My WEBSDr Is Now Online.

29-04-2018 9:30pm

I went back to the 22 cm whip, the 40 cm was overloading the SDR but it still performs brilliantly for a 22 cm antenna ! :eek:

Conditions are not fantastic for weaker stations on some bands due to bad Thunderstorms on the Continent in North East France , North West Germany heading into the Netherlands. Causing lots of static.

Anyway, Bonito have discontinued the MegaActiv MA305 for the MA305FT.

The FT introduces an FM trap for areas with strong local FM stations. So it will attenuate the entire FM band buy 20-30 dB.

That probably looks like the only new feature + a claimed small improvement in the electronics but really, the MA305 is so good it doesn't really need many improvements , considering it's 22 cm it performs as good as wire antennas up to 100 feet or more and some of these antennas are much, much noisier than the Bonito Loop or MA305 whip.

Very useful for people in apartments or in small gardens or for someone who doesn't want to install a large wire antenna which can be a bit of a pain but really, from listening to a lot of SDR's online the Bonito antennas perform superbly however as always, local man made noise in built up areas might make it a lot more difficult to install the tiny MA305 and instead the MegaActiv Loop FX might be the better option.

dxhound2005 · 30-04-2018 12:04am

As a fan of medium wave you will probably be pleased to know that there is a transmitter on the air from somewhere in Ireland on 1494 kHz. It was heard in Sligo last weekend, and is fairly strong on your receiver. Carrying Laser Hot Hits on Sunday. I can't hear it in Dundalk because there is another very local pirate on the same frequency for the last few weeks.

Your receiver got another brief mention on the World of Radio report recently.

http://www.w4uvh.net/dxld1816.txt

30-04-2018 10:13am

That site is maintained by Glenn Hauser so it's pretty cool to get a mention from him ! :-) he has his own sw transmission is it on Sundays ?

Funny you mentioned Laser on 1494, I was listening to Laser briefly yesterday evening on SW around 6204 Khz if I remember correctly and they mentioned their MW frequency 1494 Khz.

As the BBC moves away from MW and other local stations in the U.K it will open up a lot of spectrum to pirates and I wonder will anyone care about pirates on MW ? I doubt it unless they gain substantial listenership.

Absolute radio got approval for reducing MW power and closure of some transmitters.

The Brits are really hell bent on killing MW but listeners don't want this and prefer MW as it works and provides good coverage.

Is it really that much cheaper to run DAB than MW ?

How many stations can you have in the DAB spectrum anyway ?

The quality of it here isn't the best but listening to RTE Gold on DAB in the car is adequate I have to say.

I much prefer analogue MW to crappy highly compressed digital any day, it sounds so bad and hard on the ears.

I wonder will many stations change to digital on MW ? probably not as you still can't buy a DRM radio. I have one, A Gospell GR-216 and it works pretty damn well.

There's a station on 1071 Khz from France testing DRM on MW but the last time I checked there was no audio, signal was good at certain times especially considering it's only 20 Kw.

28-05-2018 2:50pm

Testing new Antenna, Dennis from the company Bonito in Germany who kindly gave me a test sample of their new Megadipol MD300DX.

I'm getting some fantastic DX on MW, picking up U.K stations as little as 1 Kw at times.

Can pick up on World Music radio in Denmark on SW 5840 Khz which is just 100 watts, coming in clear at times, obviously later this evening is a better time for the 49 Meter band.

Let me know what you think of this new antenna, it's also a very quite antenna and produces excellent SNR throughout the entire SW spectrum !

http://emeraldsdr.ddns.net:8073/

amradio · 26-06-2018 11:05pm

Your SDR is great, gets lots of use!

26-06-2018 11:25pm

Cheers, thanks for that !

Yes it's getting quite popular, people from all over the world log into it and I regularly can't log in myself because it's busy lol.

I have intermittent issues which I think is coming from a neighbours transformer which is getting worse, so I asked the ESB to investigate, hopefully they will. When I go around with my portable radio it the noise , a buzzing, is loudest at the transformer but sends the noise down the electric wires.

