Tuesday, October 31, 2006

CKHJ Fredericton NB 1260 verification

"KHJ AM 12-60 " verified my reception in 20 minutes. I have tried to hear this one for about 20 years and finally I got it! They had weatherforecast and a complete ID at the top of the hour. However, the signal was mixed up with a couple of other NAs and faded out soon.

Recent QSLs

KGRE Greeley CO 1450 e-mail and a promo-clip for px "La Pareja Dispareja" (f/up) tnx fr v/s TuA!

WSPD Toledo OH 1370 e-mail (f/up). According to the v/s my report has been forwarded to the Engineering Department to send a QSL.

KVTK Vermillion SD 1570 e-mail (f/up). Tnx fr v/s TuA!

JOYF Mito 1197 letter and card (f/up).

WRDW Augusta GA 1630 e-mail (fup). After e-mailing a "Thank you" message to the station, the v/s e-mailed back 9 photos of the station. In return, I e-mailed him a few photos from Lemmenjoki and his comments were: "Wow! What a beautiful area! Tnx fr v/s TuA!

CHWO Toronto ON 740 e-mail.

CJWI Montréal QC 1610 e-mail (f/up). My first name seems to sound feminine to the Quebec people, because the verification started with "Bonjour Madame", hi!

73's to all of you fellow-DXers! -jsn-

CJBQ Belleville ON 800 verification

CJBQ faded in clearly over CKLW and CHRC on October 10 in the morning with a fine ID :"CJBQ 800 Belleville". The station has C&W -format and played a country song by Willie Nelson just before the ID. I never believed I could pick up another ON -station on 800 kHz when CKLW is strongly present! With the right antenna and good cx almost everything is possible... E-mail QSL in 3 days.

Monday, October 30, 2006

WIRY Plattsburgh NY 1340 verification

WIRY had a weather forecast before the top of the hour and an ID :"Hometown Radio Stereo, 13-40 WIRY, Plattsburgh, New York." The reception was clear but the station was audible only for a few minutes fading out with CNN news. Short e-mail verification took 3 days.

WOON Woonsocket RI 1240 verification

It took only an hour to get a very nice e-mail verification from WOON-1240:

"Dear Mr. Ahonen,

It is with great pleasure that I confirm for you your reception of WOON, Woonsocket, Rhode Island, U.S.A.
In fact, the voice of the announcer you heard and captured on the .mp3 audio file was my voice. I have been confirming far distant reception reports for WOON for 22 years, but this is the first time I have ever witnessed the reception in such a way. I thank you for that.

To add detail to your unique copy of our transmission at such a distance, WOON operates at only 1,000 watts on 1240 khz and was intended by our government license to serve our small city of 42,000 people only. These factors, when combined with the interference of the many hundreds of other radio stations in the U.S.A. who are licensed for the same frequency and
power output, makes reliable reception of WOON difficult on most nights at a distance of a mere 15 kilometers. Your reception was better than could be expected at most locations in our own country!

DX radio listening is a hobby I, myself, enjoyed when I was young. Unfortunately, the responsibilities of manhood have made it unwise for me to devote the time required to continue.
I am thinking of USA radio stations you may have also received. You have probably heard WEEI (formerly WHDH) at 850 khz. That one should be easy in Finland because they use 50,000 watts and a directional antenna to beam most of the signal out into the Atlantic ocean from a transmitter location approximately 30 kilometers west of Boston, Massachusetts, some 70 kilometers north of our location. I worked at WHDH 20 years ago and I remember them telling of a number of receptions in Scandanavia, but not specifically Finland.

Well, I am off to work for the day. Again, thanks for taking the time to send the audio file, it was truly and first for both me and WOON.

Best Wishes Always,

President and Chief Engineer, WOON, Woonsocket

WMLB Avondale Estates GA 1690 verification

WMLB "The Voice of The Arts" as the station usually identifys sent a long e-mail in Sunday night. WMLB played classical music and it is a CBS News affiliate just like WTNY.

WTNY Watertown NY 790 verification

WTNY was audible during PAX63 on Oct. 10 in the morning. They gave a complete ID just before CBS -news on the hour: "News and views you can use. Northern New York's News Talk Connection, 790 WTNY, Watertown". E-mail verification in 2 days.

