NCDXF / IARU Beacon Project

[Naysayer]

Over the last few months I've been relying on the Radio Beacon Network to tune my antennas. It's a resource I overlooked far too long. Today and for the first time, I could not hear the 14.100 NYC beacon due to interference and I’m only a mile or 2 ‘as the bird-flies’ from the UN. After looking into it, I learned the noise is from digital QRM. Sounded like many competing signals on the same freq. rendered 14.1 useless! I found short QST article https://www.ncdxf.org/beacon/QSTpart3 it’s worth a read. A 40 or 80m beacon would be nice but I presume the antenna requirements are prohibitive.

Is the “Beacon Watchers Society” defunct? I saw this in 1998 QST article about Beacons. How about the rest of the country? Anyone else use the beacons?

 

[nomadradio]

Used to hear a south african beacon on 10 meters 3 solar cycles ago. Almost never heard any hams from that region.

Haven't conventional beacons been superseded by WSPR and such? Been out of the DX loop long enough to not really know.

Makes me wonder if your noise is a point source that could be canceled with a gadget like the MFJ 1026. It takes a second noise antenna, inverts the signal phase and cancels it when the upside-down copy of the noise gets mixed with the main antenna and injected back into the receiver.

I think Timewave may have made one of these, and another vendor whose name escapes me for the moment.

Tricky part is for the noise antenna to hear the interference, but not the signal you want to hear.

73

 

[nomadradio]

Turns out Amazon has a chinesium version.

https://www.amazon.com/Eliminator-A...hase-Receiver/dp/B09CM9F247/?tag=worradfor-20

Lots cheaper than what's being quoted for the MFJ.

73

 

[Naysayer]

Amazon link is interesting. A pre-selector of sorts?...I will investigate. I suspect my antenna upgrade has me hearing everything now. Apparently, my old EFHW really sucked. I live near Daughters of Jacob (“DOJ”) a nursing home w/ >400 beds. If the noise (teletype/fax-like) is only around 14.1, I will accept that. More importantly, I do not want my signal to interfere w/ anyone’s medical equipment. I’m a city ham & DOJ is about 100 yards away.