika 1161, 

 As mentioned in yesterday's blogpost, the alt-Loran 1000-metre beverage site was a major disappointment when we tested the signal levels after deploying the antenna yesterday. We couldn't pinpoint the cause, although we knew that a new installment nearby had the potential of disturbing reception. That was something we could do nothing about. What we could do was to check our own equipment. First and foremost: Could it be a faulty transformer? The DX-Engineering transformer was quite old, so we decided to test one of our brand new transformers from Jan, OK2ZAW.

And did the trick! Obviously the DX-Engineering transformer was not up to the task any more. With the new transformer, we see a noise floor of typically -135 dBm or lower. Now, we're hoping that propagation will stay good, with lots of catches from the eastern part of North America.

Today's hero

With a noise floor like that a preamp would have come in handy during sunrise and sun up conditions. Unfortunately, we have an NDB nearby on 399 booming in with -27 dBm, and on the other end of the range just below 1700 a marine info station at a similar signal level. Those combined will cause intermodulation and could also cause saturation if the antenna input is amplified.

Before we drove to alt-Loran, I did a brief antenna inspection. There were some issues to sort out, but they can wait for better (drier) weather. The first picture below is from the end point of one of the dual-340 beverages. the second is from - well - somewhere nearby

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Dinner: Sausages! But not just any sausages, they were locally produced near Ole's home town. We had four types: Frankfurter, Umami, Garlic and Chorizo. Served with a home-made paste of mashed potatoes, regionally grown. We enjoyded a Scarpa Piemonte red wine with the sausages. For dessert, Bjarne's blueberry (bilberry) pie, made from super-local bilberries (literally from just outside the front door). Served with vanilla sauce and Amaretto.

And Ole finished his first sourdough bread, with success!

Bilberry pie

Monday morning update:

Image taken at 05:26, 10 minutes before sunrise. Windy overnight, and milder so most of the snow is gone. But it's going to be a rainy day.

Good conditions overnight, and alt-Loran seems to be very much in business, judging from the Jaguar Yaslog created at the remote PC. More details in my next blogpost.