Friday, October 27, 2006

King s Village DX - storm Oct 27


Stormy weather just now at my dx-QTH with winds up to 20 m/s. A good test gor my KAZ-mast!
Cx varying, a lot of Asian mw-stations noted in the afternoons, some LAs and NAs in the morning. Finally yesterday good audio from ARDS 5049.92 with TC on half hour (UTC-9.5), nice Aboriginal music as well.
Best wishes to all DXers I met at EDXC conference at St Petersburg last weekend. Hope to complie a short report of the most interesting stuff there. Nice to meet old & new friends.
At the picture you can see from left: Hasse Mattisson, Mauno Ritola,Bengt Ericsson,TK. 73 tk

WFBL Syracuse NY 1390 verification

I have frequently reported WFBL about their reception in Finland during the past few years. However, for some reason they haven't responded me before. I got an short e-mail message yesterday from the station with the reception verification. Last time I heard WFBL was during their local newscast on October 10, 2006 during PAX63.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

WNRP Gulf Breeze FL 1620 verification

'Classic Country - AM 16-20' verified my report with long e-mail. V/s promised to send me more info about the station and Pensacola later on. She also wrote: "I have received calls and emails from Mexico and Germany, but you are the furthest away.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

KRSV Afton WY 1210 verification

Big surprise - email from KRSV today. KRSV is actually two stations based in Afton, Star Valley, Wyoming. KRSV AM is at frequency 1210 and KRSV FM is at frequency 98.7. They simulcast on both stations, which means they have the same programming on both. They are an ABC Radio Networks affiliate, play modern country music much of the time and broadcast items of local interest including Star Valley High School sports.
Afton is a small community of approximately 1900 people in a valley known as Star Valley, which has a population of approximately 10,000 people. They live high in the mountains, at approximately 6,200 feet in elevation, thus beautiful summers and cold, snowy winters. They reside about 120 miles south of Yellowstone National Park and 200 miles north of Salt Lake City, Utah.

JVA

CJWI Montréal QC 1610 verification

CJWI had a strong signal when I heard it on Oct. 10, 2006 in the morning. The station was operating 3 Hz off on 1609.997 kHz measured by SDR-14 receiver. Also another Canadian station CHHA Toronto 1610 kHz was even more off (1609.974) an hour later in the same morning when I heard the station's ID.

WRDW Augusta GA 1630 verification

Long e-mail -QSL with lots of interesting information as follows:
"We have received quite a number of reception reports from your part of the world, so it must be a hot spot for us. Currently we are diplexing on the same tower as the 1480 signal (which is still operating, but must sign off permanently in November after the five year grace period expires) and we think that this setup may somehow be giving 1630 a high angle of radiation which is creating frequent reception where you are. The tower is not exactly the right length for 1630 since it was constructed originally for 1480. After 1480 signs off the air we may remove the diplexing equipment and adjust the tower height to optimize it for 1630. The company is also considering moving the entire site to the 580 WGAC site and diplexing on that tower, but the frequency separation is so great that it may not be practical."

WCGO Chicago Heights IL 1600 verification

WCGO was playing music by Barbara Streisand and The Bee Gees when I picked up them. They also had a fine ID on the top of the hour. E-mail QSL in 12 hrs.

WABY Mechanicville NY 1160 verification

WABY played NOS tunes when I heard them. The verie signer wrote me concerning my report: "I will show this to our overnight announcer, Chris, to show that he is being hear worldwide. He'll be thrilled."

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

CKTB St. Catharines ON 610

Short QSL e-mail with gongratulations on getting CKTB in Finland. CKTB had nice, loud and clear signal on Oct. 10, 2006 during PAX63 in Parkalompolo.

