DA0LF Received by G3XDV 21 June 1998

DA0LF carried out a new set of tests from a better location than when I first heard him. Using the new Spectrogram v4.2, I received a very solid screen trace from his 20s dot period extremely slow Morse. I could occasionally detect him by ear but extremely weakly. At the time I was also hearing LX1PD and G2AJV in my 500Hz receiver passband - three countries at once!!
 

A dash - 60 seconds long. fading can be seen about 10s from the start. This is absolutely 100 per cent copy despite the signal being inaudible. Note how the static crashes (see the yellow line) are ignored by the averaging - compare with the wide bandwidth plot below.

The two dots of the 'F' in DA0LF

The slow CW test ran from 0800 to 1000. After about 0900 the signal improved to allow occasional copy by ear. This trace shows a 60-second dash from DA0LF as a continuous line about half-way up the screen. As can be seen from the readable signal from G2AJV's 5WPM, the DSP bandwidth is very much broader than in the screens above. It clearly shows that conventional speed CW could have been just about readable - note that at this bandwidth the screen is about as good as a practiced CW operator. Comparison between this screen and the top two screens shows just how much improvement in signal/noise ratio is possible by using extremely slow Morse.

Click here to download a .WAV audio file of DA0LF at 0930UTC (beware - the 2-minute recording takes up1.3 Megabytes). Use it to experiment with Spectrogram if you have just downloaded a copy (or any other DSP program), or to see how DA0LF was received here - or just to hear how amazing it is to get such good copy on screen from such an incredibly weak signal. It is just possible to hear Peter's signal by ear if you really concentrate hard. The audio tone is 612Hz, which is a few hundred Hertz above G2AJV's beacon which can be heard throughout. Some facts you may need when playing with Spectrogram: About 18 seconds in (later if you use the averaging facility in Spectrogram 4.2), a dash starts, lasts for 60 seconds, then there is a 20s gap followed by a dot 20s long.


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