The Transatlantic on 2200 Meters Joe Craig, VO1NA and Alan Melia, G3NYK here has been much excite- ment below our so-called top Longing for the days when amateurs built band at 1.8 MHz. At less than T one-tenth this frequency, near their own gear and DX was big news? 136 kHz, you will find many amateurs en- joying QSOs using a variety of modes. Al- They’re back again...on the “top” top band. though US and Canadian amateurs need special permission to transmit here, there is a 2200 meter amateur band in many pared with the thickness (about 30 km) of in north Nova Scotia. Other, regularly heard European countries and in New Zealand. the daytime absorbing D-layer. Unlike HF calls in the early days of tests was the well Aside from its low frequency, the most strik- frequencies, LF has a substantial ground- known MF station of Jack, VE1ZZ and the ing thing about the 135.8-138.8 kHz band is wave service area, with the wave front being late Larry Kayser, VA3LK. its narrow width—only 2.1 kHz, barely wide bent to follow the curvature of the Earth to Daytime propagation is mainly ground enough to admit a single SSB transmission. some extent. In daytime, there is an absorb- wave, but at extreme range (in excess of Huge sources of interference are present ing ionized region, formed by photo-disso- 1500 km) there is a significant daytime in the band. In Greece, the Navy transmitter ciation, which corresponds to the D-layer ionospheric component. This has been seen SXV operates on 135.8 kHz, and in Canada (50 to 90 km) and, in general, it is consid- on the path between CT1DRP (Porto) and another Navy transmitter (CFH) is on 137.0 ered that ionospheric propagation is not an DCF39, a German utility station on 138.83 kHz. Just outside the band is the German element of daytime signals kHz located near Magdeburg, and also on station DCF39 on 138.83 kHz. These sta- Early in 1999 an FSK signal appearing certain occasions on the CFH to Europe tions have effective radiated power (ERP) nightly in the UK at 137.00 kHz was cor- path. The peak strength usually coincides levels in the tens of kilowatts and can be rectly identified by Alan, G3NYK as that with the solar zenith at mid-path. This is at heard on receivers thousands of miles away. from the Canadian Naval station, call sign approximately 1500 UTC for the CFH to At 100 kHz, there are the megawatt LORAN CFH, near Halifax in Nova Scotia. Rough Europe path, and around 1130 UTC for the (long range aid to navigation) transmitters early estimates of the path loss suggested CT to DCF path. The signal enhancement with their perpetual clatter, and above 150 that an amateur transatlantic crossing would under normal conditions on the 1950 km kHz we have the commercial long wave just be possible with the allowed 1 W ERP. DCF to CT path is about 10 dB. This en- band with powerful megawatt plus stations. Many were dubious, but only a few weeks hancement is caused by the sky-bound sig- How then can this band be of any use to the later Dave Bowman, GØMRF made the first nal being returned by the lower region of amateur experimenter? one-way LF crossing to John, VE1ZJ. Then the D-layer. Penetration of the D-layer in Amateurs have traditionally overcome days later Peter, G3LDO managed a cross- daytime subjects the wave to absorption, many obstacles in achieving their goals. band contact. Both of these events were co- so the enhancement is not as high as When regulators restricted us to the “use- incident with good received signal strength seen at night. Also, the apparent reflection less wavelengths” below 200 meters, we from CFH. John was located near Big Pond height is sure to be lower. spanned the globe. Now that we’re slowly being let above 200 meters again, we have used some modern technology and old-fash- ioned persistence to achieve amazing feats in this challenging environment on the long waves. We have even used the high power interference sources to our advantage. Propagation at 136 kHz It is generally agreed amongst the pro- fessional propagation researchers that propa- gation between 50 kHz and 150 kHz is different than both the bands above and be- low that region. The lower (VLF) frequen- Figure 1—On December 12, the Marconi and Poldhu radio clubs commemorate cies are described as propagating by a Marconi’s first transatlantic experiment. In 2003 they sent an LF signal from waveguide mode between the ground and the Newfoundland to England using very slow speed CW with dots 30 seconds long ionosphere. The waveguide mode dies out (QRSS30). Here is a screen capture of that signal received