Wednesday, October 27, 2010

ENO22 loggings

The ENOX22 (Sept. 10.-13.2010 and Sept. 17.-19.2010) updated loggings can be found here.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

ENXO23 - 14-15.10

14.-15.10


The evenings could be much more lively - nothing to report from yeasterday.

First stations from the continental U.S. appeared at around 22 UTC, but just the very common ones (WLQV-1500, WWZN-1510, WWKB-1520...). It took another 2 hours, before more stations appeared. At midnight UTC it was worth the whilem to start taking the hobby more seriously. Nothing spectacular at night, though.

At this time of October the peak of the signals seems to take place just in front of UTC and the signals remain fairly decent until 7 UTC, then gradually being dampened by the sunlight. Still, some signals start to stay throughout the noon at this time of the year. Quite nice going in the morning, but without any specific direction.
The strong signal in the morning was KWEI-1260 with its new format ESPN Deportes. The most common Hawaii were strong again in the afternoon with KUAU-1570 being even stronger than the usual "king", KUMU, which also has changed format to ESPN and its call to KHKA.

Some of the more interesting stations identified at the time of listening live were WTTL-1310 and WRTO-1200 in the night and KGBT-1530 in the morning.

One more night and morning to go on ENOX23, then straight to LEM for one more week - hopefully with some OS as well !

Thursday, October 14, 2010

ENOX23 IS ON - HN 12.-17.10.2010

12.-13.10.

After a 13 hour direct drive through blowing snow I arrived at ENOX on tuesday evening (12.10) at around 18 UTC, just to notice that the CME effects were still strongly on. Around 20 UTC the Canadians on 1230 started to come in, first CFFB and a moment later also CHFC. In addition to these, Greenland on 650. Even these with much variation in strength. Dead all night...

However, all of sudden in front of 5 UTC the MW band opened for some 20 minutes with the main emphasis on...Mexico ! The signals were still much affected by the CME with signals quickly coming in strong, only to disappear soon again. But lady luck was with me, as the strongest peaks in the signals centered exactly around the TOH. Since it was the midnight hour in most parts of Mexico, the Mexican National Anthem was heard all over. Some versions only lasted for 2 minutes or so, but the "norm" seems to be the 4-minute version. During that time some signals had time to fade in and out some 2-3 times. It was a gamble with identifications...,on 1080 the National Anthem was accompanied by what I believe to be a provincial one, postponing the "TOH" Id to 7 almost minutes past... Many interesting signals faded unfavorably, but having listened to all recordings from that period, I was still lucky to positively identify 23 stations around this signgle TOH , among them XETO-950, XETUL-1080, XEAU-1090 and XEYZ-1130, which all have not been previously logged in Finland.

In the afternoon, Hawaii and some Alaska started to fade in in front of 13 UTC and continued fairly past 14 UTC. Specifically the upper end was in good shape and KUAU-1570 came in particularily strong for over one hour.

14.10.

The evening of the 13th of October was dead. So was the night - at least on my recordings, which had encountered some unidentified problem and I had nothing on the hard disk. When I woke up, the going was quite good all over the NA continent, accompanied by some MEX. The remains of the CME effect were still there, with signals swinging back and fort. At one time the 297 degree antenna was best for the whole continent ! A coupple of stations identified "live" were WZOE-1490, WGNS-1450, KATE-1450, KIHH-1400, KWEI-1260, XERO-1240 and XESA-1260.

In general it has been somewhat interesting to have the CME-type of disturbance, where the effects of the CME cause dominant stations being cut out on many frequencies and the general recovery from the more significant effects taking place quite rapidly. The past years have been packed with all sorts of Coronal Hole effects, which are very different: even smaller effects seemed to make signals disappear and the lenght of the recovery often was painfully long. This is a lot more fun with "only moderately strong" CME´s !"

Sunday, October 10, 2010

ENOX22 gave me a new TX on 1400 kHz


There was a sharp peak towards NA on Sunday morning, September 19, 2010 on ENOX22.
I was not DXing AM live but I let two IQs roll on the band. Later, when checking the files I have noticed some quite nice stations but all of them had verified me earlier.
However, on 1400 kHz I came across a new TX, that has been heard a couple of times before in Scandinavia but never by me. It was KIUN Pecos that faded in nicely on TOH giving an ad and a legal ID.
Thanks to HN/OJS for the v/s -info. I got this one verified in two hours.