"Sounds like fun, almost as much fun as watching paint dry on my living room
walls."
Sure, if that's what gets you off...
As for me and Class C...
It goes back to hearing the unknown signals in the 1970's - 90's. By the
mid-90's I bought a dedicated radio that covered them to monitor them, an
RCI-2950, which oddly had a jumper in it for these frequencies. Imagine a
meeting where the Ranger Engineers said, "We should make something we can
call a 10m radio, but we'll add a jumper so it's 10m AND/OR a CB, and
another where you can toss in the Class C telemetry frequencies, just to be
silly!". Go figure... Seems there something like five frequency
ranges/"bands" in this screwball rig. (for you anti-"CB" guys, I usually
use a stack of TS-570s nowadays and for the Kenwood haters a swath of IC-706
series rigs) By around 2000 I identified all but one of the devices by
frequency and modulation scheme. By the mid-2010's, I've managed to acquire
from what I can determine, at least one of most types of devices designed to
operate on the Class C frequencies. There are a few I have yet to get my
hands on, for example, then new WallyHome system ($$$), actually not on a
Class C frequency, rather the license free ISDM frequency of 27,120 KHz, but
close enough for me and a lightning strike early warning system ($$$$$)
designed by a fellow named Marcus, my only competitor in this field who buys
up the old equipment and pulls a single chip for his encoder. On the plus
side, he ships me crates of the leftovers to study and they are filled with
extruded aluminum cases, battery packs, RF connectors, HF transmitters,
mounting hardware, accessories, antennas, wiring harnesses, et cetera, the
only catch is that I don't bid him up on stuff he's interested in, between
us both we jacked up some items more than 45 times the typical going rate.
So, I see something, ask if he wants it, if not I get it, if he wants it, he
gets it, pulls a chip, ships it to me, can't complain, everything is nicely
wrapped and padded and FREE.
As for the waterfall, I don't stare at the thing continuously, I glance
every minute or two as I listen to the hiss of the receiver in the
background listening for a signal from a few mW to a few Watts from a few
miles away to the other side of the continent. Some signals are so feeble
they can't be heard, but even at powers in the mid -130 to -140dB range,
I'll see the patters of the transmission.
Sometimes, for fun, I'll track a source down. The best was a 4W signal,
lasting 1.5 seconds every eight seconds, inside a steel and concrete
building, the transmitter had a 10" antenna and was about 60 miles away
across several valleys and ranges of high hills. Usually if you can hear a
signal, you're very near the source, this was an exception.
Some people like CW.
Kurt
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