Never thought Id see the day lol

telecinesk

Dug out the old FT7 to get back onto HF after a v v long time, but when I fired it up I realised the xtals for 40m and 10m were missing.

There were ones for 45m and 11m (must have been put there for "research purposes" )in the sockets. I dont remember how or why even by now.
Funny, was tuning through looking for familliar cw and out of nowhere was a mil sounding transmission which made me realise the crystals were wrong!


I never thought Id be frantically digging through spare parts boxes to put this radio back on the ham bands. How times change. May as well use them as I can legit. I guess QSL (quartzslab) still exist. Need a 21.5mhz xtal for 40metres.


Nice to be back on radio too, forgot the fun of hf. Roll on summer.

PauloMN

telecinesk wrote: »

There were ones for 45m and 11m (must have been put there for "research purposes" )in the sockets. I dont remember how or why even by now.

LOL "research purposes"

Did you realise it was 11m when you heard "break for a radio check bud"?

Must get my HF antenna sorted.

humaxf1

Ye can't beat DX'ing from Rathnew into Poland from a car on a crappy EuroCB Cleantone and magmount. 27.565 USB I think. Who needs 28MHz...:p

Rock on telecinesk! Keep the 11M xtals in it!

telecinesk

Haha I like that train of thought, but I smell a "witchunt" coming on.. Burn then ask questions.. Think I will leave 11m in there alright for "research", but Im not in a position to tx when Im located for fear of the iron curtain people coming down heavy, they arent as "tolerant" as my former qth. Dont make smoke signals if you cant extinguish the fire.

watty

I was in Kosice, in Slovakia. The rules for bringing my FT817 seem complicated. You appear to have to have the address of a local Amateur. My contacts there don't do Amateur Radio. :-( The vistor licence payment is not expensive though.

pixbyjohn

telecinesk wrote: »

Dug out the old FT7 to get back onto HF after a v v long time, but when I fired it up I realised the xtals for 40m and 10m were missing.

There were ones for 45m and 11m (must have been put there for "research purposes" )in the sockets. I dont remember how or why even by now.
Funny, was tuning through looking for familliar cw and out of nowhere was a mil sounding transmission which made me realise the crystals were wrong!


I never thought Id be frantically digging through spare parts boxes to put this radio back on the ham bands. How times change. May as well use them as I can legit. I guess QSL (quartzslab) still exist. Need a 21.5mhz xtal for 40metres.


Nice to be back on radio too, forgot the fun of hf. Roll on summer.

Hi there, God be with the days when we worked out the maths and put a crystal in that covered 6.6 to 7.1 Mhz. Of course now the 40 metre band is up to 7.150. Quartslab are now based in Ireland. They were great for crystals in the past so hopefully still are. The FT101ZDs and Ft707s had solder in type crystals. Is there still some activity on 3.470 MHz and 2.3 MHz, those were the days my friend, as the song goes.

telecinesk

Hi,

I didnt hear much on 3470 in a long time, but last night there was something on 5305. I suspect trawlers however.
Only reason I heard that was I had been digging through a list of ex mil freqs that I had on a set and decided to take a look.

2310 is also on that set, I didnt know people used that far down for @research@ purposes./.

Yes, I have to get hold of at least a crystal for 40 alright and at least put this thing right so I can use it.

experimenter

humaxf1 wrote: »

. Who needs 28MHz...:p

Not you, I bet you don't even know what goes on up there!

experimenter

telecinesk wrote: »

Hi,

I didnt hear much on 3470 in a long time, but last night there was something on 5305. I suspect trawlers however.

2310 is also on that set, I didnt know people used that far down for @research@ purposes./.

3470MHz, Is that not in or near the HF Airband allocation??

No thanks!

telecinesk

Think so. I had a homebrew dcrx radio in Prague, and a lot of the time I heard activity from Ireland which I assume wasnt airborne..

icom

experimenter wrote: »

3470MHz, Is that not in or near the HF Airband allocation??

No thanks!

North Atlantic ATC:
Shanwick and Gander use 3.476 (USB), mainly after dark.

AFRICA 3 ROUTE
includes Addis Ababa, Aden, Asmara, Bahrain,
Benghazi, Bombay, Bujumbura, Cairo, Comoros,
Dar es Salaam, Entebbe, Hargesia, Djibouti, Jeddah,
Khartoum, Kigali, Kisimayu, Male, Mogadishu,
Nairobi, N'djamena, Sana'a, Seychelles, Tripoli.
All use 3467 (USB).

watty

Anyone know the power of Shannon Air Radio on maybe 5450?

humaxf1

experimenter wrote: »

Not you, I bet you don't even know what goes on up there!

