Repport from: Bogdan Alexandru Chiochiu DX'ing from Pierrefonds-Roxboro / Montreal's West Island using the Sanyo MCD-S830 barefoot for MW and the Sangean CST-818 with the battery-powered PK's Magnetic LW loop for LW
Trans-Atlantic DX: 162 FRANCE France Inter, Allouis DEC 22 0205 - woman reading poems with a dramatic voice, followed up by 1 or 2 FF electropop numbers, then a feature about an African immigrant coming to Paris followed by corny African Jazz-Ethno music, then talk about the true nature of coupé-décallé (conteporary rhythmic music originating from the Ivory Coast), mainly using major chords, though using minor ones too at times) which puts you in a Trance without "un philtre d'amour". Generally very good, but local computer-like QRM maked understandibility partial especially during the poem reading when the signal was slightly lower. In any event, best ever reception of this station ! The new battery (which already weakened) definitely allowed the PK's Magnetic LW loop to be the perfect choice ! (Chiochiu-QC) 171 MAROCCO Medi Un, Nador DEC 22 0407 - about one hour later after getting France-162, I had my best reception of these guys with broadcast announcement in French (station's identity, frequency, etc.), probably talking about the upcoming FF language px (this station is bilingual), but it was so chopped... Poor-fair with severe computer-like QRM. I see old repports about the GWEN, what the Groundwave Emergency Network is all about ? Noises, morse, voice utility signals or computer-like noise ? All the repports I saw are in the Mark Connelly's IDXD archive from the 1990s... (Chiochiu-QC) 183 GERMANY Europe 1, Felsberg (Saarlouis) DEC 22 0330 - fired their tx on about this time. I heard that Europe 1 is 24h on FM and broadcasts from 0230-2300 UTC on LW or something like that. First heard with a half electropop half acoustic Afropop tune by Amadou et Mariam, then the announcer was complementing their work saying in French they found the right balance between African and Occidental music. Then into the analysis of an english-speaking singer singing like Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston that was fairly obscure to me. Weird to have African music-related features on two differents FF stations ! Huge with very little in the way of deep fadings and absolutely no local computer or beacon QRM at all on this frequency as the PK's Magnetic loop seems unsensitive to overload from strong pests such as CINF-690 or CFAV-1570 ! This and Iceland-189 were the best LWers the past evening ! (Chiochiu-QC) 189 ICELAND RUV - Rikisutvarpid, Gufuskalar DEC 22 0225 - Man in Icelandic making some comments in between obscure musical selections that sounded like a gothic version of mid-1950's rockabilly with Icelandic lyrics. (Iceland, despite it's small size and small population, has a rich musical industry). Good, slightly weaker than Europe 1 on 1983 which was VERY good, but the best was yet to come. +DEC 22 0800+ - after a good movie watched past midnight and all that astonishing DX couldn't sleep, so fired the Sangean CST-818 / PK's Magnetic LW loop combo once again. France-162 was still fair and partially readable in spite of computer-like high-pitched growl and this one was EXCELLENT, semi-local-like and unbelievable with, at this time, mainly two men and occasionally a woman in Icelandic with two or three songs sqeezed in between the talk segments of their program. The chatter was partly music-related, I think, as I recognized the "rock" and "blues" words. At the end of one of the talk segments, heard a man making his voice softer and the other one said a word ressembling English "Thank You" and German "Danke!" (Icelandic is a Germanic language and have small ressemblance with both English and, especially, German - Bogdan). After the Danke-like word, 4 seconds break, then a classical interlude with beautifol trompett sounding like Bolero de Ravel. Our dog was sitting in the bed and as the classical trompett-based interlude began, he jumped toward the radio... So it seems we have a second DXer in our house. (Our dog was treated by a series of psy trance, progressive rock, classical music, World Music and French-Caribbean zouk music all summer long; I played the same record once every 3 or 4 days in order to help him developp a melodical sense. At night, I almost always left the radio switched to the classical music local CJPX on 99.5 MHz FM. He is quite sensitive to music, indeed. What maked