If you use the noise blanker and set it to 100 uS and Threshold to 70% it should eliminate some noise.

29-07-2018 3:02am

There's been an update to the Kiwi SDR platform, you can read about it here, truly fascinating stuff. I'll never get bored of Shortwave !!!

https://www.rtl-sdr.com/kiwisdr-tdoa-direction-finding-now-freely-available-for-public-use/comment-page-1/#comment-108857

lets see if this works, in the 120 m Shortwave band a signal 2381 Khz, Using the heat map I was able to eliminate certain receivers out of the equation, so I used these receivers, “JO20iu websdr.ucll.be:8073” “JO10qm hainaut-picardie.ddns.net:8073 ” “JN37af javaradiofrance.ddns.net:8073”

I got this location on the map 50°24’00.0″N 4°15’00.0″E a location in Belgium.

After a little hunting I saw the shadow of this rather large Antenna in at this exact location, 50°22’55.1″N 4°14’31.4″E , only for the shadow it would be rather difficult to find and the antenna is large.

So what do people reckon , is this the signal I hear on the 120 Meter SW “commercial” band of 2381 Khz ? This signal has been broadcasting for a long time and should it really be in the commercial band like so many other signals ? This could be useful for hunting down these unwanted signals in the broadcast bands.

If this is the signal from this transmitter then I must say that I’m bloody well impressed !!!

Seán MacSuibhne · 29-07-2018 11:23am

Well god bless your eyesight! All I see is trees here:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/50%C2%B024'00.0%22N+4%C2%B015'00.0%22E/@50.4000034,4.2494519,119m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d50.4!4d4.25

29-07-2018 8:23pm

Deleted User wrote: »

There's been an update to the Kiwi SDR platform, you can read about it here, truly fascinating stuff. I'll never get bored of Shortwave !!!

https://www.rtl-sdr.com/kiwisdr-tdoa-direction-finding-now-freely-available-for-public-use/comment-page-1/#comment-108857

lets see if this works, in the 120 m Shortwave band a signal 2381 Khz, Using the heat map I was able to eliminate certain receivers out of the equation, so I used these receivers, “JO20iu websdr.ucll.be:8073” “JO10qm hainaut-picardie.ddns.net:8073 ” “JN37af javaradiofrance.ddns.net:8073”

I got this location on the map 50°24’00.0″N 4°15’00.0″E a location in Belgium.

After a little hunting I saw the shadow of this rather large Antenna in at this exact location, 50°22’55.1″N 4°14’31.4″E , only for the shadow it would be rather difficult to find and the antenna is large.

So what do people reckon , is this the signal I hear on the 120 Meter SW “commercial” band of 2381 Khz ? This signal has been broadcasting for a long time and should it really be in the commercial band like so many other signals ? This could be useful for hunting down these unwanted signals in the broadcast bands.

If this is the signal from this transmitter then I must say that I’m bloody well impressed !!!

Seán MacSuibhne wrote: »

Well god bless your eyesight! All I see is trees here:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/50%C2%B024'00.0%22N+4%C2%B015'00.0%22E/@50.4000034,4.2494519,119m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d50.4!4d4.25

Lol look again, I gave two sets of ordinates, the first was the one the program gave me on the SDR and the 2nd was after some hunting.

This is the GPS coordinates of the transmitter exactly. 50°22’55.1″N 4°14’31.4″E

It won't pin point the exact location like GPS.

I tried other signals last night and I wasn't as successful because you need more receivers in some locations.

Open my SDR http://emeraldsdr.ddns.net:8073/

The trick is to find a signal on the SDR, say a strange digital signal, then open extension" TDoA" double click on some sdr's on the map and see if they're receiving the signal, if it's stronger than it's being received on say, My SDR then you know it's closer to the signal, next try a few other SDR's around it in a circle and see if those are equally as strong , then click on "Submit" on the bottom left of the screen in the little window.

Then after it finishes it will show a map with a estimate of where the signal is, it will be in a red sort of zone or hot spot where the signal is thought ot come from, so then you try other receivers in this location , you can try 4 or 5 this time.