Didn't hear much the last time I had an earwig...maybe enlighten us about the goings on up there

icom

watty wrote: »

Anyone know the power of Shannon Air Radio on maybe 5450?

Looks like 5KW + the gain of the antenna on the Volmet (see info below)
If it's the Rhombic Antenna they use, it could have a gain of 10db,
so you could be talking 50KW ERP, nice !!

SHANWICK Radio Station Information
Station Name: Shanwick Radio
Country: Republic of Ireland State: County Clare
City: Shannon Geographic Location: 52°47´N 008°55´W
AFTN Address: EIAAYSYX Aircraft in Flight Address: EIAAZZZX
SATCOM SHORT CODE Nr. : 425002
Facilities
Transmitter site Receiver site
Location: Urlanmore (52°45´N 008°56´W) Location: Ballygirreen (52°47´N 008°55´W)
Equipment Equipment
14 SPT/Redifon 5KW 6 channel TX
2 Aerocomm 1330 5KW 6 channel TX
6 SPT/Redifon 5KW 6 channel TX Volmet
6 Omni-directional antennas
5 Vertical Log Periodic (directionally diverse)
2 Broadband Dipoles 2-13MHz
2 Cubic IKW 249 channel Data-link TX (In association with ARINC)
ARINC: Provides a range of services including Air/Ground communications, airport systems and information systems.
17 Philips Fixed channel Rx
7 Dansk Tuneable Rx
3 Horizontal Log Periodic Antennas
1 "T" Antenna
1 Rhombic Antenna
5 Antenna Multicouplers
Class of Emission: J3E/H3E SELCAL: Baumberger (12)


More info: http://xpda.com/flyingtoeurope/HFGuidance.pdf

watty

But Shanwick (Shannon + Prestwick) is the HF & 137 band air traffic two way radio (hence Selcall). Is the Weather station (Shannon Air Radio) part of that (what they call Volmet) or separate?

icom

watty wrote: »

But Shanwick (Shannon + Prestwick) is the HF & 137 band air traffic two way radio (hence Selcall). Is the Weather station (Shannon Air Radio) part of that (what they call Volmet) or separate?

Yes, the weather transmissions (VOLMET) are transmitted from the same location as the Shannon Air Radio.

Aeronautical Broadcast Service - Volmet

Another service provided to the aviation community from Shannon Aeradio, is the Volmet Broadcast Service. This is a 24 hour, 365 day-a-year continuous broadcast of weather data to aircraft in flight. The data consists of Sigmets (warnings of significant weather phenomena which may be hazardous to aircraft), terminal forecasts and actual weather observations for each of the principal airports in Europe. These reports are updated every 30 minutes. This broadcast has become very popular with Short Wave listeners the world over, and results in large bags of "fan mail" every year. The broadcast goes out on 3 HF and 1 VHF frequency simultaneously.
link: http://www.iaa.ie/air_traf/sha_map.asp

About 80 personnel are employed at Ballygirreen including over 66 Radio Officers with the remainder involved in engineering, administration and other services.

The Air Traffic control functions are performed in Prestwick, and Shannon are responsible for communications with the transatlantic aircraft.

SELCAL is a signalling protocol system installed in the ATC Centre and most aircraft, which mutes the HF radio on the plane, rather than have the pilot listening to all communications taking place on his assigned frequency, which can be very busy at times. When ATC sends the unique SECLAL code assigned to that aircraft, the pilot will be notified visually and an audio tone generated to inform him/her that there is an incomimg transmission.

The first thing a pilot does after moving from VHF to HF is check that his SELCAL is functioning properly, and will request a SELCAL check from SHANWICK for example:
Shamrock 104 requesting SELCAL check "ALPHA BRAVO CHARLIE DELTA". The operator in SHANWICK will key in "ALPHA BRAVO CHARLIE DELTA"
The SELCAL tone will be generated and transmitted from SHANWICK.
If SHAMROCK 104 receives the SELCAL successfully and gets the visual/audio alert, he will report back to SHANWICK that the "SECLAL check is ok"
If the SELCAL check does not work first time, SHANWICK may send another check and verify with the pilot that the code is correct.
If the SELCAL check does not work, the the pilot will be asked to monitor the frequency and all communication on his assigned frequency.

Some older planes, and some military aircraft are not SELCAL equipped, which again means that the pilot is required to monitor all communications on his assigned frequency. On a busy frequency, this could result in very sore heads for the crew in the cockpit !!:)