Tag Archives: Jock Elliott (KB2GOM)

Jock says, “It’s about time…and beacons!”

A WWV Time Code Generator

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Jock Elliott, who shares the following guest post:

It’s about time . . . and beacons

By Jock Elliott, KB2GOM

Shortwave time stations can be incredibly useful for shortwave listeners, not just for checking the time, but also for finding out what’s going on with radio signal propagation. What makes these stations particularly valuable is that they are available all the time. I use them often when I am testing radio equipment or tweaks to my listening post.

Chief Engineer Matt Deutch at WWV/WWVB. (Photo: Thomas)

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (part of the U.S. Department of Commerce) maintains a couple of stations devoted to broadcasting time announcements, standard time intervals, standard frequencies, UT1 time corrections, a BCD time code, and geophysical alerts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

WWV in Fort Collins, Colorado, according to NIST:

“radiates 10 000 W on 5 MHz, 10 MHz, and 15 MHz; and 2500 W on 2.5 MHz and 20 MHz. Each frequency is broadcast from a separate transmitter. Although each frequency carries the same information, multiple frequencies are used because the quality of HF reception depends on many factors such as location, time of year, time of day, the frequency being used, and atmospheric and ionospheric propagation conditions. The variety of frequencies makes it likely that at least one frequency will be usable at all times.”

In addition, WWV broadcasts the same signal heard on the other WWV frequencies on 25 MHz on an experimental basis. The power is 2500 W and, as an experimental broadcast, is may be interrupted or suspended without notice.

WWVH crew from left to right: Dean Takamatsu, Dean Okayama, Director Copan, Adela Mae Ochinang and Chris Fujita. Credit: D. Okayama/NIST

WWVH, based in Kekaha, Hawaii, transmits 10000 W on 10 MHz and 15 MHz, and 5000 W on 2.5 MHz. A NIST notes that the 5 MHz broadcast, which normally radiates 10 000 W, is currently operating at 5000 W due to equipment failure.

Photo Thomas (K4SWL) took in 2014 of the sign above WWV’s primary 10 MHz transmitter.

Both stations have voice announcements. WWV uses a male voice; WWVH, a female voice. They are staggered in time so that they don’t talk over each other. While doing research for this blog, one afternoon on 5 MHz and 10 MHz, I could hear the female voice, followed by the male voice, so I was hearing both Hawaii and Colorado. On 15 MHz, I could hear only Hawaii. Both stations transmit in AM mode, although I sometimes use upper sideband to pick the signals out of the noise.

CHU’s QSL card used in the 1980s depicting Sir Sanford Fleming, father of uniform times zones.

In addition, there is a Canadian time station. CHU transmits 3000 W signals on 3.33 and 14.67 MHz, and a 5000 W signal on 7.85 MHz.

The frequencies were chosen to avoid interference from WWV and WWVH. The signal is AM mode, with the lower sideband suppressed.

The same information is carried on all three frequencies simultaneously including announcements every minute, alternating between English and French. The CHU transmitters are located near Barrhaven, Ontario.

According to a posting on Radio Reference, there is also a time beacon in Moscow, Russia that transmits on 9996 and 14996 kHz in CW mode. I have never heard that station.

If anyone knows of additional shortwave time stations, please post the information in the comments section below.

Beacons

Another “standard reference” that can be used to figure out what’s happening with shortwave propagation is the International Beacons Project, a worldwide network of radio propagation beacons. It consists of 18 Morse code (CW) beacons operating on five designated frequencies in the high frequency band. The project is coordinated by the Northern California DX Foundation (NCDXF) and the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU).

This page shows the locations of the beacons and gives samples of the signals that can be heard. Each beacon transmits once on each band once every three minutes, 24 hours a day. A transmission consists of the callsign of the beacon sent at 22 words per minute followed by four one-second dashes. The callsign and the first dash are sent at 100 watts. The remaining dashes are sent at 10 watts, 1 watt and 100 milliwatts. At the end of each 10 second transmission, the beacon steps to the next higher band and the next beacon in the sequence begins transmitting.

