WWPR Bradenton FL 1490 - verification

This station was captured during PAX63 on October 10, 2006 in Parkalompolo. This was a very good day for many east coast stations on PAX63 since stations like WIRY-1340, WFOY-1240, WOON-1240, WJOY-1230, WHUC-1230 and WMOG-1490 ect. were all audible in this same morning. WWPR verified with e-mail in 6 hours.
The v/s told: "I listened to your MP3, and you are correct -- you were indeed listening to 1490 WWPR - Bradenton,Sarasota, Tampa Bay! You heard our typical stationbreak as announced by "Big Ed" Edwards."
RS, thank you very much for helping me identifying this one!

QSL - JPR

KAPL Phoenix OR 1300 tnx TUA
CKDO Oshawa ON 1580
WCCW Traverse City MI 1310 FFF
WMKT Charlevoix MI 1270 tnx TUA
WMBN Petoskey MI 1340
WWOK Evansville IN 1280
KLER Orofino ID 1300 tnx TUA
KVOX Moorehead MN 1280 tnx TUA
WKAT Miami FL 1360
Colorin ColorRadio, Bogotá 1310
R Coronel Dorrego 1470
R Trenque Lauquen 1280 SFF tnx JMS
R Nacional de Venezuela, Cd. Bolivar 560 FFF
R Clube de Salvador 1290 tnx JMS
R Reloj, Bogotá 1010 tnx JMS
R Superior, San Fernando de Apure 1070 FFF
1480AM-Red92, Dolores 1480
WISO Ponce PR 1260 FFF?

KOVE Lander WY 1330 - verification

KOVE's owner sent me a long and informative e-mail along the verification in 6 hours. KOVE was heard during the LEM234 on November 7, 2006 between 5.44-6.01 UTC. The station signed off at 11.00 pm MST and I heard the sign off -announcement followed by the US National Anthem. KOVE identified as "KOVE - Country 13-30".
The v/s wrote: "I started hanging around at this radio station when I was in high school and they finally gave me a job, and here we are many years later and my wife and I own KOVE along with our sister FM station KDLY, which signed on in 1975."

KZXR Prosser WA 1310 - verification

KZXR is often heard but it has been very difficult to get QSL from the station. Thanks to the current v/s info from JOB in Sweden I finally received a polite and nice e-mail verification from the station. Last time I captured KZXR was during LEM234 in November this year with loud and clear reception several times. I picked up KZXR for the first time in October 2004 during LEM 196 with RS.
Tnx JOB!

King's Village - Waiting for Santa!

Indeed we got 2 cm snow in Southern Finland, so there is possibility for Santa to come here from the Finnish Lapland – which undoubtedly is the home of Santa Claus.
DXing is not the number one item during this time of the year and the conditions have been also worst for some time after the latest spots and coronal holes. Conditions should improve in next week, I think there are some good openings in 25-29 Dec and during the New Year before the next CH-based disturbance in the beginning of 2007.

With this picture (at around the December solstice of the Sun – actually the solstice is at 0022ut Dec 22nd) of the 1 cm snow and Our Friend Sun at Kymi River, East of the King s Village dx-qth I wish all the best for everyone for the Christmas Season & good DXing in 2007!

73’s TK

WBIX Natick MA 1060 - verification

WBIX was audible during LEM234 November 8, 2006 for about an hour. The signal was very clear and loud every now and then. The station identified as "AM 10-60 WBIX - The Business Station" and it carried USA Radio Network news. Many local ads were heard and promos for "Silver Talks Money" and "PM Show" programs as well. Never heard this one before. E-mail QSL in a couple of hours.

CISL Richmond BC 650 -verification

The station identified "6-50 C-Isle" and played oldies like Kenny Rogers song "You are So Beautiful". This was actually the first time ever I identify CISL in spite of many tries during the past 30 years! Nice e-mail QSL came in three hours.

KDIO Ortonville MN 1350 - verification

I heard KDIO during LEM234 twice. It played fine Country music and had ABC news on the hour. The reception was clear and quite loud as well and the v/s verified my report: "I will confirm that your audio did have the "KDIO" legal ID in it."
Thanks BH for v/s info.

KPRZ San Marcos CA 1210 - verification

KPRZ sent the first real "old fashioned QSL letter" for a long time. The letter contained nice colourful diploma, coverage map, stickers and lot of information. I picked up KPRZ on November 9, 2006 and the station identified as "San Diego's Christian Talk 12-10 KPRZ".

WCCM Haverhill MA 1490 - verification

I picked up WCCM during PAX63 in October this year. The station faded in and out with WBAE Portland, ME and run ESPN Sport. Nice e-mail in 3 weeks. The v/s wished Happy Holidays and was wondering how is it possible to get 1000 verifications from the distant radio stations...

