Observed a brief HF Radio Blackout caused by a Solar Flare today. (cool!)
| gev_20140128_1900 | 2014/01/28 19:00:00 | 19:46:00 | 19:40:00 | M4.9 | S14E75 ( 1967 ) |
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Flare Causes Brief HF Blackout
Monday, January 27, 2014
Solar Flares Showing Up?
I dunno the times are close, but not really right. more research needs to be done to make sure I'm logging the times right, I'm pretty sure I am. If so, they don't really seem to always line up.
There's definitely something causing wide band noise, or a sweep from time to time. The 1/27 11:08 & 20:15 seem close, as does the 22:05 and 1/28 00:31-39 is on time also.
However in the graph below there's something at 1/28 0240 that isn't in the NOAA tabular data below. It may be something else, or perhaps it wasn't a solar flare, but some other galactic event?
This graph has a tighter time scale
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Friday, January 24, 2014
Click on the image above to see a larger version.
So I've been working on a Wide-Band RF Sensor using RTL (realtek TV dongles) for the past few days. I'll post some more details on this, but Just wanted to get this image out.
This is two hours of RF Power data from 24Mhz to 1Ghz.
During this collection, you can see the bright horizontal line. This is when I removed the HF blocking filter, and the FM Broadcast Stop-Band Filter. OBVIOUSLY these are required! The dongles are massively impacted by strong signals.
I just wanted to share this...quickly. the Y-axis is TIME bottom is most recent top is 2 hours ago. The X-axis is frequency.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
PST61 Stuck
A few days ago we had a nice Es opening and I was turning the big 50 foot plus long yagi around with my Prosistel PST61 (Green Heron RT21-D controller). Until this point things have been running very smoothly since I changed to using this new controller.
At one point I tried to rotate Clock Wise, and it wouldn't move at all. I tried Counter Clock Wise and it would move, but each time I tried to go back CW it wouldn't. I finally stopped when I was at 264 Degrees.
A few COLD DAYS went by with no change. Today it got up to 36F and I went up the tower. I checked the CW line loosened it's contact points on the rotor and on the Lightning arrestor. Then put it back together. I check the caps inside the arrestor and all looked like new.
Then I moved up the the main boom of the yagi and strong armed it a few degrees just wiggling it back and forth a bit.
My gut tells me the issue is the bearing needs greasing.
I came back down tried to turn the beam and it moves again.
Tomorrow when it's supposed to be even a bit warmer I'll run back up there and grease the bearing and fully rotate the yagi 360 degrees a few times. Hopefully that'll be the end of it.
At one point I tried to rotate Clock Wise, and it wouldn't move at all. I tried Counter Clock Wise and it would move, but each time I tried to go back CW it wouldn't. I finally stopped when I was at 264 Degrees.
A few COLD DAYS went by with no change. Today it got up to 36F and I went up the tower. I checked the CW line loosened it's contact points on the rotor and on the Lightning arrestor. Then put it back together. I check the caps inside the arrestor and all looked like new.
Then I moved up the the main boom of the yagi and strong armed it a few degrees just wiggling it back and forth a bit.
My gut tells me the issue is the bearing needs greasing.
I came back down tried to turn the beam and it moves again.
Tomorrow when it's supposed to be even a bit warmer I'll run back up there and grease the bearing and fully rotate the yagi 360 degrees a few times. Hopefully that'll be the end of it.
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