Clicking around the International Beacons Project website will reveal a wealth of information, including a Reverse Beacon Network — https://www.ncdxf.org/beacon/RBN.html — no kidding.

Finally, if you would like to disappear down the rabbit hole of chasing shortwave beacons, here is a list of 411 beacons around the world: http://www.dl8wx.de/BAKE_KW.HTM

The listing includes the frequency, the location, and the power of the transmitter (among other things). If any reader has experience with these beacons, please post in the comments section.

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Jock gets a good grounding!

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Jock Elliott, who shares the following guest post:

Getting grounded – at last!

By Jock Elliott, KB2GOM

Readers’ comments are among the best things about writing for the SWLing.com blog. When a reader responds to a post and leaves a comment, it does three things. First, it lets the author know that someone actually read the post. Second, it provides valuable feedback – “I liked it.” “Did you know about this . . .?” “I had a similar experience.” – and so forth. Finally, it provides the author an opportunity to learn something, and that perhaps is the most fun.

A case in point: when I posted this, Andrew (grayhat) said:

“If you want to make an experiment, connect the end-fed to the Satellit high-Z wire input (clamp), then pick a (relatively short) run of insulated wire connect one end of the wire to the high-Z “ground” (clamp) and the other end of that wire to the “gnd” hole in the wall plug

The above being said, I prefer keeping antennas outside and taking care of the feedline, this helps reducing or eliminating noise from indoor appliances like switching PSUs and other things, anyway, if you want, try the above idea and let me know how it works for you”

To which, I responded:

“Thanks for the comments.

Thanks to a tree falling on the powerlines, I now know that the inherent electrical noise in my radio room is basically down to the level of atmospheric noise.

Neverthless, experimenting with a ground is definitely worth trying. A thin wire, sneaked out the window to a ground rod, might do the trick. I’ll report back after I try.”

Andrew (grayhat) came back to me and said:

“I was serious, try the “wall plug ground” I described, it won’t start any “magic smoke” or the like, otherwise, if you can lay out a wire with a length of 5m max, cut to be NON resonant, and connected to a good ground stake, go for it

Then, if you want to discuss this further, just ask Thomas for my e-mail, I agree to share it with you.”

Now, I really appreciated Andrew’s comments, but what I had not told him was that there is just one wall plug in my radio shack; it is really inaccessible, and I am not sure I can get a ground off it. Further, the rest of the power “system” in my shack is a rat’s nest of power bars and extensions, and I have zero confidence that any of them will provide a useful ground.

But – and this is a big but – I did take Andrew’s point: that connecting an actual ground to the ground clip on the back of the Satellit 800 might improve things. Continue reading →

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The Satellit 800, the Tecsun PL-880, and two indoor antennas – an afternoon of experimentation

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Jock Elliott, who shares the following guest post:

The Satellit 800, the Tecsun PL-880, and two indoor antennas – an afternoon of experimentation

By Jock Elliott, KB2GOM

A search for “shortwave listening antennas” on the internet landed me on the page for the Par EndFedz® EF-SWL receive antenna, which is a 45-foot end-fed wire antenna connected to a wideband 9:1 transformer wound on a “binocular core” inside a UV-resistant box. A link on the page invited me to check out the eHam reviews of this antenna, which are here. What struck me is that there are just page after page of 5 star reviews of this antenna. Hams and SWLs apparently just love it. (If you want to buy of these antennas, they are now sold by Vibroplex and can be found here.)

As I reached for my credit card, I remember that I had an LDG 9:1 unun transformer lying around and some wire left over from the Horizontal Room Loop project. Maybe I could create my own end-fed SWL antenna by wrapping the wire around the perimeter of the room, attaching it to the 9:1 unun and then by coax to the back of my Grundig Satellit 800.

So I did exactly that. The wire for new end-fed antenna travels the same route around the perimeter of the room as the horizontal room loop. The main differences between the two antennas are that the end-fed is not a loop, and it terminates in the 9:1 transformer, which, in turn, feeds the Satellit though a coax cable. But in essence, we’re talking about two indoor wire antennas that are the same length and laid out along the same path about 7 feet in the air around the interior of the 8-foot by 12-foot room that serves as a library and radio shack: the horizontal room loop and the indoor end-fed.

