------Toast Observing Log------ * unless otherwise noted, location is Florence Alabama 34.81° N 87.64° W K3PGP front end (night version) with a 3x3mm detector diode and 15 inch light bucket mirror, fed directly into the computer sound card. About 100 feet of 50 ohm coax cable connecting receiver and computer. The software used is Argo V1 build 134 and others as noted. ``````````````````````````````` First Light! Date: July 6 2004 Time: 4:20 am to sunrise Weather: partly cloudy to light overcast with haze, moon visible in SSW sky. Pointing: south (180 az.) and about 75 to 80 degrees elevation - close to straight up but tilted southward by about 10 to 15 degrees. Comments: Right away i heard a loud periodic pulse type signal, sounding much like a "heart beat". It consisted of three "thumps" followed by a short pause, then repeating that over and over. Looking at the second hand of my clock, i noticed the pulsing was in exact sync with the ticking of seconds. It appears to be a crystal controlled or power line synchronized light signal with a period of one second. Signal is strong enough to seriously interfere with other things and makes strong spectrum lines throughout the lower audio band. No signs of my 23-24Hz beacon... (located about 12 miles away) ``````````````````````````````` Date: July 8 2004 Time: 12:15am to sunrise Weather: partly cloudy hazy clearing towards morning. The Moon was in the south-eastern sky at dawn. Pointing: south (180 az.) and about 50 to 60 degrees elevation Comments: Loud "heartbeat" signal still there. Appears to be a group of three pulses. The middle pulse is weaker than the other two. Harmonics of the signal can be plainly seen on the waterfall display, with lines at 1 Hz intervals up to and past 100 Hz. The band from 22 to 25 Hz has several strong lines (22, 23, 24 and 25 Hz). There are weak signals at 22.68, 23.35 and 24.68 Hz, but these appear to have the same frequency drift and similar, although much much weaker, amplitudes as the main spectrum lines. Sometimes the pulses would "jump phase", so that instead of 3 thumps and a rest, there would be two followed by a space then the third one and another space (still the same period though). That made me think it was three separate light sources causing this, that occasionally get out of phase with each other. Although they each still have the one second period. Most of the time the signal looks like the ascii drawing below. 1 second <------> |||_____|||____|||____|||____|||____|||____|||____|||____|||___ Toward morning the pulses fade and one of them disappears. Then another, leaving only one pulse going. Finally this too fades as dawn breaks and it begins to get light out. After a short time, the signal fades in and out a few times then, suddenly, there is a group of 10 or more pulses... The first one is loud followed closely by a train of other pulses. (see audio recordings) Always at the 1 second period. This lasts a few seconds or so then fades out. It is quiet for a bit then a single pulse fades back in and continues weakly in the background till i pull the plug about 5:30am. I think these strange pulse signals may be strobe lights on some antenna towers nearby, but i don't know for sure yet. I'll have to go out and drive around looking for them sometime. There is one tower pretty close to me (about 1/4 mile) but i've only seen a single incandescent type light at the top of it that is turned off and on "softly". Still no sign of my beacon... When i went out to get the receiver to bring it back in, i noticed the mirror had fogged up pretty badly with dew. It probably needs a dew cap or heater to prevent that, although i didn't notice anything really from listening to it prior to going out. ``````````````````````````````` Date: July 9 2004 Time: 12:00am to sunrise Weather: clearing skies, slight haze at midnight becoming clear rapidly last quarter moon in the eastern sky Pointing: south (180 az.) and about 80 degrees elevation Comments: "heart beat" signal is much weaker tonight but still there. Gradually gets weaker as the sky clears. The pulses are very weak and down in the noise after 1 am or so, making it possible to turn the gain way up. It's mostly the two pulse type with an intermittent third being heard from time to time. Hopefully with very clear skies, the pulse signals will be less bothersome when trying to receive the weak beacon signals. Recorded a possible signal from it on 60 second dots setting, (in second argo image, to the lower left of the middle) later in that image i switched to 120 second dots and recorded another 30 minutes or so (all images with argo taken tonight have been centered on 24 Hz). ``````````````````````````````` Date: July 9-10 2004 Time: 10 pm - 1 am Weather: scattered clouds with clear sky in between. Some thunderstorms in the area. Pointing: south (180 az.) and about 80 degrees elevation Comments: 10:00pm: Pulse signals fade in and out as small clouds drift by. Very quiet with clouds out of the field of view. As a cloud drifts into FOV the pulse signals get very strong, then slowly fade to almost nothing as cloud drifts away and clear sky returns. Hearing some lightning flashes from storms 30 to 40 miles north of me. These were visible off to the north when i was outside setting up the receiver. Recorded some audio of the lightning. 