Then try Zoom into the map un-tick "show heatmap" so you'll be able to see the map clearly and happy hunting.

I guess I got lucky because the antenna was pretty tall and creating a large shadow.

What you can try do is to google transmitter sites such as BBC or RTE LW 252 Site and have a look on satellite on google maps to give you an idea of the type of thing to look out for.

dxhound2005 · 29-07-2018 10:33pm

I saw the other forum where you were advised that the signal is the Dutch Navy. It is also on this list.

http://qrg.globaltuners.com/?q=STANAG+4285&s=1

The 120 metre band is not allocated for broadcasting in Region One, Europe, Russia, Africa. So it can be used by utility stations.

29-07-2018 10:53pm

dxhound2005 wrote: »

I saw the other forum where you were advised that the signal is the Dutch Navy. It is also on this list.

http://qrg.globaltuners.com/?q=STANAG+4285&s=1

The 120 metre band is not allocated for broadcasting in Region One, Europe, Russia, Africa. So it can be used by utility stations.

Thanks, I see the reply now, I didn't get an email notification of a reply.

Oh well, better luck next time. I guess I'll have to play with it more.

30-07-2018 12:21am

Here's a gread PDF on how to use the plugin, nice to see my receiver being used for this haha.

https://dk8ok.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/tdoa_firstexperiences5.pdf

Seán MacSuibhne · 02-08-2018 2:20am

OK I see now. Sorry for that. Will have great fun with this in a few days

Seán

02-08-2018 9:44am

Seán MacSuibhne wrote: »

OK I see now. Sorry for that. Will have great fun with this in a few days

Seán

Yeah it's pretty cool, the greatest issue is the lack of Kiwi SDRs which will hopefully grow over the years but still, I got to within 40 miles of WWCRs transmitter at the Cumberland River in Nashville, with more playing around I might have got closer. I think it was nearer Clarksville where it dropped the pin on the map.

I think the trick is to eliminate all those in the green part of the results map and not use those for that particular transmitter again.

What I did for WWCR, I think it was 5890 Khz or something close, was to use a Kiwi in The east of the U.S, one in Europe and one in Asia and it pointed me in the direction of North America so then I used only U.S Kiwis and then got closer to Nashville.

You can practice with say, BBC R4 on LW 198 Khz, look up where the exact transmitter location and then compare your results.

Let me know how you get on. have fun !

09-08-2018 10:09pm

I've major QRM from ESB line somewhere, I thought I found the pole responsible but now I'm not so sure.

If anyone can tell me how to get the ESB to fix this please let me know, I contacted them several weeks ago with a link to my SDR and an audio recording and they hadn't got the decency to contact me, apart from an Acknowledgement email that's all I heard.

I also believe it's effecting my 4G internet !

It's intermittent but it at times it's pretty constant.

It's getting worse. It's hardly detectable now but was very bad a while ago and funny enough my internet works ok now.

09-08-2018 10:22pm

11272 Khz now, not as bad as it was and sounds a bit different.

http://emeraldsdr.ddns.net:8073/

dxhound2005 · 25-11-2018 11:25pm

Plenty of good reception on medium wave from North America. Better on the SDR in Donegal. 930 kHz is an easy one from Canada. Stations are every 10 kHz starting at 550 up to 1700 kHz, but there are some channels e.g. 630 and 900 which are also European. If it can be divided by 9 it is European.

http://malinsdr.ddns.net:8073/

I thought it must be another USA or Canada station on 570 kHz but it turns out to be Greenland. Confirmed from their website audio. I can also receive this on my ordinary radio in Dundalk.

https://knr.gl/kl/knr-radio

26-11-2018 12:00am

Yep good SDR, beverage antenna, he's a very interesting fellow, I got his Kiwi SDR online for him.

He used to work for the Coast Guard up there in Malin Head and was the radio operator of the station up there.

He's more interesting in MF around 500 Khz and operates around 500 Khz where Malin used to transmit. His beverage is good for those frequencies. I never checked it out on MW but I will.

He seems to suffer a lot less interference from Spanish stations. I hear Energy on 1395 coming in quite clear on his 120 M beverage lol.

