TRANS-PACIFIC LF TEST SCHEDULE 6 June 2000
Arrangements have been made for a number of West Coast stateside LF listeners to find out what they can receive from ZL LF test transmissions.
The timing is Saturday night 17 June (New Zealand time) which is Friday night and Saturday morning California time.
It is intended to also try again on Saturday 24 June, but subject to review, depending on what is reported for 17 June.
The following table shows the respective sunset and sunrise times:
ZL sunset ... CA sunrise ... ZL sunrise
=============================
17 June
.. 0455 .. .. .. 1252 .. .. .. 1950 (UTC)
24 June
.. 0457 .. .. .. 1253 .. .. .. 1952 (UTC)
The timing happens to be around the longest day (mid summer) in the northern hemisphere, which of course corresponds to the longest night in the southern hemisphere (mid winter).
The following stations intend to be transmitting:
ZL1WB 181.42 kHz
ZL6QH 182.10 kHz (operated by ZL2BBJ and ZL2CA)
ZL3PN 182.70 kHz
ZL4MD 183.50 kHz
ZL3VN 184.00 kHz
ZL3JE 184.50 kHz
ZL4OL 185.00 kHz
AX2TAR 176.50 kHz (VK7ZAL, Tasmania, Australia)
The station with highest radiated power is likely to be the Quartz Hill station ZL6QH. It is intended to run ZL6QH as a continuous beacon transmission, from around 0400 - 2000 UTC on 17 June. This covers times for many "dark" paths, both east and west.
AX2TAR is also planning to run continuously, from 0630 - 1300 UTC on 17 June.
All other stations will definitely try to be transmitting for around half an hour either side of ZL sunset time as well as the California sunrise time.
As each station has a unique test frequency, there is no co-channel pile-up. Frequencies have already been checked for not coinciding with local QRM for receiving stations in California.
In general, stations will attempt to maintain their assigned carrier frequency within 10 Hz and emissions will be conventional CW at around 5 wpm.
Reception reports are welcomed. Email to reflector sites would generally be the fastest and most effective way to disseminate reports.
Bob ZL2CA