11:15pm: Lightning getting really strong so i'm disconnecting the receiver from the computer. I'll hook it up to a separate amplifier and continue listening for awhile. Looking at the radar, theres a thunderstorm about 10 miles north of me ``````````````````````````````` Date: July 10 2004 Time: 9:00pm - Weather: Clear skies. Some thunderstorms in western kentucky and north east alabama. Pointing: south (180 az.) 80 degrees elevation Comments: I checked the focus on the telescope and pulled the receiver out a little to sharpen it a bit, it had been about a half inch too close to the mirror. Some of the clearest skies so far. The heartbeat signal is very weak. Lightning pulses can be heard and are pretty loud at times. According to the radar channel they are 100 and 150 miles away to the east and north of me. ``````````````````````````````` Date: July 11 2004 Time: 9:30pm - Weather: Clear skies. Some thunderstorms in middle and eastern tennesse, the closest is 90 to 100 miles away. Pointing: south (180 az.) about 40 degrees elevation Comments: heartbeat signal is stronger than i thought it would be with the clear skies. Hearing some lightning pulses in the background, and a few stronger ones from time to time. 10pm: i think i heard an airplane fly through my field of view. A pulse signal of a bit longer period than the "heartbeat" began and got louder over a few seconds, then faded out in about the same length of time (strobes on plane?) I've heard this type of thing before, some with multiple strobes (see sound clip #2 on 7-8-04). I'm pointed in a direction that i've seen alot of planes fly through at night in the past. ``````````````````````````````` Date: July 15 2004 Time: 9:30pm - Weather: Clear skies. Pointing: south (180 az.) about 80 degrees elevation Comments: 25 Hz harmonic of strobe signal is -45.6 db and down in the noise (relatively) lots of lightning bugs flying around, not sure if i've heard those or not. started an argo scan at 60 second dots, centered on 23.5 Hz. No signs of the beacon (midnight), and it looks pretty doubtfull if i will be able to hear it as is. A wide angle LED with no collimation is just too weak at 12 miles apparently for my setup here. ``````````````````````````````` Date: July 27 2004 Time: sunset - Weather: PC to Clearing skies. And much dryer air than has been lately Pointing: 90 degrees elevation (straight up) Comments: It's not dark yet, actually the sun is still up (7pm). The loud white noise coming from the speakers is soothing and i may take a nap. I think i have sleeping sickness again. Hearing insects buzz through the field of view from time to time since they are illuminated well by the setting sun. Recorded an audio clip of one of them (maybe 2?) 10:30pm: 23 Hz harmonic of the strobe? signals is -49.1 dB on argo. Thats about as quiet as i've had it here so far. I went driving around earlier to try and find out whats causing those and didn't see any strobes on antenna towers that might explain it. We have so many tall trees around, it's hard to see much really. Since they've been causing such a racket i figured they would be easy to spot right away. I was going to build a small hand-held detector and go around the block again looking for it. from what i've seen, it seems to be coming from everywhere (at least in the directions i've been pointing the dish), mostly straight up to about 30 degrees elevation southward. 11pm - midnight: To sort of start down a new path here, i've put my sinewave beacon up. It's the LED type like on the beacons page and runs at 22.37 Hz right now. Spaced about 80 feet or so from the dish. I have it set up on the opposite side of the house from the receiver, so there's no way for a direct path between them. The signal strength is peaking about -56dB about 7.4 dB below the 23 Hz signal. (23Hz -48.6 dB currently) LED current is about 60 milliamps and has a 30 degree angle beam spread. ``````````````````````````````` Date: July 28 2004 Time: sunset - Weather: clear skies Pointing: 90 degrees elevation (straight up) Comments: Recorded waves of several insects flying through the field of view and edited them into one file. In the background you can hear the hiss of sun noise. ``````````````````````````````` *** update December 2004 *** Having been busy with other things lately, i havent had much time for experimenting. But i found out for sure that the mystery pulse signals are indeed coming from a nearby tower's strobe lights. It is located about 2 miles from me near the dam here (Wilson Dam). Apparently there are also other towers with strobes that are somehow synchronized on a one second period and contribute to the general "noise" of pulses heard in this area. ```````````````````````````````