Hot summer.

It’s been a very hot summer in Salzburg too, with temperatures hovering around 38 degrees over the last few days and far too little rain. The container’s cooling system is working reliably; I’ve only reached 40 degrees twice, for a few hours each time – the hardware has to be able to cope with that. Overnight, the simple air-cooling system for the container brings the temperature back down to below 28 degrees.

QRO.cz Norton Preamplifier.

I have now been using two Norton Preamplifiers from QRO.cz – Hamparts.shop – 24/7 for the past 8 months. Jan’s Preamplifier is a rare piece of equipment, a purely professional device that can amplify linearly up to over 1 watt. I didn’t ask him about IP3 or similar data, he just said I wouldn’t be disappointed and that it couldn’t be compared to transistor amplifiers like the RPA-2 from DX Engineering. Even the filtering of the 24 V power supply is perfectly solved on its own. I think Jan just wanted to show what he can do and that it also works with stronger broadcast signals. He has succeeded impressively. Thanks Jan!

10 Years.

I have been using my “SWL BOX” for 10 years now. It is an antenna distributor/filter/preamplifier combination that was custom-built for me, can be remotely controlled via the network and also uses protection filters. A perfect product from Jan Šustr’s Hamparts_shop. Good quality simply pays off! Thank you, Jan Šustr, for this important control unit for my station.

AziLoop.

My AziLoop antenna system brings me great joy every day. Especially now in October, when the summer storms are over, the first Asian signals in the mediumwave band from China and India can already be received at around 15:30 UT, i.e. one hour (!) before sunset at my location. At this time of day, there are no interfering signals from Europe, so it is particularly worthwhile searching for stations from Asia.