The Satellit 800 has three possible antenna inputs: the very tall built-in whip antenna, two clips on the back of the 800 where the horizontal room loop attaches, and a pl-239 coax connector where the new end-fed antenna attaches. In addition, there is a three-position switch that allows me to quickly switch from one antenna to another.

Tuning up on the WWV time stations on 5, 10, 15, and 20 MHz and sliding the switch on the back of the Satellit 800 among the three different positions, I quickly found that the whip antenna was the noisiest of the three choices and offered the poorest signal-to-noise ratio. The comparison between the horizontal room loop and the indoor end-fed antenna was very, very close. While the horizontal room loop was quieter, it seemed to me that the signal offered by the indoor end-fed antenna was the tiniest bit easier to hear, so I decided to leave the Satellit 800 hooked up to the indoor end-fed antenna.

The 100-foot indoor end-fed antenna

Then I did something I had wanted to do for quite a while: I disconnected the horizontal room loop from the back of the Satellit 800 and attached one end of the wire to the indoor end-fed. So now, I had a roughly 100-foot end-fed antenna wrapped twice around the room.

Before we proceed any further, you need to understand this: my comprehension of antenna theory is essentially nil. As the old-timers would have it: you could take the entirety of what I understand about antenna theory, put it in a thimble, and it would rattle like a BB in a boxcar.

Ever since the successful creation of the horizontal room loop, I had wondered: if 50 feet of wire wrapped around a room improves the signal, would 100-feet of wire improve the signal even more? Inquiries to several knowledgeable people produced the same result: they didn’t think so.

Guess what? They were right . . . entirely and completely right. Tuning to the time stations and attaching and detaching the extra 50 feet of wire from the indoor end-fed, I saw (on the signal strength meter) and heard no difference in signal strength or signal-to-noise ratio.

The PL-880 and Satellit 800 comparison

So now, the Satellit 800 is attached to the indoor end-fed antenna, and there is an extra 50 feet wire wrapped around the room on the same path as the end-fed. Wouldn’t it be nice if I could find a way to hook that extra wire up to my Tecsun PL-880?

An old auxiliary wind-up wire antenna from a FreePlay radio came to the rescue. It was an annoying piece of gear; the wire was difficult to deploy and even more difficult to wind up again, and it had languished in a drawer for more than a decade. But it had a really nifty clip on the end that was designed to easily snap on and off a whip antenna.

Pulling an arm-spread of wire out of the reel, I cut it off, stripped the wire, attached it to the end of what had been the horizontal room loop, and clipped it to the whip on the PL-880. Tah-dah . . . instant improvement to the signal coming into the PL-880.

Some time ago, a reader had asked whether I found the Satellit 800 a little deaf in comparison to the Tecsun PL-880. Now, with two indoor antennas of approximately the same length and routed along the same path, I could do the comparison on shortwave frequencies. Starting with the time stations and later with hams in single-sideband on the 20-meter band, I alternated between the two radios. Although the PL-880 has more bandwidth choices, and the two radios have a slightly different sound to them (probably, I’m guessing, due to differences in their circuitry), the bottom line is this: anything I could hear with the Satellit 800 I could also hear with the PL-800 . . . and vice versa. (Note: I did not do any comparison between the two on medium wave or FM.)

In my not-so-humble opinion, both offer worthy performance that is improved with the addition of a 50-foot wire antenna, even if it is indoors.

And that brings us to the final point.

A word of caution

If you decide to add a bit of wire to improve the signal coming into your shortwave portable or desktop receiver, do NOT, under any circumstances, EVER deploy the wire where it could come into contact with a powerline or fall onto a power line or where a power line could fall on it.

As Frank P. Hughes, VE3DQB, neatly put it in his wonderful little book Limited Space Shortwave Antenna Solutions: “Make sure no part of any antenna, its support or guy wires can touch a power line before, after, or during construction. This is a matter of life and death!”