Needless to say, the Guy from energy doesn't seem to visit my SDR nearly as much any more lol.

I could hear it fine on the megadipol antenna if it were not for some Spanish station.

26-11-2018 12:14am

I forgot to post here but if anyone doesn't know by now I have two Kiwi SDR's online now. One using the Bonito Megaloop FX using 10 meters of wire and a MegaDipol inverted dipole, both from Bonito in Germany, good antennas, low noise.

The Megaloop is better for local Ham operators on 80 meters and the Megadipol seems to do better above say 40 meters ham but it's interesting to compare the two.

The Megadipol kindly sent to me to test out from Dennis Walters of Bonito Germany !

The two antennas can really help dig DX signals out.

Here they are here.

Megaloop FX [URL="emeraldsdr1.ddns.net:8073"]emeraldsdr1.ddns.net:8073[/URL]

MegaDipol [URL="emeraldsdr.ddns.net:8074"]emeraldsdr.ddns.net:8074[/URL]

26-11-2018 12:30am

I hear 930 Khz in Canada at times on the Malin SDR , switch between LSB and USB and it can sometimes come in clearer as it reduced some QRM from adjacent stations.

I can hear it on mine sometimes but not as good.

27-11-2018 1:05am

malinsdr antenna is now 200 meters long ! fair play to him. I will update his sdr to reflect the antenna soon, it's still showing 120 meters.

hearing U.S station at 1390 and 1400 Khz.

icom · 02-12-2018 3:24pm

Deleted User wrote: »

Yep good SDR, beverage antenna, he's a very interesting fellow, I got his Kiwi SDR online for him.

He used to work for the Coast Guard up there in Malin Head and was the radio operator of the station up there.

station.

Nice fella, did my morse code test up there in 1987, he was the tester.

icom · 02-12-2018 10:26pm

CJYQ (930 Kixx Country) loud on 930Khz right now from Canada on the Malin SDR, some fading from time to time.

Also listening on their website to confirm.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CJYQ

icom · 02-12-2018 11:02pm

1660 Khz Malin SDR - WQLR Kalamazoo Michigan - Deep fading

Live American Football now

Kalamazoo's Sports Radio
1660 AM Kalamazoo, MI

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WQLR

01:01 Malin SDR
1640 KHz WTNI BILOXI, Mississippi (The Champ Sports Radio) Football Game

01:25 Malin SDR
WINS (1010 kHz) New York - World International News Service 50KW - Chat Radio

01:34 Malin SDR
WXKS (1200 kHz, "Talk 1200") Newton, Massachusetts 50 KW - under a UK station

dxhound2005 · 19-12-2018 12:03am

A good time to listen to trans Atlantic medium wave at this time of year is around dawn. The propagation from the West can peak then and signals from the East are fading out. This cuts down some of the high power stuff from Europe. When Saudi disappears off 1440 kHz, weak signals from America can be heard. The strongest signals with me on a consistent basis are 590, 750, 830, 1010 and 1130. 1130 is WBBR which identifies as Bloomberg Radio. Signals fade out gradually but can often be heard until noon or beyond. As always everything depends on conditions. Instead of using SSB to minimise interference, it can be better to tune a bit off frequency in Narrow AM mode, e.g. tune to 731 kHz to improve reception on 730.

On a different subject, some people may not know that the online SDR's can decode various digital signals. These can be selected from the Extension drop down menu. Navtex on 518 and 490 kHz is a good place to start. These are navigational notices for shipping, broadcast at set times from coastal stations. The signals from Malin Head and Valentia Radio are very strong in Ireland. The ships and boats which use these broadcasts have dedicated Navtex receivers with built in printers to make paper copies.

http://dxinfocentre.com/navtex.htm

19-12-2018 11:22pm

Cheers, I'll check out those frequencies next time I'm back to work sometime around the 11th Jan, finished my last shift Monday morning. It's handy and a great time to catch some DX.

