[600MRG] /20 last night

[Rudy Severns]

This is the message I sent last night which was rejected by the mail 
daemon???

Looks like another good night on the band.  I've been getting steady WSPR
decodes for XIQ, XJM and XXM although I think their signals are a bit weaker
than last night although I can still see them on ARGO.  Mike /12 is Q5
absolutely QSO quality.  When the ice storm predicted for the next day or
two passes I'll be back on the air hunting a QSO.  Ralph /7 has a Q5 signal
as usual and Pat's /6 QRSS trace is consistently readable with less QSB than
usual.

My local noise level has also dropped, not due to anything I've done
however.  I guess I'm hoping that the equipment generating the noise froze
solid and won't be back.  Fat chance!  I did one interesting thing,  I
switched the receiver to AM reception and looked at the audio with ARGO.
This gave me the spectrum of the AC hash I've been hearing.  The hash is all
locked solidly to 60 Hz with many higher harmonics, both even and odd.  Even
harmonics come from full-wave rectification but the odd harmonics indicate
half-wave rectification.  That's the kind of cheapo stuff used in microwave
ovens.  What puzzles me why the higher order harmonics (>7) are so strong.
In ordinary rectifiers the harmonic amplitudes die off pretty quickly but
not in what I'm seeing????  I also looked at the hash with FM reception and
saw lots of harmonics there.  The wobbly oscillations I see wandering across
the band have both AM and FM modulation.

73, Rudy