And when thunder and lightning threaten, make sure your outdoor antenna is disconnected and grounded.

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World War II Radio Letters: a real-life shortwave story – Part II

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Jock Elliott, who shares the following guest post:

World War II Radio Letters: a real-life shortwave story – Part II

By Jock Elliott, KB2GOM

That so many people have been moved by Part I has been heartwarming. Since writing it, there have been further developments. Tecsun Radio Australia asked (and was granted) permission to reproduce the article for Anzac Day (April 25), when all fallen personnel in all wars are remembered in Australia.

In addition, I became aware of two books – World War II Radio Heroes Letters of Compassion and Waves of Hope (thanks, Bill Hemphill!) – that are all about World War II radio letters. We’ll get to those books in just a bit.

But first, I wanted to tell you something you might find surprising: I did not set out to write about how shortwave listeners had reassured my Mom that my Dad was alive during WWII. Not at all. In fact, in my 50 years as a writer, I found the process of how this came to be written, well, a little strange.

The night before, I had drifted off to sleep thinking about a radio and antenna comparison I had been fooling around with during the day (and which I plan to write up in the future). But in the morning – Holy Smokes! – completely out of the blue, my mind was seized by the following thought: Wasn’t it a shortwave listener in New Jersey that first informed my Mom that my Dad was a prisoner of War? (It turned out that wasn’t quite correct.) It’s in a scrapbook in the basement . . . go find it!

Now, I had not thought about those old scrapbooks in at least two decades, maybe more, but I could picture a particular scrapbook in my mind. Rooting around in the basement, I found it, but it didn’t contain anything about my Dad going missing in action or my Mom being informed he was still alive. Maybe I was wrong, I thought.

Back upstairs in my easy chair, the thought would not leave me alone, kept nudging me: Go find it. More digging in the basement produced the right scrapbook with the right information. Reading it, I found tears running down my face at the kindness of strangers.

As I completed writing World War II Radio Letters Part I and sent it off to Thomas, it struck me as curious that, in all my years writing about radio subjects, I had ever seen an article, or even a mention, of the shortwave monitors of WWII. I thought perhaps no one had ever written on the subject, but I was wrong.

I was poking around the internet and came across World War II Radio Heroes: Letters of Compassion Second Edition by Lisa Spahr. It is a 212-page 10-inch by 7-inch book that details her discovery of her grandfather’s WWII trunk, which contained dozens of letters and postcards from shortwave listeners who wrote to Spahr’s great-grandmother to let her know that her son had been captured and was a prisoner of war.

The book, which contains photos of the original correspondence from the SWLs, chronicles her attempt to contact those shortwave listeners or their families, her discovery of the Short Wave Amateur Monitors Club – which turned the monitoring for POWs names into an organized effort – and a lot else besides. If you enjoyed my first post on this subject, I am pretty sure you will enjoy this book.

The other book – Waves of Hope by Ronald Edward Negra – is about how his mother, Agnes Joan Negra, was a shortwave monitor during WWII who sent out more than 300 letters and postcards to families to inform them that their loved ones were captured and still alive. This is a larger format book (8.5 inches by 11 inches) running to 124 pages that reproduces the letters that Agnes received back from grateful families after receiving the news from Agnes. At the time of this writing, Agnes is still alive, about to celebrate her 102nd birthday!

I found Waves of Hope to be a moving and compassionate book, and I think any SWL will appreciate having it on his or her bookshelf.

Finally, you will find a great deal of additional information here: https://www.ontheshortwaves.com/history-III.html#POW

At the end of it all – the strange process of writing the story, the response of the readers, the books telling the story of WWII radio letters – I come back to the place I started as a grade school boy. It was then that I discovered monitoring the radio can be an almost magical activity . . . and you never know when something you heard may touch another’s life in a profound way.

So keep listening!

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WWII Radio Letters: A real-life shortwave story

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Jock Elliott, who shares the following guest post:

A real-life shortwave story

By Jock Elliott, KB2GOM

On July 25, 1943, a Royal Canadian Air Force Wellington bomber took off from England to fly a mission over Nazi-held territory in Europe. It never returned to base.