WHL · 20-12-2018 11:02am

Malin Head SDR seems to be down over the last few days. I see that there is a new KiwiSDR location in Kilkenny. Might be just setting up though. Tried the Volmet stations on 5450 and 5505 and nothing heard although both were strong on the Carlow one

20-12-2018 11:57am

WHL wrote: »

Malin Head SDR seems to be down over the last few days. I see that there is a new KiwiSDR location in Kilkenny. Might be just setting up though. Tried the Volmet stations on 5450 and 5505 and nothing heard although both were strong on the Carlow one

I sent the owner of Malin SDR an email to see if he's having issues, I set it up for him, remotely. Might be having some issues I can help with.

Interesting to see the Kilkenny SDR, it will be interesting to see how the end fed antenna performs, a lot of HAM operators go with traditional antennas for their Kiwis and while a lot of them are good for transmitting they can be noisy on receive.

Can't wait to see it online properly, the more the merrier.

WHL · 30-12-2018 11:22am

Malin Head hasn’t returned and the Kilkenny one seems to have disappeared. Looks like just your two Carlow ones remaining

30-12-2018 5:09pm

The Malin Kiwi owner was experimenting with antennas, he builds his own transmitters too, mainly operates CW on LF.

The issue is that if transmitting at more than a few watts it could damage the Kiwi, if I get my Amateur licence in May then I will face the same issue, it will most likely damage the two kiwi's at 100 Watts with transmitting antenna so close. So I will have to disconnect the Kiwi's when transmitting which will be a real Pain in the ass because they're in the shed and my Ham shack won't be in the shed.

This is going to complicate things a lot and the Malin Kiwi owner had not realised how much of an issue this can be so I guess he will connect it back up in the new year, I'd imagine he's a bit busy this time of the year.

I don't know what the story is with the Kilkenny SDR, again, probably too busy this time of the year.

11-01-2019 10:59pm

http://93.89.254.25:8073/

Listen to Zenith Radio 5850 Khz, see how strong it on the Kilkenny SDR, can hardly be heard on mine or on one of the U.K SDR's but can be heard decent in the Netherlands, http://kiwi-sdr1-leiden.impactam.nl:8073/

Never heard of this before, their site says Waterford but no mention of Shortwave.

Obviously due to propagation the signal being transmitted in Ireland is going right over Ireland and the U.K and landing in the Netherlands and probably further.

11-01-2019 11:09pm

His antenna, the DX Commander vertical doesn't seem to be picking up anything really ?

dxhound2005 · 11-01-2019 11:55pm

There must be a transmitter on the Continent and another very low power one near the Kilkenny SDR location. The signal is 50 dB over S9 and there is no way that it would not be heard by your receiver if it was the signal which is reaching Holland. That is not how propagation behaves on 49 metres at night in wintertime.

There is also a hobby pirate transmitting from Dundalk, mostly on 1611 kHz but sometimes on 6318. Massively strong signal in the town, but inaudible about 10 miles out, indicating a very low power operation.

12-01-2019 3:40am

dxhound2005 wrote: »

There must be a transmitter on the Continent and another very low power one near the Kilkenny SDR location. The signal is 50 dB over S9 and there is no way that it would not be heard by your receiver if it was the signal which is reaching Holland. That is not how propagation behaves on 49 metres at night in wintertime.

There is also a hobby pirate transmitting from Dundalk, mostly on 1611 kHz but sometimes on 6318. Massively strong signal in the town, but inaudible about 10 miles out, indicating a very low power operation.

No I don't think so because on the continent the signal was not nearly as strong, I couldn't find any sdr that had the signal nearly as strong and on the same frequency ?

What would be the point of a very low power transmitter that can't be heard very far away in Ireland ?

Interesting.......

WHL · 18-02-2019 8:40am

I see that the Malin Head SDR has returned. Nice addition

18-02-2019 10:00am

WHL wrote: »

I see that the Malin Head SDR has returned. Nice addition

Yes, his antenna is 200 meters long beverage, great for LW/MW Dx'ing.

He's more interested in this part of the spectrum and below.

