Hello all
Time to tell you about our Holiday CLEs.
Yes – we have two of them, running at the same time, something we have
often done in the Christmas – New Year period.
The Early Advice for both CLEs is described here, but we shall treat them
quite separately after this.
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CLE226 - SANTA’S BEACONS
We'll be sharing Santa's attempts to use the NDBs north of the Arctic Circle
(Latitude N67 degrees) as he navigates his weary reindeer on the last stages
of their long flights back home.
Please tell us of any normal NDBs north of the Arctic Circle that you manage
to log.
Days: Monday 25th December – Tuesday 2nd January
Times: Midday on 25th Dec to Midday on 2nd Jan, your local time
QRG: Normal LF/MF frequencies
Target: NDBs within the Arctic Circle, north of Latitude 67 degrees
That is similar to what we did way back in Holiday CLE059 (Christmas 2004).
There are about 130 qualifying ‘active’ NDBs currently recorded in RWW.
I attach the Excel list here as SANTAS NDBs.xls
It lists all NDBs in RWW shown as active within the Arctic Circle.
The list is in frequency order within each Radio Country.
(You can see the old results from CLE059 in the CLE Archives Section,
http://www.ndblist.info/cledata/CLE59santa.pdf It only ran for 24 hours
after midday on Christmas Day)
We do apologise to the listeners who are too far south to hear anything.
(The further north listeners often miss out in normal CLEs, especially in
the summertime when there is very little sky wave propagation for them)
The Final Details for the Santa CLE, CLE226, will follow in a few days.
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CLE227 - BEARINGS CLE
Like CLE226, this is also a re-run, something that was very much enjoyed
over 10 years ago - as CLE092 during a weekend in early June 2007.
Days: Monday 25th December – Tuesday 2nd January
Times: Midday on 25th Dec to Midday on 2nd Jan, your local time
QRG: Normal LF/MF frequencies
Target: Up to 10 NDBs in each Radio Country in your chosen direction
You choose a line in any one direction from you. Then try to log 'normal'
NDBs in each of the radio countries crossed by that line - not more than
10 NDBs from each country.
Your line can be at any bearing of your choice - e.g. 123 degrees but NOT
including the opposite direction (303 degrees).
Preferably use a Great Circle map to choose your line and to see which radio
countries it cuts (a country is included if any part of it is crossed).
Remember that each USA and Australian State and each Canadian Province is
a separate Radio Country. See
http://www.ndblist.info/ndbinfo/countrylist.pdf (If your line crosses the sea, any platforms roughly in that direction would
also qualify as a radio country for the CLE).
The event will give you an opportunity to plan your own tactics. You could:
Try out a directional aerial
Include a favourite country or countries
Listen for NDBs which mostly have your favourite offset
Concentrate either on DX or more local reception
Exclude signals from the direction of your worst QRN
- any or all of those things, and more.
The aim is not to try and include as many countries or as many NDBs as
possible, though you could do that if you wanted to!
TO CHOOSE YOUR BEARING, for non-dx loggings you could use an
ordinary map (Mercator projection), especially if your location is near
to its middle.
Better would be a Great Circle map centred on your location - you should
find that
https://ns6t.net/azimuth/azimuth.html is good and very easy to
download and use. Just put in your location (e.g. Locator), choose a
distance and click on ‘Create Map’. It misses out smaller countries,
but reference also to a ‘normal’ map should cater for that.
Perhaps ideal would be Google Earth if you can download that (it is a
powerful program for lots of purposes). Click on its Ruler icon and draw
a line with the mouse. It tells you distance and Bearing ('Heading').
(Feel free to tell us about any other suitable Great Circle programs)
The Final Details for the Bearings CLE, CLE227, will follow in a few days.
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So, CLE226 or CLE227 or both, Joachim and I hope you will enjoy your
holiday listening and the planning for it.
73
Brian