WFAU Gardiner ME 1280


WFAU sent me a short e-mail verification and they attached also a nice station logo along the e-mail.
TUA

Monday, October 23, 2006

WFOY Saint Augustine FL 1240 verification

WFOY Saint Augustine FL 1240 faded in nicely during PAX63 on Oct. 10, 2006 at 0800UTC. They had a clear ID 'Newstalk 12-40 WFOY, Saint Augustine' followed by Fox News Radio. Quick e-mail verification in 7 hrs.
TUA

Friday, October 20, 2006

Muhos loggings 27.8 - 14.10.2006

JPR sent his autumn: 27.8 - 14.10.2006 loggings: Muhos log

Friday, October 13, 2006

High Lat CX just before the disturbance on Oct 13

As predicted the disturbance has started. Actually the solar wind started to rise rapidly on yesterday evening. Just before that (Oct 12) very good CX to Far East (Japan, China) continued from 1130 UTC (more than 4 hrs before local sunset!). Enourmous signals from the common Japanese commercials and also a lot of low band NHKs (e.g. 594,693,774) were present in Southern Finland. While the magnetic field swung into south later on the predicted good conditions to North America seemed to get worse during the morning hours. The predicted disturbance seemed to have been started a bit earlier. That´s Friday and the 13th of the month!

TK

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Far East DX continued at King's Village QTH

Yes. On Oct 7th so far the best day this autumn with a lot of stations from Japan, Korea and China beginning at least 2,5 hours before local sunset. Best signals on the big JO-stations like 1242, 1278 and 1350 (now easy as there is no Latvia anymore) - some with S9+20dB. By the way, the big All Nite Nippon stations have quite a few own (short) slots with own IDs on TOH and sometimes at the half hour. And there were some stations with lower power present as well, like Japanese on 1215 ("KBS") and on 1431 (tent. JOVF). Even in Southern Finland the European signals were not disturbing and continuous listening of some of the Japanese was possible for 7-8 hours. This is a sign of a sunspot minumum indeed. Also on 7th Oct there was the begining of a minor disturbance which first enhanced signals from Far East and probably reduced levels of the Europeans. Let´s see how CX develops this week before the next CH-disturbance calculated for the next weekend!

TK

Saturday, October 07, 2006

PAX63

PAX63 in Parkalompolo, Northern Sweden has been going on since September 22, 2006 when Sigvard Andersson (A) started the first Parkalompolo pedition in this season. Later on Bo Olofsson (BOS) joined PAX63 and so did Christer Koivuranta (CKL). BOS left PAX63 last Sunday and CKL will drive home this coming Sunday. Lars Hedberg (LHU) and Tuomo Ahonen (TuA) will join PAX63 crew tomorrow, October 7, late Saturday evening.

So far a couple of nice TA -stations have been logged - WBCK Battle Creek, MI-930, KVNU Logan, UT-610, WTMJ Milwaukee, WI-620 ect. All those stations had been picked up last week - there is no information available about TA conditions on PAX63 this week.

I will be updating this Blog-site with the latest news from PAX63 next Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. The outlooks are very good, however there is a chance for disturbance from CH 242 -stream on coming Saturday and Sunday.

/TuA


Friday, October 06, 2006

New Antennas at King's Village-QTH

Finally got my KAZ (picture 1) of about 10x40 meters up and working. However, it seems there might be some problems with my balun as it is not as effective as usually. Noise figures are ok with very low background noise.Also put my BOG of 300 meters at about 40 degrees on the field. This is very good compared to my usual longwire of 150 meters. My SDR14 shows background noise at about -140 dB. Checked also with some Far East stations on October 5 with a lot of Japananese (e.g. on 1242, 1278, 1287, 1314, 1332, 1350 and 1413 - most with S9 to S9+20 dB!). One new catch from Korea was audible as well on Oct5: 1305 KBS1 with call id at 17utc. Picture of the noise figures on picture 2. The difference on MW is not as big as in this example of 3935 NZ-station which was readable on BOG not on the lw - which actually was my good all-around antenna for years! - sorry the scaled picture, colors inverted!

By the way= King s Village = Kungböle (Swedish name) = Kuninkaankylä (Finnish name). A Village from the late 1700´s. This part of S-Eastern Finland was split into Russia and Sweden in 1743 and a village Pyhtää was split into two countries, thus some villages on the west bank of the Kymi River was named by the Swedes (like "Ruotsinkylä" = "Swedish Village" / Svenskby) ...

TK