WHL · 18-02-2019 9:20pm

That’s good to know. Thanks Mad Lad. Must try some transatlantic DX on it

18-02-2019 9:27pm

WHL wrote: »

That’s good to know. Thanks Mad Lad. Must try some transatlantic DX on it

Maybe dxhound2005 will come along and update us with any more U.S stations he's heard ?

dxhound2005 · 18-02-2019 10:59pm

The high power Dutch transmitter on 1008 kHz is gone, which opens up 1010 for transatlantic reception. Spain is on 1008, but can be nulled out making WINS New York very clear at times. There is another US or Canada station which competes with WINS at times. Some nights/mornings there is no reception, it all depends on the conditions. The other most consistent station is probably VOCM Canada 590 kHz.

Good to see the Donegal SDR back, but when I checked it now there are no signals. Maybe the antenna is not connected.

http://www.southgatearc.org/news/2018/december/am-stations-fall-silent.htm#.XGso3ej7SUk

19-02-2019 12:25am

dxhound2005 wrote: »

The high power Dutch transmitter on 1008 kHz is gone, which opens up 1010 for transatlantic reception. Spain is on 1008, but can be nulled out making WINS New York very clear at times. There is another US or Canada station which competes with WINS at times. Some nights/mornings there is no reception, it all depends on the conditions. The other most consistent station is probably VOCM Canada 590 kHz.

Good to see the Donegal SDR back, but when I checked it now there are no signals. Maybe the antenna is not connected.

http://www.southgatearc.org/news/2018/december/am-stations-fall-silent.htm#.XGso3ej7SUk

If he's transmitting he will have to remove the antenna from the SDR to prevent damage from the strong signal.

This will be a challenge for me also if I pass my Amateur Radio test in May.

19-02-2019 1:23am

Canadian station 1010 Khz coming in strong on the Malin SDR, can hear it strong on mine too at times but I get more interference from Spanish stations where I live.

The good thing about SDR's is that you can null out neighboring stations unless they are too close.

19-02-2019 1:36am

Malin SDR pulling in U.S hams well from 3.9 Mhz to 3.95 Mhz.

I got a lot of ESB generated QRM which I have to investigate.

19-02-2019 7:15am

Malin SDR picking up some U.S / Canada stations pretty strong, some fading and interference at times.

1010 Khz, two stations on this frequency both strong. One station CBS I think it is, almost S10 peaking S20 !
1020 Khz lots of fading

What's very interesting is that the Spanish station is blasting on my sdr on 1008 Khz and hardly audible on Malin,

19-02-2019 7:36am

U.S/Canadian station on 660 Khz

icom · 20-02-2019 12:03am

Malin SDR - VOCM (Voice of The Common Man) strong on 590 kHz
St John's, Newfoundland.

Listening on their website to confirm.

Spanish station comes up strong when it fades, but most of the time it's fairly good.

icom · 20-02-2019 12:09am

Malin SDR:

WINS (1010 kHz), New York 50 KW
Talk Sports, fading in and out but getting stronger now

dxhound2005 · 20-02-2019 12:20am

Reception is poor so far tonight. CBC Radio One 750 kHz. Also on 1400.

20-02-2019 12:24am

I'll check them out later, working nights I can scan all the bands in the early hours of the mornings, :-)

icom · 20-02-2019 12:32am

dxhound2005 wrote: »

Reception is poor so far tonight. CBC Radio One 750 kHz. Also on 1400.

Yeah, last night was better on Medium Wave alright. Had a listen on the top of the 80 metre band and a few mid west stations were coming through on 3.795 working a strong station in Croatia around 2am. Checked 160 metres and heard two US hams having a ragchew before I hit the hay.

dxhound2005 · 20-02-2019 12:35am

icom wrote: »

Yeah, last night was better on Medium Wave alright. Had a listen on the top of the 80 metre band and a few mid west stations were coming through on 3.795 working a strong station in Croatia around 2am. Checked 160 metres and heard two US hams having a ragchew before I hit the hay.

Check the X (Extra) Band as well 1600 to 1700, 10 kHz channels. The transmitters are weaker, but they are clear channels. Except for some Dutch and Greek pirates in between, and Coast stations in SSB with maritime notices.

My WEBSDr Is Now Online.

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