this unusual was that it was a distant station with EXCELLENT signal by DX standard SEMI-local-like and with FAIR signal for a local listener, so a few barely noticeable noise - for me - was audible and the dog has even better ears - Bogdan). (Chiochiu-QC) 198 UNITED KINGDOM BBC Radio 4, Droitwich DEC 22 0258 - Man in British-accented English with a fair accent with QRM from a fairly strong local beacon on 201 kHz and from a weaker skywave-propagated one that was right on 198 and was a bit weaker than the BBC-198 signal. (Chiochiu-QC) 225 POLAND?? unID DEC 22 0325 - music at a threshold level briefly noted here but faded away at 0331 recheck. If I get this, which is a fairly difficult LW catche under what our nearby colleague Sylvain Naud judge by himself to be less-than-spectacular condx on LW, then my home country Antena Satelor on 153 kHz out of Bod should be, AT LEAST, remotely possible. (Chiochiu-QC) 234 LUXEMBURG, RTL, Junglister DEC 22 0146 - this alerted me before using the Sangean CST-818 barefoot I could hear Sting way down in the noise. Very excited, I changed the battery out of my brand new PK's Magnetic LW loop and using the brand new one, rotating the antenna's QRG amplifier I could either amplify the 232 kHz beacon, RTL-234 or a 237 kHz beacon, so this one was sandwiched in between 2 NDBs, yet thanks to it's good signal was partially readable. Using the Sangean CST-818 barefoot, this one was threshold and the beaconds which were slightly weaker were at VERY threshold levels, so I can't say the reception pretty much improved, but at least it had a rich fully dynamic sound in spite of high-pitched NDB's morse QRM. + DEC 22 0341 - good once again in spite of NDB QRM that was reduced by amplifying only 234 with the amplifier right in the center of the wanted frequency in order to somewhat attenuate 232 and 237, playing "Musique" by France Gall from 1975, one of her very few Disco records then man in FF with RTL ID and time-check "4 heures quarante-et-une", but the rest of his talk was buried in adjacent channel beacon's splatter. Partially readable, of course, but at least the signal it's self was quite strong. (Chiochiu-QC) 252 ALGERIA, Alger Chaîne 3 DEC 22 0211 - with the receiver tuned to 253 kHz in AM Narrow mode (the BFO is a lackluster for listenable BCB signals) and the antenna's set to favour reception around 252 kHz while reducing the 4 kHz distant local UL beacon on 248 kHz heard at a poor level a plaintive male AA vocal (not raï, sounded more traditionnal than raï does) getting through the still not completly nullled UL-248 kHz QRM. I didn't even think I was sure of getting this one someday. Of course, if the Sangean CST-818 has slightly below average IF image rejection and slightly above average sensitivity, it's selectivity is excellent - UL is super-powered (1000 W), yet this one managed to get through at a somewhat impressive level, at least by the rather tolerant DX standards. Impressive ! Now, if I could only get Atlantic 252 which is off the air since 2001 - one of the very few commercial broadcasters using LW. Is RTE Radio One using less power than the former Atlantic 252 did ? + DEC 22 0410 - FF talk, unreadable, very weak and unreadable, weaker than at 0211 UTC. (Chiochiu-QC) 585 SPAIN, Radio Nacional de España, Madrid DEC 22 0046 - briefly fading up at a poor and partially readable level with radio drama in Spanish, otherwise mostly threshold at best. MW TAs were almost inexistent the past night. Even this one (the only one heard) was very unimpressive. On Friday evenings they were much stronger and so they were on Saturday. (Chiochiu-QC) 1071 SPAIN, Euskadi Irratia / 1080 / 1143 SPAIN, SER DEC 21 / 22 - no log - just out of the amusement, I tried for this channel. I managed to null out WTIC to a fairly fair and barely acceptable signal level even the past night even though the further and lower in frequency WJR was almost unnulable. In spite of that nothing under the nulled WTIC. I think the SER-1080 is the best way to log an even-channel TA from Spain (Vatican-1530 is easier but I think Jesus was a masochist and the Pope is part of the Reptilian brotherhood who used the masochism of Jesus to manipulate us and to use the pain of a lack of justice to provocate nvrosis while our passions flew away in an unneded way - another reason why I didn't had the patience to positively identify the SS rel. "Radio Cadena La Voz de la Victoria" mystery on 540 a few weeks ago), but nothing