KORT Grangeville ID 1230 - verification

KORT sent a short e-mail with confirmation and Christmas Greetings in 2 hours. KORT was audible on November 9, 2006 like many other ID -stations at that time. The station played fine Country songs and identified as "KORT FM and AM".

WMYR Fort Myers FL 1410 - verification

November 6, 2006 was a fine FL-morning during LEM234. WDJA-1420, WMYR-1410 and WMMB-1240 all faded strongly in this morning around 6.00 UTC. WMYR carried Relevant Radio programming and it had a strong signal above every other station on 1410 kHz at this time. A long e-mail with good verification from WMYR came in 2 hours.

KTAN Sierra Vista AZ 1420 - verification

KTAN is my fifth verified station from Arizona. KTAN's signal was a big surprise during LEM234 on Novemebr 6, 2006! V/s wrote: "I listened to the recording you sent and it is indeed our legal ID you captured. Intrestingly you are the second person to contact us from Finland with the similar claim. About ten years ago someone else from Finland mailed to us to say that they had picked up our signal in their country".

KSUE Susanville CA 1240 - verification

KSUE identified as "Newstalk 12-40 KSUE" and carried Coast to Coast Talk Show with Art Bell (instead of George Noory!). Reception was loud and clear on Novemebr 9 (again). Short verification via e-mail came in 2 hours.

KFOX Torrance CA 1650 - verification

I picked up KFOX two years ago back in October 2004 when I was in Lemmenjoki together with RS. At the time I never got any response to my reports but now, thanks to the current v/s info from HS , I finally received a long e-mail and the complete verification to my report. E-mail came in 8 hours.

WMMB Melbourne FL 1240 - verification

This one verified very fast. The e-mail came in just before 6 am EST. The v/s was very excited since he had recognized his own voice in the mp3 that was attached with my report. Very clear reception on November 6, 2006 almost exactly at the same time as WMYR was audible on 1410 kHz.

KPAM Troutdale OR 860 - verification

Nice e-mail verification in 10 hours. KPAM faded in at the top of the hour when CHAK disappeared for some moments. KPAM was one of those few new stations for me on Novemebr 8, 2006 during LEM234.

From the King s Village Test Bench

First of all, it seems we are under the worse geomagnetic situation for more than a year due to the solar storm ... so no "High Latitude" DX now ...

Some DX lately in the beginning of December include an opening towards Colombia on Dec 5 and some SW-stations (Papua, Indonesia 5 Dec afternoon and Brazil 6 Dec. morning)...

A BRIEF TEST OF A LAPTOP "ACER WLMI 8210"

I was happy to have this model for a brief test using my sdr-receivers for a few days.
The model is somewhat pricy 2000 $ model w a HD of 120 GB, 1 G memory,
DVD writer of double layer DVDs (optional Blue Ray of 50 G!)... and all the bells and whistles.

The good news:

It was no problem to hook up both SDR-14 and WinR sdr-rx´s at the same time, but that is possible also with the older models. The battery of this brand new machine was still ok and it has a "power management" system to do some adjustments of cpu etc do extend the battery time. With normal settings it was possible to run 3-4 hours of sdr-listening without any problems. So it was nice to check that there was no interference from the power supply to my other receiver (ICOM9000) which was on the same antenna via an antenna splitter & 10dB amplifier. Even the very lowest siganl levels were heard (down to -120...-130 dBm). As the QTH is rather quiet above 1 MHz (on low MF band there seems to be an ADSL qrn from the telephone lines near by!) it was possible at least with low noise BOG-antennas. The lcd screen is a wide one with high resolution (1680x1200) so you have a lot of space to put all the windows on it. Of course you need to have good eyes to look at the tiny windows! The model has also a sound system with equalizers etc not standardly seen on Windows systems.

The bad news:
All changed when I plugged the power supply to AC! Suddenly you have a noise overall on the medium wave band with increased noise level of 15-20 dB! So using the AC connected all the weak signals were gone! That was the end of the test and it was easy to say this is not the machine for low level signals on MW using SDR-receivers & powered from the AC - using the own battery is ok, of course. I had a reference PC, a table-top older Fujitsu-Siemens model (P4, 1.6Gb/1G + 250 GB internal HD). It does emit some noise at least from the LCD-screen (which you can switch off using the SDR-14´s IF-recording), but not so much - at least with a little bit stronger signals than the usual background noise of -120...-100 dbm depending on antennas, frequencies & weather conditions.

What about DRM-decoding:
Maybe this is not the best place to speak about the "cancer of the airwaves", but of course I made a short test trying to use WinRadio 313e´s own DRM-decoder. The signal was ok (of BBC 1296 for example) with some typical drop-outs however. But the worse situation happened again like with other laptops I have tested: after about an half an hour, the system freezed and I had to reboot the computer. As this seems not to be related to the CPU-power (this model is even more powerfull than the old table-top one - which decodes DRM without any problems for hours) the problem should be somehow related to the laptop-computers. Maybe due to the sound chip? Research of this problem should be continued ...
73 TK

KCKX Stayton OR 1460 - verification

"14-60 KCKX, Cowboy Country" as the station identifed on November 9, 2006 during LEM234 verified my report by e-mail message tonight. KCKX is one of those "special" stations I have wanted to hear ever since I began Dxing in the late 1970's. During the conditions towards The Pacific North West the most usual station on 1460 kHz tends to be KUTI Yakima WA but this time I was finally lucky enough to capture Cowboy Country. The station plays the traditional country music and it verified in six hours.

