Penhale Sands Transmitting Station, Cornwall

I have just returned from a holiday to Holywell Bay in Cornwall, and on the cliffs above the valley lies the old MoD training camp "Penhale Sands". I understand it has been sold by the MoD but is still used to train military personnel. But my own interest in the camp is the huge array of aerials up on the cliffs. I read on the UDXF Yahoo Group that Penhale Sands is one of a number of European transmitting sites for the UK DHFCS ALE network. If you scan the freqs with PC-ALE or MultiPSK you get TWS messages with the code "XSS" (there are other codes and some people have heard flights req weather info in digital format). So I was extremely interested to see the antennas and thought I would post one or two of the photos. (I did wonder if I was allowed to do this, it being a military installation, so wouldn't be surprised if the photos get removed, but anyway, here they are:

Flight "Ascot 6986" on 9016 khz

I was scanning around the milair bands this afternoon when I heard some activity on 9016 KHZ. It was ASCOT 6986, a Royal Air Force transport aircraft requesting weather information for Nice and Akrotiri. I didn't even know this was an RAF frequency, but I do now! It is part of the TASCOM network.

FM RDS DXing 1068miles to Sveg, Sweden

On 2nd July I got an email alert telling me there was an Es opening, so I switched on my radios and sure enough the FM band was alive with stations towards the east. Here is a video of those captured moments.

This morning, of course, the band is closed again, and all I can hear is Radio 2 and Radio 3!

Eton G3 Review

I've called this a review so that google users might more readily find it, but it is not really a review at all, but more of an opportunity to hear for yourself how cool the Eton G3 actually is. I found when I was considering purchasing it for FM RDS DXing, that there was not a whole lot of info out there about this radio. Sure, there were the early, detailed reviews that banged on about its poorly implemented sync detector and other early production teething problems, but I saw very little about how the radio actually performed NOW, how the sync worked, and how sensitive it was on FM and at FM RDS decoding.

I sold my Sony 7600GR, as I've said elsewhere on this blog, because of its ridiculously useless battery indicator, which to my mind was a crucial feature in a portable radio. It continually annoyed me, having taken it out for the day and it having worked perfectly the previous evening with no signs of battery drainage, to get to the top of said hill and get the battery flat indicator flash at me. I swapped it for the Tecsun PL660. And I was delighted. See elsewhere for my detailed comments about the PL660.

But then I decided to give the Eton G3 a try as I wanted to use it for the sporadic E season of FM DXing, particularly trying to decode the RDS signals from these distant broadcast stations. I found nothing on the net really except for a few youtube videos of people rushing through the entire FM band with their G3 and which did nothing to illustrate to me the sensitivity of the radio as far as RDS decoding was concerned. Here is my Youtube Video of my early experiences of its RDS capability. Boy, is it one cool radio for this aspect of the hobby! With a little patience, I found it can decode quite weak stations, and bear in mind that the Eton is especially sensitive anyway on the FM band, so what is a little weak on the G3 could well be practically inaudible on other radios. I have since tried an RTL SDR Dongle for FM RDS decoding using SDR#. but the Eton beats it hands down, every time.

It is good on SW as well. This morning I was listening to WHRI, World Harvest Radio Intl, on 11635khz and recorded a short video for you to show you how well it smooths out audio that is otherwise very tiresome to listen to.

 

One other thing I want to mention is MW and LW reception. The Sony 7600GR was exceptionally good on these bands with a terrific ferrite bar antenna and neither the Tecsun PL660 nor Eton G3 match its performance here. BUT, with the Tecsun AN200 AM loop or my homebrew MW loop, and with my homebrew loop for the LW NDB Beacon band, both the PL660 and the Eton G3 perk up dramatically to a point that compares favourably with the Sony 7600GR using those same antennas. What I am trying to say is that standalone on its built-in ferrite antenna, the 7600GR is quite a lot better. But put a small loop next door to these three radios and you'll be hard-pushed to tell which is the better performer. I would say the PL660 and Eton G3 perform pretty much equally on these bands. Here is a short video of my Eton G3 this morning, picking up MLX (Morlaix) NDB beacon in Brittany, just across the channel from my QTH in Devon:

I hope these videos and posts are useful if you are considering a purchase, and please feel free to contact me via the comments if you would like any advice or want to ask me any questions.

FM RDS DXing - My First Experiences

This is a short video showing my new Kenwood FM/RDS car radio capturing RDS IDs from 4 stations during a short FM band opening this morning. I think it's really cool to get a text ID of the station before you've even looked it up in the WRTH and I am interested in pursuing this aspect of radio DXing in more depth.

I think I may use some birthday money to put towards a Grundig G3 as I have seen Youtube vids of it capturing RDS data from really quite weak stations and was mightily impressed. It would also be nice to do a bit of portable FM DXing when out and about locally and on holiday.