A Wellington aircrew getting ready.

On board was an American Lieutenant, tailgunner on the aircraft. He had flown at least 19 missions, and now his status was unknown.

The office.

On July 30, a letter was sent to his wife. It began:

Before receiving this letter you will have had a telegram informing you that your husband, Lieutenant John Chapman Elliott, is missing as a result of air operations. I regret to have to confirm this distressing news.

John and the air crew took off on an operational sortie over enemy territory on the evening of the 25th July and we have heard nothing of them since. However, it is decidedly possible that they are prisoners of war or are among friends who are helping them to make their way back to this country . . .

Status unknown . . . “we have heard nothing of them since.” An agonizing psychological limbo. Do you mourn or do you hope? How do you live in that middle space?

The exact timing of what happens next isn’t clear, but in September two things happened.

A telegram arrived:

Mrs. J C Elliott =

Report received through the International Red Cross states your husband First Lieutenant John C Elliott is a prisoner of war of the German Government . . .

Notation in the scrapbook above the telegram (in my Mother’s hand) reads:

The finest Telegram and the loudest words in the life of Phyllis Nancy Elliott

On or around the same time, postcards and letters arrived from around the country. From Northville, Michigan; Green County, New York; Grand Rapids Michigan; Auburn, Maine; Burlington, Iowa; Chicago, Illinois; Boston, Massachusetts, shortwave radio listeners wrote to Mrs. Elliott to tell her that they had heard – on a broadcast from Berlin, Germany – First Lieutenant John Elliott is a prisoner of war, and offering words of comfort or explanation:

Wishing you best of luck in his safe return to you,

I am a patient at the above sanatorium and as I have a quite powerful radio receiver I am taking this means of doing my bit for the boys in our armed services,

Hoping this may comfort you in knowing that he is alive and alright,

Hope this cheers you up.

Hope this will relieve your worries . . .

Words cherished and pasted into a scrapbook.

My Dad later told me what happened. Their Wellington bomber was badly shot up, and the pilot informed the crew that it was time to bail out.

My Dad cranked his tail turret around so that the door opened into the air. He flipped backward out of the aircraft. For a little while, one of his electrically-heated flying boots caught on the door frame. Hanging upside-down, he kicked the boot off, pulled the ripcord on his parachute, and landed with green stick fractures in both legs. He hobbled around Holland for three days while trying to avoid the Germans. He was captured and spent two and one-half years as prisoner of war.

Lower right: My Dad.

When the war ended, he was repatriated, and in 1946, your humble correspondent showed up. The photos are of actual postcards and letters in an 80-year-old scrapbook kept by my Mother and passed down to me.

And so, dear reader, never belittle your hobby of listening to the airwaves, because you never know when something you heard may be able to offer comfort in times of trouble. I know it certainly did for my Mother.

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Guest Post: Everyone should have a “Crisis Radio”

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Jock Elliott, who shares the following guest post:

The Crisis Radio

By Jock Elliott, KB2GOM

Sooner or later, it will happen to you. What’s ‘it’? Short answer: a crisis.

It could be as simple as you wake in the morning to find the power is out; you don’t know how long it has been out, and you don’t know when it is coming back. It might be a weather event: a blizzard, a sandstorm, a tornado, a derecho, a hurricane. It might be a geologic event like a tsunami, earthquake, or even volcanic activity. As recent events have shown, it could even be a war or a revolution.

When normal life is disrupted, and uncertainty is perched on your shoulder like a vulture, you will want to know what’s going on, and your usual means of getting information – telephone, smart phone, internet device – may also be disrupted.

When that happens, radio can come to your rescue. Your local FM or AM (medium wave) station may be on the air, providing vital information to your community, or NOAA Weather Radio may be providing hazard information. In extreme cases, shortwave radio may be beaming information to your area when all else fails.

One of the points that was made when our own Thomas Witherspoon was interviewed recently was that people tend to regard shortwave radio as “crisis” radio.

