Hello to All, I live in San Diego, California, USA and normally do not get to bed until around 3 to 3:30pm. I have an Amateur radio transceiver next to my bed and often listen to Amateur conversations while falling asleep. Besides my favorite listening spots, I, of course, have the WWV time channels programmed into memory.
My experience with WWV is 15 and 10 MHz is good during the day while 5 and 2.5 MHz do well at night with 5 MHz usually being the best. Sometimes I hear 10 MHz but it is usually quite weak or nonexistent. Until today I have never heard another time station on 10 MHz. Early this morning, Friday, August 29, 2008, for the first time ever, I heard another countrys time station besides WWV on the standard frequencies. I happened to flip to the WWV 10 MHz memory and heard what sounded like local computer data spurts. Thinking it could be the time rack in the back room or it could be the cable modem or router, I decided to keep listening. A CW ID, repeated about twenty times, came next after which a voice announcement followed by a tone at the bottom of the hour. What continued was a one second pulse just like WWV. However, this one second pulse sounded more like a TICK sound of a narrower pulse. The US pulse sounds more like a TOCK sound. So I listened for a one minute announcement. Oops, no 1, 5, 10 or 15 minute announcements. Finally, thirty minutes later (4:00am) it again went through computer sequence, ID, voice and tone. >From 3:38am to about 3:55am the foreign station started fading in and out. Faintly the WWV signal was fading in and out as well. At times I could hear both stations together. Finally the foreign station became strong again at 3:57am. Sure enough the announcement sequence started during the 3:58am minute. This time around I was ready for the voice. The station ID was BPM. Chinese Amateur call signs start with the letter B, so I figure it is a Chinese time station. I did recognize the Chinese language at the top of the hour. Trying to stay awake to see how long this propagation path would last, I fell asleep after 4:30am leaving the receiver on while telling myself to check the call sign later. Several times I drifted into a semiconscious state hearing the BPM station. I could have been dreaming but I do not think so. Very early daylight might be a good time for propagation to Asia. Of course I have Googled and sure enough BPM is the Chinese time station. Havent chased after QSL cards in a long time. This is one I sure am going to request and see what happens. Bill....WB6BNQ _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.