[HFbeacons] Beacons: Frequency Readouts
- From: "W. Keith Hibbert" <wkhibbert@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Jay Jensen <ve3sws@xxxxxxxxxxx>, 10mprop@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, hfbeacons@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2011 10:41:32 -0400
Hi Jay, Keith here in Amherst, NY
I have been reading the mail this last week while in New England with
the family. The 'correct' frequency readout is a subject that has been
hashed over many time, both on the list and in print.
After 45+ years I have come to the following determination:
"Nobody really knows."
Saying that, the individual models of radios are all slightly different.
I have two primary rigs here, a Kenwood TS-680S and a Yaesu FT-450AT.
I also use a Radio Shack HTX-100 in the mobile. The Kenwood readout
is correct with an 800 hz tone and the Yaesu can be set up with the menu
for a 400 hz to 900 hz center tone. I am using 600 hz myself.
The Yaesu and my old Ten Tec Corsair had/have a zero beat function,
pressing the button on the front give me a reference tone that I can
then zero beat the received signal with. At that point the readout is
correct. Lacking the zero beat or CW TUNE or similar tuning aid one can
either tune for the best signal on the narrowest CW filter available or
zero beat the signal whilst in SSB. This is the method I use with the
Radio Shack rig.
The old 1940's standards used an accurate VFO as a transfer oscillator,
the look up table was several hundred pages long on my BC-221 as I
recall. You still had to find WWV and check it out on their signal and
make sure that everything was warmed up for stability and know which
harmonic you were listening to and........
II try to hit the spot within 100 hz, but more importantly I log the
changes just in case a beacon has moved. I got a couple of replies from
trustees that their beacons moved with the temperature changes in the
building they were running from, the hotter the day, the more the TX
moved. Fun, eh? Look at it as effective accidental telemetry!
So far I have not heard a short enough opening to copy your beacon here
near Buffalo, backscatter is not out of the question but I have not
caught any yet this season. I'll keep listening though.
73, Keith, WB2VUO, TC - ARRL WNY Section
Amherst, NY: Grid FN02ox
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