WTF?
http://www.laughingpoliceman.com
Certainly some of the comments about typical radio amateurs were borne out at the recent Dunstable Downs rally (fortunately held in the middle of a big field). 
Yes, I know that a US gallon is smaller than an Imperial gallon. Is there an "official" 14 pound stone in the government standards or just based upon tradition?tggzzz wrote: ↑Mon May 25, 2026 3:29 pm There are a few more Imperial units still in "everyday" use: miles (plus furlongs if you race the geegees!), mpg rather than l/100km (Imperial gallons, not the anaemic US gallon[1]), lbs (if you are a greengrocer wanting to make political points), feet and inches when related to bodies.
But almost all are metric nowadays, including food prices[2].
[1] typical journalists don't realise that, and rely on the gallon-litre conversion in their calculator
[2] Most local supermarkets sell one item costing £3k-8k per kg, depending on the origin. Guess what
Hint: consider long-ton vs short-ton vs metric-ton. Don't ask about cwtMED6753 wrote: ↑Mon May 25, 2026 3:43 pmYes, I know that a US gallon is smaller than an Imperial gallon. Is there an "official" 14 pound stone in the government standards or just based upon tradition?tggzzz wrote: ↑Mon May 25, 2026 3:29 pm There are a few more Imperial units still in "everyday" use: miles (plus furlongs if you race the geegees!), mpg rather than l/100km (Imperial gallons, not the anaemic US gallon[1]), lbs (if you are a greengrocer wanting to make political points), feet and inches when related to bodies.
But almost all are metric nowadays, including food prices[2].
[1] typical journalists don't realise that, and rely on the gallon-litre conversion in their calculator
[2] Most local supermarkets sell one item costing £3k-8k per kg, depending on the origin. Guess what
I used to work with journalists. I can assure you that most can't operate the % button on a four function calculator, let alone find the conversions. They probably use their phone. Which might well warn them of the difference between UK and US gallons.
My unconfirmed suspicion is that messages sit in the outbox until they have been read. More accurate info welcomed.
I've sent you a PM.
You've left the name of the instrument in the picture and I had no idea it was produced with the Agilent name on it, that must be a very late one. Mine's a Hewlett Packard with OCXO, extended memory and the useful C channel. It cost me a fair amount but it's worth it. The 5 seconds per division is way too fast for that to be an oven warming up unless it's really tiny. I think one last time must be to do with Droitwich, so the MDA will be measuring something like a QuartzLock off-air 10MHz standard. Last year I sold an RCS branded one to its designer, at Stockwood Park, it was half dismantled but he wanted it for sentimental reasons so it didn't matter if it worked or not. I wasn't expecting the signal to last another year at that point.
I also thought about Droitwich but you beat me to it. We did away with all our such transmitters (except world heritage SAQ which is a tad smaller bandwidth) years ago. Perhaps a HF one exists. The MW station aimed at Eastern Europe still stands as masts, but the electronics have been dismantled too far.synx508 wrote: ↑Sun May 31, 2026 8:29 pmYou've left the name of the instrument in the picture and I had no idea it was produced with the Agilent name on it, that must be a very late one. Mine's a Hewlett Packard with OCXO, extended memory and the useful C channel. It cost me a fair amount but it's worth it. The 5 seconds per division is way too fast for that to be an oven warming up unless it's really tiny. I think one last time must be to do with Droitwich, so the MDA will be measuring something like a QuartzLock off-air 10MHz standard. Last year I sold an RCS branded one to its designer, at Stockwood Park, it was half dismantled but he wanted it for sentimental reasons so it didn't matter if it worked or not. I wasn't expecting the signal to last another year at that point.
Easy to have a slip of the eye with that display, unless you are familiar with it.
I thought the field strength was supposed to be 10mV/m at 1000km. Presumably you don't have sufficiently long piece of wireI also tuned my MDA's OCXO to Droitwich and have wondered if I really needed the GPSDO afterwards. I decided that I did but I'm not sure that GNSS availability is guaranteed to be with us for much longer so I started trying to construct a 60kHz receiver which turned out to be a frustrating endeavour because it's so weak here. Phase-locking to it is not going to be easy and may only be possible with DSP.
Almost half a century ago I had a similar problem with optical signals. I made a receiver with a 90dB optical dynamic range (180dB electric), and didn't want to use a PLL since Floyd M Gardner's "Phaselock Techniques" stated its lock in time was (?and still is?) indeterminate.Then I decided 162kHz was a better option as there was a sensibly strong signal there - but it's not the easiest job to decode with full phase lock to its too-clever-by-far pseudo-random PM "phase spreading" signal, something that's required to get the best out of the signal.
I'm not sure what you mean when you say "GNSS availability". GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) is a general term for several satellite systems used for positioning and navigation. These systems are GPS, Galileo, GLONASS and others. GPSDOs use at least two. Because of its immense strategic and economic importance, it's hard to see GNSS going away any time soon.synx508 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2026 5:32 am 1s/div of course, I get that wrong a lot because some of my instruments show the per division setting in that central position.
I also tuned my MDA's OCXO to Droitwich and have wondered if I really needed the GPSDO afterwards. I decided that I did but I'm not sure that GNSS availability is guaranteed to be with us for much longer so I started trying to construct a 60kHz receiver which turned out to be a frustrating endeavour because it's so weak here. Phase-locking to it is not going to be easy and may only be possible with DSP.
Then I decided 162kHz was a better option as there was a sensibly strong signal there - but it's not the easiest job to decode with full phase lock to its too-clever-by-far pseudo-random PM "phase spreading" signal, something that's required to get the best out of the signal.
