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Pete, good to see some logs pertinent to this side of the country.
My comments are prefaced by *** and are inserted below.
Mark Connelly, WA1ION
South Yarmouth, MA
<<
My wife, my DX-398, one of Gary DeBock?s FSL antennas and I all hopped on the
MS Rotterdam out of Boston on August 2 for a 38 day excursion. Ports visited
were Bar Harbor ME, Sydney NS, Corner Brook & Red Bay NL, Qaqortoq Greenland,
Reykjavik Iceland, Aalesund, Bergen & Eidfjord Norway, Rotterdam Netherlands,
Dublin Ireland, Liverpool England, Isle of Man, Isle of Skye, Djupivogur,
Akureyri & Isafjord Iceland, Nanortalik Greenland, St. Anthony & St. John?s NL
and Halifax NS and then back to Boston, where we stayed in Woburn.
Considerations: (1) our cabin was on the port side so that was helpful for
about half the trip; (2) most DXing was done daytime up to 10:30LT at night.
When you are losing an hour frequently, when your wife gets sick and when you
are tired from a lot of tours, you are not prone to get up at 4 to DX - the
point being, when we were east of Greenland, I wasn?t up to catch U.S. TAs.
Also, some nights it was just too cold, windy and wet to DX outside; (3) the
FSL is a marvelous piece of equipment. However, it is indeed directional, and
since I was surrounded by metal on three sides, I couldn?t always use it to
best advantage. What I needed to do was sit on the stern with a Lazy Susan; and
(4) there is not a lot of exciting DX in here. That?s because anyone at the
same location would receive the same stations I did; there were no skips and no
distance records were set. I have purposely omitted the non-real DX regularly
heard megastations, Spaniards, BBC, Talksport and Absolute bigg
ies because they are obvious. However, it was fun, and that?s what hobbies are
all about.
Loggings are split because of size. This is Part 1:
IN NORTH AMERICA (EDT)
549 - AA teletalk, leaving St. John?s NL,
*** Algeria, often ton o' bricks here. ID "Jil FM". 531 is parallel and
usually 5-10 dB weaker.
570 - Nuuk only fair 7p 8/8 as we entered Qaqortoq, Greenland
590 - VOCM St. John?s. VOCM heard promoting its return to a heavy new coverage
around the province. Its newscasts were heard at one time or another on 570 590
620 650 710 740 870 (1010 (probably an image) 1230 1240. These are not reported
separately below but were all heard.
*** The VOCM net stations on 570 and 650 are fairly common here on east loop.
590 is in the mix with WEZE, HIDV, Rebelde, and WARM.
600 - CBNA St. Anthony NL. I thought this was a low power CBC repeater in Red
Bay because it faded out fairly quickly when we headed north. I then looked at
a map?
*** 540, 640, 990 NL and 1140 NS are all easily heard CBC parallels to 600.
720 - Simiutaq, Greenland semilocal in Nanotalik 9/2 8a, //95.0. (NOTE: 650
never heard)
*** 720 the only Greenland heard in the US in the last 10 years. Heard here in
MA a few times. High latitude conditions have to be very good.
729/738 - RNE R. Nacional, //, 7p 8/8 approaching Qaqortoq (RNE)
*** Noted here frequently. // 855 which is even louder.
900 - AA 9/5 7:05p leaving St. John?s NL
*** 900 Saudi, heard once by me in the car at the Boston waterfront and, of
course, a regular on PEI and Newfie DXpeditions.
980 - WCAP (oldies) w/very strong het (Algiers presuming) nearly NF, 8p 9/5
981 - AA teletalk, entering Qaqortoq 9:40p 8/8 (Algiers presumed)
*** 981 Algeria a biggie here, often clobbering the typical 980 WCAP / WOFX /
WTEM / Cuba / Colombia / Brazil imbroglio around sunset.
1089 - TalkSport on top of WBAL 8/8 9p approaching Qaqortoq
*** Beating WBAL strength pretty often here on Cape Cod too, especially over
the Chatham-Orleans area.
1100 - WHLI Hempstead even w/WTAM 9/12 8:25p from Woburn. On a little late?
*** This has happened occasionally, yes. Most nights WHLI goes off at sunset
per plan, leaving Brazil versus Colombia shoot-out before WTAM fades up to
enter the fray.
1110 - SS even with WBT in Red Bay NL, 10p 8/6. Presumed Venezuela
1110 - SS, what sounded like R. Cinco, 6:50p 9/5, leaving St. John?s NL
*** Most common 1110 Spanish under WBT these days has been Radio Angulo from
Cuba, // 740. Venezuela (Carupano) used to be a blowtorch but not heard by any
US DXers for quite a while - off or downgraded in power? NL DXpeditions have
had Argentina on 1110 so don't discount that.
1160 - WVNJ Oakland NJ (local talk) and UNID NH station (c&w) even many nights
in Woburn 9/9-12.
*** C&W is WSKW Skowhegan, ME; talk is WVNJ as you note. The third major 1160
player here is WOBM NJ with oldies. Little else on the channel besides those
three unless it gets crazy-auroral and Antigua and Puerto Rico sneak in.
Bermuda 1160 is off (or at least very irregular in schedule) as far as I can
tell.
1200 - WXKS Newton MA (Bloomberg) // WRCA-1330 Watertown. Nothing like a little
signal overlap (noted in Woburn 9/12)
*** Both of those should get pretty far into the Atlantic before having much to
overtake them. Based on what I get when I null them, CFGO / Venezuela / Brazil
main 1200 competition and NYC main 1330 competition.
1210 - VOAR Mt. Pearl, NL still here but not for long from what I understand.
This was heard last year on another cruise about 150 miles south of Bermuda.
*** VOAR can dominate here early evening on east SuperLoop before WPHT gets up
to normal night level.
1220 - UNID, ?The Legend,? 6 hrs out of Boston 9/8 1015.
*** The Legends (oldies) on 1220 is WWSF, Sanford, ME. Dominates here days.
In jumble with Brazil, WHKW, and WQUN at night.
1341 - BBC Ulster wiping out 1340s, 8pm 8/5 off of Sydney NS and 9p 9/5 leaving
St. John?s
*** Not surprising, good here fairly often. Absolute R. on 1215 is even louder,
surprised you didn't mention that.
(Part 2 follows?)
Pete Taylor
Tacoma, WA
12225w 4719n
HQ180 & ICF2010
Gary DeBock FSL antenna
Kiwa aircore & Palomar loops
DX398, SRF-59 & M37V
Eton E100 + Tecsun PL-300/380
>>
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