The strange world below Short Wave

A place to discuss the HF and Shortwave listening side of the radio hobby. Discuss equipment, frequencies and antenna systems etc. Anything HF!
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pete_uk
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The strange world below Short Wave

Post by pete_uk »

Anyone interesting in things below 160m band, from AM broadcast DX to communications?

I'm always interested in hearing shipping stuff such as NAVTEX but have never heard anything.
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ch25
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Re: The strange world below Short Wave

Post by ch25 »

Plenty of traffic there.
I suggest to use http://www.klingenfuss.org/super.htm best source of data IMO.
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Re: The strange world below Short Wave

Post by Tigersaw »

You have the NDB's - around 300k - 430k good slow morse practice
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Andy
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Re: The strange world below Short Wave

Post by Andy »

There's lots of stuff but you need to reduce your local noise to hear some of it. A loop antenna helps enormously. Navtex is fairly easy to receive and you can download a free decoder from't'internet. Below 150kHz there's all manner of time and frequency standards and even encrypted submarine comms going all the way down to a few kHz. Once or twice a year, the SAQ 17.2 kHz TX comes on from Sweden. This is an ancient 'alternator' transmitter, just a big RF-generating mechanical AC generator putting about 80 kW up the huge vertical antenna. A shot of Grimeton as it appears on my SDR fed from a homebrew loop antenna and an audio snip of it as received on the same set up: The bigger peaks around 20-22 kHz are sub comms stations.
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Farty
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Re: The strange world below Short Wave

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Yes, that band interest me. I'll listen to anything down there, but late night American MW stations are my speciality.
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Re: The strange world below Short Wave

Post by Tigersaw »

Farty wrote: 07 Dec 2018, 20:47 Yes, that band interest me. I'll listen to anything down there, but late night American MW stations are my speciality.
interesting - give me a time and freq for an easy one
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Re: The strange world below Short Wave

Post by Farty »

WBBR in New York, 1130khz, 2300-0200hrs. US stations are on a 10khz channel spacing.
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Re: The strange world below Short Wave

Post by Tigersaw »

Farty wrote: 08 Dec 2018, 12:15 WBBR in New York, 1130khz, 2300-0200hrs. US stations are on a 10khz channel spacing.
Thanks, will try with the loop tonight
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Re: The strange world below Short Wave

Post by pete_uk »

Andy wrote: 07 Dec 2018, 15:10 The bigger peaks around 20-22 kHz are sub comms stations.

Wow! You're actually receiving submarine comms? What kind of mode are they?

I thought you had to put an antenna into the ocean for that!



(That last bit was a joke!)
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Re: The strange world below Short Wave

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Some sort of well encrypted digital mode one would hope.
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Re: The strange world below Short Wave

Post by Andy »

pete_uk wrote: 15 Dec 2018, 19:26
Andy wrote: 07 Dec 2018, 15:10 The bigger peaks around 20-22 kHz are sub comms stations.

Wow! You're actually receiving submarine comms? What kind of mode are they?

I thought you had to put an antenna into the ocean for that!



(That last bit was a joke!)
Receiving, yes. Decoding no! I've tried a number of decoders with gibberish results so it's either some weird mode or (more likely) it's encrypted.
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