materialized. The nulling of WTIC's IBOC hash enabled me to get a nice signal out of CHOK-1070 which has country music (ex. oldies) for a midldly interesting domestic DX challenge (I love to DX stations playing music, any kind of music with the exception of punk-rock which is way much worse than the hardest form of metal - is like someone laughing at you in a very cold and unfriendly way). Maybe CHOK was, at a good level, too strong to allow the 1071 local Spaniard Euskadi Irratia to squeeze by, I don't know... On 1143 while tuning between 1140 and 1150 only got some splash from CKOC/CJRC-1150 that almost reached 1140 and were quite noticeable just above the high side of the 1140 kHz NA channel. So a no log. (Chiochiu-QC) 1215 - nothing heard yesturday using the Sangean-CST-818 barefoot as there are way too many overspills using the Sanyo MCD-S830 which its relatively wide selectivity. (Chiochiu-QC) 1134 SPAIN COPE, synchros (probably the 50 kW tx) DEC 21 0021 - Man in Spanish and some music getting through for a few seconds through difficult to maintain a null on WBBR-1130. Probably Croatia in there too, but not sure. A narrow filter would have dealed easily with this one, but, alas, the Sangean CST-818 rx may be more selective than my Sanyo MCD-S830 barefoot, but it's much less selective (though I tried 1134 in AM Narrow position and heard nothing). I don't have a MW loop right now. What models should I try ? (Chiochiu-QC) Pan-American DX: 750 VENEZUELA, YVKS, Caracas, Distrito Federal bolivariano DEC 22 0035 - Woman in Spanish way under WSB. The only South American noted the past evening. Like I said, condx on MW for both the LAs and the TAs were really awful the past night and they seemed short-skip dominated, but I understand that 375 can make a huge difference (cf Bruce Conti). On 760, WJR was almost unnulable using the Sanyo MCD-S830 barefoot with not even the faintest trace of the Colombian powerhouse. (Chiochiu-QC) Bogdan speaks: Finally, here comes the end of my repport. Impressive, ain't it ? Well, yes it is, but there are a few disappointments. I won't talk about MW since using what I might call a clone of the GE Superradio models (according to the reviews, they might show quite some similarities with my Sanyo MCD-S830) is less than perfect for trans-oceanic MW DX, but I will instead talk about LW. First of all, the battery inside my Magnetic Loop antenna have weakened a lot. Last night, my UL beacon on 248 kHz was at a strenght of 7 out of 7, this morning at 6 out of 7 and right now at 5 out 7. It is not a huge problem, but... Then, Morocco-207, Germany-207 and Romoules-216 were either missing or completly covered by beacon QRM to the point that nothing more than imaginary level audio (c.f. WEAKER THAN POLAND-225) could be squeezed out. 207 is clearer than 216 which is burried by an NDB right on 217, so would 207 be possible. Is 207 still active ? Also, nothing more than unintelligible audio on 153 which is supposed to have an Algerian pest covering my home-country Antena Satelor, in Bod 20 km north of Brasov. I'd love even to hear that Algerian pest, as I love raï music and since I grew listening to Middle Eastern SW while in Bucharest Arabic music has always been to my liking. Anyone getting something on 153 at a few hundreds miles of distance that could definitively make a difference ? In the mean time, it is nice that the barely listenable yet challenging and HIGHLY interesting FF outlet on 252 kHz plays AA music as well !!!!!!!! But, in spite of those few disappointments, my LW experience the past night rewarded me with a great lack of sleep. I fell asleep shorlty after 4AM while Iceland-189 was still really loud and I woke before 8AM, so almost 3 hours and a half of sleep and I don't seem that tired. Sounds like my enthousiasm for DXing is in full swing... May the good DX bless your ears and make you forget daylight even exists !... Bogdan ---[Start Commercial]--------------------- Order your WRTH 2008: http://www.hard-core-dx.com/redirect2.php?id=wrth2008 ---[End Commercial]----------------------- ________________________________________ Hard-Core-DX mailing list Hard-Core-DX@hard-core-dx.com http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/hard-core-dx http://www.hard-core-dx.com/ _______________________________________________ THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License published by Michael Stutz at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/dsl.html