I may also build a basic dipole for this band.

5455khz French Naval Air Station Lorient

I thought it might be helpful to post about some activity in French I have come across on 5455 khz. The callsign is "Lorient Ecole" and it is the French Naval Air Station training school in Brittany, Northern France. Signals come in loud and clear to my QTH just across the Channel and it has been very active the last few mornings around 06-08UTC. I will try and send an email to Photavia Press in the hope it may get an inclusion in their next publication.

Monitoring POCSAG Pager Messages on 138.150

1705452  14:29:43 19-04-14 POCSAG-4  ALPHA   1200   LAMRT One of the spare radios is missing from mob 1. Please check your bags and return it as soon as possible. Steve 14:29hrs 19-04-14

0271905  14:37:49 19-04-14 POCSAG-4  ALPHA   1200   EMCS WOULD LIKE TO CANCEL A CALL OUT

0944904  15:12:10 19-04-14 POCSAG-4  ALPHA   1200   (891)15:11 DEVON SNOW BUNTING DAWLISH WARREN NNR 200YDS BEYOND LAST GROYNE SX989798  *HANTS SPOONBILL TITCHFIELD HAVEN NNR THIS A/NOON PO14 3JT SU534023

1981006  15:26:02 19-04-14 POCSAG-4  ALPHA   1200   LLMRT Ref. R057744 12 YR OLD LAD HAS NOT BEEN SEEN FOR 2 HRS HAS WATER AND ON THE  LLANBERIS PATH 07714957260 15:25hrs 19-04-14 L @

1981006  15:38:15 19-04-14 POCSAG-4  ALPHA   1200   LLMRT R057744 Continue to stand by no contact with informant John Grisdale 15:37hrs 19-04-14

0940412  15:45:30 19-04-14 POCSAG-4  ALPHA   1200   KSMRT   tl taking call. Kath 15:45hrs 19-04-14

0944132  15:57:20 19-04-14 POCSAG-4  ALPHA   1200   KSMRT   FT Call out . Ankle injury poss Yarlside. Respond to base or Cross Keys RV with Kendal Team. Adrian 15:57hrs 19-04-14

1999084  16:44:52 19-04-14 POCSAG-4  ALPHA   1200   16.39 BMRT snatch incident @ Windgather Rocks. Vehicles required. Respond to  01298918918. Ta Janette

1999084  16:44:49 19-04-14 POCSAG-4  ALPHA   1200   BMRT standby inc windgather. All mobs en route. Thanks Rob S

 0951348  17:53:11 19-04-14 POCSAG-4  ALPHA   1200   KSMRT STAND DOWN CASUALTY ALL SORTED AND WITH NWAS 17:52hrs 19-04-14

0303562  17:59:41 19-04-14 POCSAG-4  ALPHA   1200   PLS CONTACT BRIXHAM COASTGUARD 01803 882 704

0945873  18:01:29 19-04-14 POCSAG-4  ALPHA   1200   St John Ambulance Cumbria On-Call Team, Daily Test Message.

LAMRT Langdale/Ambleside Mountain Rescue Team

LLMRT Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team

KSMRT Kirkby Stephen Mountain Rescue Team

BMRT Buxton Mountain Rescue Team

EMCS East Midland Central Station (Alarm Monitoring Station in |Nottingham)

All monitored on 138.150MHz

I have just completed the easy discriminator modification on my Uniden Bearcat 9000XLT. I say easy,  the soldering to the PCB at point TP3 had me nervous as it was out of my comfort zone, having been used only to more basic soldering and I was worried about damaging the radio. But I wanted the discriminator tap so much that I figured even if I had to buy a new radio I was prepared to take the risk of possibly damaging this one. I turned off my mobile phone and house phone so as not to be disturbed, but even with shakey hands and a wide tipped soldering iron it was OK and I would do it again no problem. Like all things, it is mostly a case of confidence and being prepared to accept responisibility for any possible damage you may do!

Two tips: get a narrow-tipped soldering iron. If I did it again, I wouldn't use a wide-tipped one. And obvious really I suppose, tin the wire well before you attempt to solder it to the TP3 point.

Phew! With that out the way the world of VHF data decoding is at my fingertips and I have had hours of fun so far. Firstly with AIS using MultiPSK:

Then I experimented with POCSAG pager decoding, using the freely available PDW decoder software, the selected results being at the top of this entry.

I am only just uncovering the wide variety of pager users, and the mountain rescue teams really catch my interest.

I have also built a small line level adjuster, comprising a variable resisitor mounted inside a box with two 3.5mm jack plugs for the input from the scanner's discriminator socket and the output to the laptop, as I wanted to bring the RX level down to a more manageable level, but it functions OK without it if you can't be bothered with any more soldering.

So far I have only sat on 153.15 and the much more interesting 138.15mhz, so there are many more frequencies to try.

73 for now, M6RDP