at G3NYK using Argo software. If you look carefully, you can make out white Morse characters spelling out mainly above 30 kHz and certainly above VO1NA against the noisy blue background. Argo uses Fast Fourier Transforms to get about 50 to 60 kHz. We believe this may very narrow effective bandwidths (fractions of a Hz) and is very popular with the LF due the wavelength becoming short com- crowd. More information on Argo is available on the Web at www.weaksignals.com. From July 2005 QST © ARRL Figure 2—Schematic and parts list for VO1NA’a class E LF transmitter. As explained in the text, transmitters at this frequency tend to be unique, requiring some experimentation. This transmitter was based on design ideas of several LF experimenters and tailored for parts available from VO1NA’s junk box. A very stable signal generator or TXCO may be used in place of the Marconi XH100 receiver. See the text for component details. C1—27 nF capacitor. C2—18 nF capacitor. L1—88 µH air wound inductor. L2—0.4 mH air wound inductor. L3—0.3-1.3 mH variometer. M1—50 Ω wattmeter. M2—RF ammeter, 2 A full scale (see text). M3—Drain current meter, 0-5 A dc. Q1, Q2—NPN small signal transistor, 2N4401 or equiv. Q3— PNP small signal transistor, 2N4403 or equiv. Q4—International Rectifier IRF640 N- channel MOSFET. RFC1—1.5 mH RF choke. T1—Impedance matching transformer with 5 primary turns and 13 secondary turns on a ferrite core. U1—7400 quad NAND gate. U2, U3—7490 decade counter. U4—7805 5-V regulator. At night, the photo-dissociated elec- trons in the D-layer decay (or recombine) quickly, as the darkness removes the ion- izing radiation. The “apparent reflection level” moves up to the base of the E-layer at around 90 to 100 km in altitude. The E- layer is a 24-hour layer, ionized, amongst other things, by high-energy cosmic rays. The atmospheric pressure is much lower than at the D-layer, so the chances of an electron encountering an atom or positive ion are much reduced and their “lifetimes” are extended. Thus, the nighttime wave has to travel through very little absorbing material. The ionospheric wave, often called the sky-wave, becomes stronger than the ground wave at distances exceed- ing about 800 km. Thus, all long distance contacts are due to ionospherically re- turned signals. These seemingly predictable conditions are altered by the effects of Solar distur- bances. The initial check of the Solar indi- ces against known good nights drew a blank, but it was relatively easy to spot potentially poor conditions. These occurred about 2 to 3 days after a geomagnetic event that lifted the Kp index to 5 or above. This is about the same level that leads to substantial auroral effects. The conditions deteriorated more, and took longer to recover, the higher the Kp rose. It is postulated, from the signal strength plots, that Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) were responsible for injecting hot electrons into the ionosphere. After these had time to diffuse to the D-layer region (the delay), their presence was felt as long-lived From July 2005 QST © ARRL absorbing material in the D-layer, reducing can’t work ’em,” is especially true on 2200 receiving amateur LF signals. On the se- the nighttime signal strengths. This delay is meters. Many general coverage amateur lectivity scale, a 500 Hz CW filter will do a reported in a number of professional papers transceivers can receive down to 100 kHz and good job. The remaining work, narrowing on Solar disturbance to LF propagation. So some go further, while others stop at 500 kHz. it down to 0.01 Hz, is taken care of by some the question remains: How to predict good If you can tune down to 135 kHz, try it and highly sophisticated software that takes the conditions? see what you can hear. If you can hear DCF39 audio from your receiver and splits it into A more recent extensive series of DX tests on 138.83 kHz after dark, you are indeed in tiny bands that can be displayed on a com- have confirmed that the lesser-known index, luck. If not, then try experimenting with your puter screen. The result is a series of Morse Dst (disturbance storm time), is a fairly good antenna. A long wire sometimes works if di- code dots and dashes across your computer indicator. Dst is determined by measuring the rectly connected to the antenna jack on the monitor. It is an amazing marriage of modern effect of ring of trapped ions and electrons transceiver. In reality, a 500 foot long wire is Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) technology circulating the equator in the Van Allen belt.