FZ!

Yes, I'm hearing the familiar FZ for the first time since summer. My time has been consumed by much work / overtime and such, but manage to turn the FRG on once in a while.

slacker

Yes, I'm a slacker. I finally hit 100 NDBs, did I blog? no..... I have hower worked ridiculous overtime, so I'll use that as an excuse. Tomorrow, 23OCT FZ is supposedly supposed to awaken from its long slumber since the summer. Is it bad that that is my excitement planned for tomorrow? Maybe I just need a hobby. errrr.... wait. This IS my hobby. Anyway up to 103 unique NDBs and finally plunked down a few bucks for a better set of 'phones. Radioshack has their 40 or 50 dollar "race headphones" on clearance for $20... great headset! gel earpads, the behind the head spring with strap over the head. seals out the outside noise and just feels damn secure. Sounds fine too! So tomorrow I'll await with baited breath for the return of FZ and suppose I'll blog yay or nay.

LF is alive!

You've all been there..... 4am and you awake to nature calling. Most just go back to bed after, but not me. It's a perfect time to ambush those beacons! Just to reiterate the awesomeness of the new antenna I'll point out that my early morn' listening event netted me 14 new beacons :) Now I realize that these longer nights are starting to help too, but if I credit mainly the antenna I feel better about the $$ I shelled out for it. Even during the week these middle-of-the-night awakenings account for most of my catches lately. I flip on the FRG late evening quite a bit, but those wee hours seem to be much more productive.
Another thing of note is 454 Khz. I began to hear what at first I beleived was local noise. But the more I listened to the bursts the more I thought it may be some form of data. After much searching I finally stumbled upon the answer. The Hagerstown MD DGPS site is testing a new HADGPS signal. Now I can stop wondering what may be raising all that ruckus on that freq in the 'hood.

OK, so I slacked and haven't posted anything in a bit...... is anyone even reading any of this? Anyway...... FZ.... slated to be back on October 23. Guess there is a runway upgrade going on at the airport.
As for the new antenna I give it a big thumbs up!!! many new beacons, lots of noise to be expected on the outskirts of the city, but more beacons are popping out of the noise.

FZ 200Khz?

It's been over a month.... July 13 I tuned the trusty 'ol FRG to 220 Khz and nothing. I was expecting the familiar dits and dahs of FZ, literally about 8 miles away. There was never a time that I couldn't hear it. I had originally thoughr something was off kilter. Was my antenna not attached? switched off maybe? converter not on? Wrong on all accounts. Seems FZ is now silent. After a week or so I fired off an email to the airport manager that was never responded to. Maybe I'll try again, or find another contact. I'll have to look for any resource that keeps track of decomissions on the FAA website or such. So for now PYA and YKG remain the "loud ones"

LF antenna

No longer will be the days that I rely only upon a 100' (ish) wire for LF reception. I finally decided to plunk down some $$ for a nice active vertical. So now I have an LF Engineering L-400B on the way. Hopefully soon I can report on how much it outperforms the wire :)

My NDB chasing station

Kinda got into a lull for a year when I moved to an apartment complex and got away from the NDB chasing for the duration. Now that I'm out of there and have more radio freedom I have jumped back into the frequencies way down low. Went to the Rochester hamfest and walked away with a steal. Yaesu Musen FRG-7 modified by Radio West to cover 10 to 599Khz, added in 3 rockwell collins mechanical filters and gave the radio a much needed digital display. Appears they did an audio mod also to give it an extra punch. I believe it's quite a steal at $140....
Right now all I have out is 100 or so feet of wire, but for this season it's doing GREAT! should be even better when my new antenna arrives, decided to plunk down some $$ for a nice active antenna that I can get away from some of the ever present noise. After looking around I opted for the LF Engineering L-400 LF/VLF Active antenna :

http://www.lfengineering.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=LF&Product_Code=012&Category_Code=LFP

So hopefully soon I can give this thing some rave reviews! such as this one:
http://www.lfengineering.com/pdf/Monitoring%20Times%20L-400B.pdf

Where to start.....

Ah, somewhere to ramble on........ guess it is time to find something profound to say.