Howdy,
Howdy,
My Spitfire TX is doing OK close in, but when I start to go out of apparent range, I can hear a ringing as the modulation appears to subside. Has a beat too, which appears to be there even when the TX is off.
Does it mean there is not enough modulation? Poor antenna tuning? Thought I had it, the number of turns should be about right. It's similar to a Manteca Magnum, except I'm using a Shakespeare marine whip, 8.5 feet.
The audio signal fades away fairly quickly, but I can hear the ringing quite far away. It's like there is a carrier, but no modulation. The antenna is close to the building on an 8' mast. I temporarily ran the ground wire down the pole and threw out about 50 ft. on either side of the base.
Anyone care to take a shot at what might be happening?
I cant be sure since I am not able to hear this for myself.
What frequency are you transmitting on?
The beat you mentioned (as you may already know) is caused by another station more than likely high powered which is out of phase with your own carrier.
I have used a talking house on 1700 khz and could hear my carrier warble with another station in the distance.
TH are notorious for this warbling. Could be a radio station that is performing test's on their equipment maybe injecting a tone.
Many times on 11 meters I have encountered the same noise, sort of a ringing sound like gliding a finger around the rim of a wine glass.
If your like me, your area is crowded with stations and finding a truly vacant channel to broadcast on is frustrating.
High powered stations are hard to compete with especially around dusk and early dawn hours.
As for a remedy to your situation, i can only offer you simple advice such as moving to another channel. Maybe someone else could chime in here with better advice.
Transmitting on 1630 kHz. I can detect a little something on there from time to time, but my search through three different station locators show none on that frequency in my area, nor even in Seattle, nor in British Columbia. In fact, the only stations I can find on that frequency are (closest) Cheyenne WY, Dallas TX, and (furthest) Augusta GA.
There are definitely some hispanic broadcasts at 1660 and 1680, and KNRO 1670 (FOX Sports Network station) out of Redding, CA which is loud and clear at night
I'll try again at 1610, but my coil winds probably won't work ... I do have a little further to go in antenna length (about 16 inches), but then I can't use my marine antenna I picked up for 4 bucks at the local consignment yard.
Oh, well ... go for the gold I guess , er, umm, copper ... that is.
That ringing could be a part15 dx beacon.
I used to dx all bands available on shortwave, AM/FM and sometimes when I wanted a challenge, longwave.
There have been times when I could hear fast morse code on the AM BCB with my DX-390 switched to SSB mode. At first I thought it could be crosstalk* from my 80 ft long wire but after disconnecting the antenna and only using the bar antenna built into the receiver, i still copied the morse.
Also I have heard home-made beacons (part15) all over the AM bands.
*Probably more like receiver overload.