So I have a couple of very specific recommendations.

First, make sure that your household has a “crisis radio.” By that I mean one that will receive your local AM and FM broadcasters as well as shortwave radio, and, if you live in the US or Canada, NOAA Weather Radio. If you can afford it, I recommend getting a crisis radio that has single sideband capability (SSB) so that you have the ability to intercept ham radio communications, which might be another source of information.

Toward that end, I can heartily recommend the CCrane Skywave SSB radio. (Let’s be clear: I have no commercial connection with CCrane; I get nothing from them for making this recommendation, I purchased my Skywave SSB with my own money.) It has AM, FM, Shortwave, Weather, VHF, Aviation and SSB Bands. It is very small, measuring just 4.8″ W x 3″ H x 1″ D and weighing just 6 ounces without batteries. It will run for over 50 hours on a couple of AA batteries and comes with CC Earbuds, SkyWave SSB Carry Case, and CC SW Reel Antenna which boost sensitivity for shortwave and ham radio listening.

It is a crisis radio that you can stick in your pocket, backpack, purse or briefcase for deployment when the need arises or you simply want to listen to some radio programming. Further, you don’t have to be an expert to operate the CCrane Skywave SSB. Thanks to the Automatic Tuning System, just select the band you want to listen to, press and hold the ATS button for two seconds, and the Skywave SSB will automatically search for stations in that band (AM, FM, Shortwave, etc.) and store those stations in the memory banks for that band. You can later check those memories to hear what programming those stations are broadcasting.

Second, and this is important, if you listen to shortwave radio at all, take the time to let the stations know. Drop them a postcard; shoot them an email, do whatever you can to inform them you are listening, and you value their transmissions.

Why? Because we all want those stations to be there if and when the next crisis happens. And if your local AM or FM station provides special programming to the community a weather event or geologic emergency, for the same reason, be sure to let them know how much you appreciate their efforts.

As a fire captain observed a couple of years after the North Ridge earthquake in California: “You cannot be over-prepared for communications in an emergency.”

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You and the ionosphere: Share your propagation stories!

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Jock Elliott, who shares the following guest post:

You and the ionosphere . . . a reader participation post

By Jock Elliott, KB2GOM

Here’s a shocker for you: we live at the bottom of the sky. Above us there are multiple layers of the atmosphere, pressing down on us at 14.7 pounds per square inch.

Of particular relevance to us as shortwave listeners and hams, there is a special layer of the atmosphere, not shown on the chart above called the ionosphere. The ionosphere starts around 30 miles above us and extends up to about 600 miles and includes parts of the layers above.

The Sun’s upper atmosphere, the corona, is very hot and produces a constant stream of Ultra-Violet and X-rays, some of which reach our atmosphere. When the high energy UV and X-rays strike the atmosphere, electrons are knocked loose from their parent atoms and molecules, creating a layer of electrons.

Now, here’s the cool part: this layer – the ionosphere – is important because radio waves bounce off of it.

The sun, however, is not constant in its action on the ionosphere. The amount of UV and x-ray energy (photon flux) produced by the sun varies at by nearly a factor of ten as the sun goes through an 11 year cycle. The density of the ionosphere changes accordingly, and so does the ability of the ionosphere to bounce radio waves. When the sun is at peak activity, and the ionosphere is “hot,” SWLs and hams are likely to experience excellent long-range propagation. When the sun is quieter, long-range propagation diminishes.

Every 11-year solar cycle is unique, but early indications are that we may on the verge a cycle that favors long-range propagation: https://swling.com/blog/2022/03/termination-event-may-indicate-solar-cycle-strength/

The results can be spectacular. Decades ago, during a particularly hot solar cycle, I once spoke from my station near Albany, NY, to a station in the state of Georgia on a mere 4 watts. On another occasion, I conversed with a ham in Christchurch, New Zealand – a distance of over 9,000 miles – with 100 watts single sideband transmit power. During that same period, I would routinely listen to shortwave stations halfway around the world.

And now, it’s your turn – what’s your favorite long-range propagation story, either as an SWL or ham? Please comment!

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