Tag Archives: AA7EE

Dave’s Sproutie SPT Beacon

The Sproutie “SPT” Beacon. (Photo source: Dave Richards)

Dave Richards (AA7EE), has just published a brilliant post about his new beacon: the Sproutie SPT Beacon.

Click here to read Dave’s post with detailed instructions for building your own
low power, legal beacon!

Dave’s beacon is located on 13,558 kHz–he would love your reception reports. Dave notes in his post:

“If you hear the SPT beacon on 13,558 kHz, please send a report – either to the e-mail address listed on my QRZ account [look up call AA7EE], or as a comment underneath this post. Reception reports will be very eagerly received. One gentleman in Seminole County, FL, reported that the area around the SPT frequency was a cacophony of noise in his area, and he stood no chance of hearing it. Those kinds of reports are useful too. If you put your own HiFER beacon on the air, do introduce yourself on the LWCA message board, and John can include you on the list of known active HiFER beacons.“

Readers: let’s give Dave some reception reports! Though I live on the opposite side of North America, I will certainly be listening!

Dave, thanks again for publishing such an informative and detailed post! You’ve inspired me to build my own beacon.

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Sproutie hears the Shortwave Shindig

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SWLing Post reader, Dave Richards (AA7EE), made a short video of his regen receiver “Sproutie” tuned to the Shortwave Shindig Friday evening.

Dave writes:

“I was quite pleased with the fidelity. Of course, the skirts on a regen are quite broad, even though the nose of the selectivity curve is fairly narrow. The signal was a bit lower in level and noisier at the beginning of the show but by the time it got to this segment, it was a nice strong signal. Sorry – no S-meter here, so that is the best I can do!”

Dave, thanks for sharing this video! Sproutie did a brilliant job tuning in a program from across the continent. I’m also most impressed with Sproutie’s audio. Amazing!

Readers, click here to read a previous post about Dave’s home brew regen receiver, “Sproutie.” Also, be sure to bookmark Dave’s blog by clicking here.

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How shortwaves keep you young…

China Radio International warbling on Dave’s home brew receiver

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My buddy and SWLing Post reader, Dave Richards (AA7EE), wrote several weeks ago with an interesting comment:

“I was just now tuning around the 31M band on a [regenerative receiver] that I am putting the finishing touches on, and noticed that the audio from China Radio International on 9790KHz was not only cutting in and out, but was also warbling, as if the program was being played from a tape machine with a slipping pinch wheel.

I’m finding it a bit hard to believe that in this day and age, a country like China would be using tape machines in their studios still, but am trying to figure out what other explanation there could be for this. The warbling doesn’t sound as if it is being caused by the propagation. Have you heard this before?

I have attached a short recording. Please excuse the bassy audio – I need to modify the receiver circuit to provide some bass roll-off.”

Click here for Dave’s recording or listen below:

I agree with Dave; it sounds like CRI is playing from a tape deck with a slipping pinch wheel. I’m not sure this could be a modulation issue. Perhaps it’s both? Curious what other readers think.

Warble aside, I was also very intrigued by Dave’s home brew 31 meter broadcast band regenerative receiver. I asked him for more details; he replied:

“I built another version of the WBR. The original version, as well as the first version I built, was for the 40M amateur band. I was intrigued to see how it would perform on other frequencies, so I built a version for the 31M band. The only change I need to make now is a bit of filtering to provide some rolloff of the bass frequencies, as they are hurting the intelligibility in my opinion.”

Wow! What a cool little home brew project! And many thanks to Dave for the brilliant photos of the WBR. I should mention that Dave has an excellent ham radio blog where he documents his radio projects. Indeed, check out this page for more information about the WBR broadcast band receiver.

Dave told me that he is currently working towards his goal of designing and building the “ultimate” regenerative receiver with plug-in coils for many different bands. I’ll be following him, so I encourage you to do the same by bookmarking his website.

Many thanks, Dave!

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