KRPL Moscow ID 1400 - verification

KRPL Moscow ID 1400 sent me a nice QSL letter as a Word -file.
KRPL is a part of a group of 6 stations covering different formats from Oldies, Rock, Top-40, News/Talk, Country and Traditional Country. Other AM -stations in this group are KMAX-840 and KCLX-1450. The complete QSL came in 3 hours.

KVOX Moorhead MN 1280 - verification

KVOX run ESPN -sport and then 2 minutes after the hour they had an ID: "You're listening to AM 12-80, KVOX" followed by ESPN again. I picked up this on on November 6, 2006. The v/s writes:
"Station is actually located in Fargo, ND. Fargo, North Dakota and Moorhead Minnesota are the same town just separated by the river which happens to be the state border of North Dakota and Minnesota. "
E-mail QSL came in 12 hours.

KGY Olympia WA 1240 - verification

KGY's v/s sent me two very polite e-mails with a complete confirmation. The station was audible November 9, 2006 (again!) at 9:39 UTC. KGY played AC -music and used "AM 12-40 KGY" IDs. The v/s kindly invited me to visit KGY some day...

1000 VERIFIED RADIO STATIONS BELOW THE ARCTIC CIRCLE

I started this great DXing hobby in September 1979 with a portable radio. It took 27 years 2 months and 27 days before I got my 1000th verified radio station. All these stations are heard below the Arctic Circle, mostly in Kainuu and Northern Ostrobothnia. The 1000th station point came from WKAQ San Juan, Puerto Rico 580 kHz. Admininstrador de ingenieria Sr. Nestor Pérez Pérez sent me a nice email letter after one month waiting. I heard this station in a pedition in JPR's great QTH in Muhos close to Oulu in November 2006. Thank you Jari, Simo, Seppo, Alpo and all the other colleagues who have encouraged me during these years.

Here are the latest 10 QSLs:
WKAQ San Juan PR 580 email-letter 1 month v/s Administradora de ingenieria
WTIC Hartford CT 1080 email with photo follow-up 1 day v/s Chief Engineer
WNIO Youngstown OH 1390 card letter for an email report v/s Chief Engineer, this was a nice surprise as I sent my report only by email but the QSL came by snailmail.
WDRC Hartford CT 1360 card (rp mint stamps were sent) 3 weeks v/s Chief EngineerVSB2 Bible Broadcasting Network, Hamilton 1280 email 2 weeks, Bermuda was country number 190 in my collection
JOFR Fukuoka 1278 card letter schedule 2 weeks
KCJJ Iowa City IA 1630 card 2 weeks (rp mint stamps were sent) v/s General Manager
CHUC Cobourg ON 1450 email 1 week v/s President, Originally CHUC was to shut down on November 11, 2006 but there was interference on their new 107,9 MHz, at the moment CHUC 1450 is relaying 107.9 the Breeze. CHUC will leave AM band as soon as the interference on FM is solved.
CKGM Montréal PQ 990 email 2 days follow-up v/s Chief Engineer, this station was heard during my DX pedition KIVES5 in Kivesvaara, Paltamo in January 2006
CFDR Dartmouth NS 780 email 1 hour v/s General Manager, also known an Kixx Country, the v/s had a Finnish schoolmate called Hannu in Toronto.

More information about my QSLs can be found at: http://www.romppainen.net/TuoreetQSLvastaukset.htm

HAR

KFTA Rupert ID 970 -verification

This one was a very nice surprise during "the Super DX day" on November 9, 2006. KFTA faded in just on the top of the hour mixed with KFBX and KBUL and at least an unidentified station on 970 kHz. Very kind e-mail QSL in 3 hours.

WJAS Pittsburgh PA 1320 - verification

WJAS was audible in Lemmenjoki during LEM234 on November 6, 2006. The station played Oldies songs and identified as "Original Hits, 13-20 WJAS." A short e-mail QSL came in 12 hours. I have never heard this one before but now when NRK is off it's nice to scan 1310 and 1320 with good cx...

KMPC Los Angeles CA 1540 - verification

15-40 The Ticket verified in two hours with an e-mail letter. The v/s seems to be very interested in DXers and the reception reports and he also wanted to know more about our long beverage antennas. He mentioned that my report was the second one in the last few days from our part of the world. KMPC had a fine signal on November 9 during LEM234 and it was all alone on 1540 kHz this time at 13:00 UTC.