Odd Signal on 6 meters

[spongella]

This signal is always present on 6 meters, wonder what it is, anyone have a clue? Could be perhaps from some appliance, neighbor's invisible fence, for the life of me this is an odd signal. Maybe an internally generated birdie from the SDR. .

Thanks all.

Sponge

 

[KE4EST]

That is strange!

 

[Jim S.]

What does it sound like? It looks a little like ALE/Link-11, but I don't know what that would be doing on 6 meters.

 

[spongella]

Jim S.,

Only checked it using NBFM, has a whooshing sound. Funny that it's in the 6m ham band. I think it might be locally generated. Have to unhook the antenna and see if the signal decreases.

 

[Cham]

Are you using an indoor antenna? Could be generated by some electronics nearby. The 6m band has a lot of unlicensed devices transmitting, such as wireless thermometers, microphones, thermostats, etc. These are low power (supposed to be low power) transmissions usually less than 10mw but even at low power levels noise can propagate for quite a distance. 6m is secondary for amateur radio so it could even be a licensed commercial service using higher output power.

I haven't heard much on 6m so far this year other than a couple local nets at 50.2MHz. Hope we can get some propagation this spring... if it looks promising I'll have to put my 6 element yagi up again....

 

[spongella]

Back in the days of analog TV you could check channel 2 as an indicator of sporadic E and if you were receiving a distant station then 6m might be open. Have to check if there are any local TV digital stations on 54 - 60 MHz.

Back in the day used a Clegg Thor on 6m AM and CW, lots of fun working guys who were using rock bound receivers, you had to tune the band to find them.

 

[KE4EST]

I used a Hallicrafters HT-40 transmitter for over a year with a hand full of rocks before, I got a VFO and then a more modern radio.

 

[spongella]

One time I was listening on 6m and all I heard was a VE6 calling CQ in code. No one else was on the band, so I worked 'em. That's 6m for you, the magic band.