Phfer Beacon Madness and Links
PHFER Beacon Madness
By
Unknown Author
A glimpse into the Pathology and
Symptoms of this Disease
I am
wondering into opulent waters and may wade in to far, and may get a bit
wet. The Beaconman is a bit strange and slightly aloof from the
average person you find on our streets in
finds he
is spending more time listening to the shortwave spectrum outside the ham
bands. He stumbles across those illusive
PHFER (Pirate High Frequency Experimental Radio) beacons. Once he discovers they are out in remote
areas, like deserts and on top of mountains and are solar powered, running only
milliwatts of power, he becomes
hooked. The days of getting on the Ham
radio and having the same hum drum Qsos fade away. He now starts to work on his signal to noise
ratio that his shortwave receiver coops with.
This involves building and experimenting with different receiving
antennas. The joy of radio is coming
back with each new experience. He feels
young once again. Sitting in front of
his shortwave receiver right before and
after sun rise he finally logs a new PHFER beacon and the young boy in
him rises as the beacons signal begins to fade up out of the noise.
He enjoys
hiking or fishing and begins to carry a small shortwave receiver with him. Since he is in more remote areas while
involved in these out of door activities, the noise floor is quieter then at
home. While sitting on a log beside the
trout stream that he has been fishing he pulls out his small shortwave receiver
and though he might not have caught a trout he hears that little PHFER fade up
out of the noise and another fine moment of radio is logged in his mind. That good
time feeling comes
back again. It is the same one that he
felt when he had his first CW QSO as a
Novice ham radio operator when he was 10 years old.
The next
step in the beaconmans disease becomes a sweet romance. He studies diagrams and decides to homebrew
up a small shortwave beacon. He fires it
up and with a little fiddling around, he gets it
to work. His first beacon is a simple
dasher that uses the famous 555 timer
chip to key his one or two transistor beacon. Then one morning while drinking that first or
second cup of coffee it hits him. While
hiking or fishing he stumbled on to a place that would be a great location for
a remote PHFER beacon. So he grabs up
his back pack loaded with: some simple test equipment, a 5 watt solar
panel, 7 amp-hr gel cell battery,
portable shortwave receiver and his coveted homebrewed PHFER beacon and its
dipole antenna.
He hikes into the remote area. His senses are live with the redolent smell of the Pine trees lingering in the cool mountain air. He plants his beacon. After it is all secure and beeping away successfully, transmitting its RF up into the ionosphere he opens up his pack and eats lunch. The young boy is proud beyond words. The hike out of the area is long and tiring but he listens to his beacon as he walks along and the good time feeling just keeps pumping though his veins. He knows the addiction is complete now he is Beaconman and the romance has just begun, he is truly young again.
The Yin and Yang of the Phfer Illness:
Over the years I have gotten many many E mails from Shortwave Listeners and Hams
who have expressed their personal thanks regarding the Phfer beacons. I always
smile and only wish I could share and have eyeball conversation with them. To this day
their excitement regarding this very small subculture of radio never ceases to amaze me.
So for all of you people who have stumbled across this web page for one reason or another
here is a true blue beacon Listener report along with his portable Listening Post.
Two weeks ago I spent my long weekend at Tortilla Flat, AZ. Neat spot near Apache and Canyon Lakes about 40 miles from my QTH here in the Phoenix area. I was out with the Teardrop trailer and an old ham buddy with his RV. Heard a few good beacons and an interesting antenna story for you all.
Location 33.53007 N 111.39911 W Alt: 1770 ft. Grid: DM43HM
Over the weekend of 3/5 - 7
Rigs were the FT-817 using a 9’ whip on the trailer, an old Radio Shack DX-394 I have mounted in the trailer using a 12” homebrew loop, and the ever trusty Grundig YB-400 portable with its telescopic whip. Attached is a photo from the campsite with the teardrop trailer and loop antenna on top. The loop antenna by the way outperforms just about anything else I have on the beacons between 2 - 6 MHz. It is the one thing I can pull them out with even here in the city where the RF and electrical noise floor trashes pretty much any other antenna.
2097.38 - “A” - Very solid and strong around 0100z in the evenings
3449.70 - “OK” - Caught it a couple of times around 2200z, weak with mild QSB but in there
4077.27 - “MO” - Caught MO off and on over the weekend mostly early mornings, not real strong but poking its head up above the noise floor
4078.25 - “WW” - AH!! WW! My favorite mighty midget beacon! Proof that it doesn’t take ether burning power or large spans of antenna material to get a signal out. I could hear WW in the mornings and evenings and pretty much any time I woke up in the night and kicked the receiver on. About 0500 local on the 6th I was awakened by the wind gusting pretty hard. So I opened the door, reached up on top and grabbed the loop antenna, and laid it on the ground under the trailer. Just for grins I turned on the receiver and there was WW coming through with the antenna on the ground under the trailer.
4079.62 - “TMP” - When I am out in the boonies of AZ I can generally hear the temperature beacon most any time and it had a good solid signal most of the weekend. It was acting kind of whacky though… In the daytime it was sending temps of 1, 3, 4, 15, back to 1, and other odd ball temps unless I was really hearing some other TMP beacon closer to you guys in Colorado. One time it sent the temp at 126. At night it seemed to behave itself with believable temperatures some of the time, then goofy temps.
4089.25 - The Dasher in Death Valley was doing a good solid job in the early evenings.
4096.00 - Hexie and Kelsie were VERY strong and solid in the early evenings. I have not heard Coxie in quite some time though.
4097.43 - “KX” - Never heard KX at all, it is always a bit of a challenge here in AZ
4102.32 - Wind ditter, was ditting away at various wind speeds and VERY strong in the early evenings around 0100z.
5484.14 - “SD” - I never heard SD but I heard a lot of rather unusual SSB activity in that frequency range. Every evening there was sideband chatter that I could not tune in on either USB or LSB on any of the rigs. To me it sounded like the old speech inversion scrambling. Maybe the drunken fishermen have a new twist?
6626.40 - Rainy was dripping away during the days with a pretty decent signal.
8003.60 - Pike 78 put on a good show both around 1900z and 0100z.
8189.60 - “TS” - Never heard TS and I usually can out in the boonies.
8211.79 - “OR” - Fair signal with mild QSB around 0100z.
11002.70 - “CO” - CO was good in the mornings to mid day around 1930z. Moderate QSB but coming through even on the Grundig portable.
Interesting Links
Radio Intel - One of the best web sites for shortwave radio
http://radiointel.net
Join Global Tuners and listen to beacons
http://www.globaltuners.com/signup.php
Natural Radio Film
http://vimeo.com/8025397
Whistler Receivers
http://www.auroralchorus.com/wr3gx.htm
SWL Antennas and much more
http://www.qrp.pops.net/swl-ant.asp
Latest Solar Flux, A index and K index
http://dx.qsl.net/propagation/propagation.html When the solar flux hits 90 listen for PEANUT Beacon
Shortwave, Long Wave, DC to Light - A must see
http://www.ac6v.com/swl.htm
If you love the older Radios check this site out
http://www.mbzponton.org/n2awa/radio.html
