Ferrite Rod at HF

[pwdrive]

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/whp/w...WHP091.pdf

Lawrence.

[AlanBeckett]

That's worth keeping young Lawrence.

Alan

[pwdrive]

That's worth keeping young Lawrence.

Alan

Glad it was of interest Alan, I note the reference year is 2004 and the article mentions DRM, even so, the tests indicate that a frame/loop antenna performs better than the ferrite rod, it also said that increasing the diameter of a ferrite rod wouldn't give much advantage, there are some videos on utube where several rods are bundled together to form one unit, they seem to indicate much better reception but If I remember correctly in that instance they were used on the broadcast band (MW) and were external to the receivers internal ferrite rod (just magnetic coupling).... Just found it again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqYZcRXCGxM

The bloke seems quite genuine, be aware that there are some shaking camera movements....

Lawrence.

[Skywave]

Thanks for sending that in, Lawrence: it certainly looks like an interesting article. I'll read it through at length later on.

Al. / July 31

[pwdrive]

No worries Al, also a lot of BBC R&D white papers here, they start at year 1940:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/publications

I've not waded through them yet

Lawrence

[jimmc101]

That reminded me of a much earlier article http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/reports/1977-11.pdf about using a ferrite rod at VHK (Band II)

Jim

[Geaney]

Very topical as I'm half way through building the active ferrite loop antenna project from EPE (Sept 2000). I've got nine rods in the aerial setup. I've still to build the active circuitry - hope to get that done in a few weeks time when on hols. This project is specifically for MW reception - hopefully it will improve things in terms of MW reception in my neck of the woods.
My initial observation is nine ferrite rods taped together are heavy!

Cheers, John

[Radio Fixer]

The Tecsun radio looks interesting as well and has good reviews. Not expensive either. Any point in getting one with SSB capability ? Never tried that: is there any point these days.

Look forward to your build and results John. Would you consider making it an article for the BVWS Bulletin (I know you are a member). Thanks if so.

cheers Gary

[pwdrive]

You can check out SSB here Gary:

http://hackgreensdr.org:8901/

That link covers the Ham bands, not sure what antenna they are using or if it's directional, below 10 Mhz should be on LSB, above 10 Mhz should be on USB, 40 metres is good for most times of the day, 160 meters "Top Band" and 80 meters are normally best at night time, 160 metres is low power for UK operators and often has a lot of interference, 20 metres before 9.30 am might bring in some Australian/NZ transmissions but at night time USA Hams can normally be heard, if you get bored there's always CW to keep the brain alert...

Here's the link for Websdr home page:

http://websdr.org/

Some of the receiving stations listed in that link might not be operative, the controls on these sites are easy to use and mainly self explanatory, you can fine tune the signal down to a very good resolution, some of those sites might cover other frequencies other than the Ham bands if you are interested in military or oceanic HF (commercial airline communications) The USB/LSB convention can vary with with non Ham transmission so the below 10 Mhz for LSB and above 10 Mhz for USB won't always follow.

Shanwick is the easiest oceanic hf to receive, one of it's counter parts, Gander can be received at night time. The easiest Shanwick transmissions to receive are normally the ones in the 5 Mhz band just above Shannon Volmet, Shannon Volmet was around 5.505 Mhz last time I heard it, if you see a line on the waterfall display just upstream of Shannon Volmet it might be Shanwick, be aware that some Shanwick transmissions are very very short so be quick on the dial as it were..

Lawrence.

[Skywave]

Over on the UK Vintage Radio Repair and Restoration Forum, there is a movement attempting to arrange regular contacts on 7115 kHz. USB and AM are suggested and is 'open' to all. I monitored that freq. for several hours today, but only heard the occasional weak European station near that freq. and a U.K. Amateur station transmitting from the Commonwealth Games site. The rest of the band seemed unusually quiet.

Al. / Aug. 1, '14 //