PUDXK - Summer Meetings

PUDXK-Summer meetings, "unsynchronized meetings" at Oulu (JPRs home) and "King´s Village" Kungsböle-Strömfors are over. Thanks for joining JPR,TUA,JVA,MR,MKA and LN (observer member)!
DXing results were not amazing although friends at KB-QTH did erect a longer longwire for TA. The dramatic thing was a Perseus who got 12 V inside with well known results!



After some dxing and good food (well known "Kungsböle Rökt Fisk" among others we finally discover a new and reliable method for the predicton of the next season´s geomagnetic condtions and Solar Activity. My wife´s fresh "Blank Sun Blueberry Pie" (blueberries partly picked near my antennas) showed the exact situation on Sun: the Coronal Holes are becoming smaller and not well defined anymore: this should mean better MW-conditions soon !



So the DX-season 2009-2010 is now officially opened!

73 TK

Happy Summer Solstice!

Again we are at the turning point - the photo shows our sun behind the clouds in Southern Finland exactly at 05.45 UTC - the solstice moment of this year. So we are starting to look forward into the new MW-DX season - it will start sooner than you expect! It seems that currently Coronal Hole effects seems to be even weaker - so the season could be even better than last one - let´s see (and listen)!
73 TK

KING´S VILLAGE DX-STATION OF APRIL: RADIO MALDONADO

In springtime conditions favor TA-stations from Southern Part of Latin America - often from LaPlata area or Brazil. So has been in April as well - although not many days of good openings at least with small antennas at my QTH.
This station of Uruguay was briefly heard in April and the decision to choose this one was the fact that the memories from the "golden times of QSLs and Pennants - 1970´s" came to my mind and I had the dig my old collection of QSLs from the 70 s. The station had a nice copy of QSL-letter at that time with info - they typed the details into it and the pennant was also with the verification which came by normal mail in a nice letter with stamps as can be seen in the picture. Nowadays you can find more about the station from their webpages.

This is the last DX-station of this season, stay tuned later on.

73 TK

KING´S VILLAGE DX-STATION MARCH: CALLAO SUPER RADIO 1400kHz

The Peruvian stations are always nice to catch even with modest
antennas and equipments in Sourthern Finland.
This month´s catch is not a rare one anymore, obviously something happeded to it´s equipments this winter.It was not that easy earlier while the most common Latin station was Emisora Mariana de Bogotá.
After February Callao has been very easy to get at least a few moments during sunrise (around 03-05 utc. The station carries often sports with easy to recognize "Gool" announcements - actually it seems to have a long sports program daily before local midnight. It should have close down around 05 utc but I have never managed to hear that.
What is very clear in this time with modern Spectrum receivers you can easily see the carriers of the stations and while Mariana is very stable at 1400.00 and CBC at 1400.009 Callao is clearly lower on 1399.996, so especially checking recordings afterwards you can note what is dominating and check the audio after that... The figure shows a typical morning with 2-3 stations (here Bogotá, CBC and Callao at the same time).
73 TK

King´s Village DX-Station of February 2009: DWSS 1494

For me local Philippino AM-stations has always been an atractive DX-target in Southern Finland. Nowadays it seems only less than a dozen stations are "easy" catches in Southern part of Finland without special antennas. Of course also then you have to be at right time, usually during a local sunset at the QTH. In winter times that means listening at around 13-14 utc. Sometimes stations are audible during local sunrise (that´s around 20 utc), but the European QRM is big. One thing with these stations is their language Tagalog which is easy to recognize. They mix also some English and often announce the call letters & frequencies in English (and Tagalog - numbers of Spanish origin).

In February 16 DWSS Manila 1494 was again audible - of course with heavy interference from Moldova and Xinjiang. Fortunately this winter St Petersburg is silent until evening making this channel better open to the East. Sometimes from Japan we can get also JOYR on the channel.
Note that DWSS is slightly above the nominal, on 1494.017 kHz which makes it easy to see even before the audio. The video below shows the recorded spectrum with the station ID.

From the web we can read:
DWSS (pronounced as DW-Double-S) (1494 kHz Metro Manila) is a blocktimer AM station of Supreme Broadcasting Systems in the Philippines. The station's studio is located at EDSA, Mandaluyong City.Like DWWW 774, DWSS brings some Religious Shows & mostly non-stop Music with program schedules in between songs. It has taglines such as Love songs at its best, Yesterday's hits, Today's classic, Nothing but the best mix of music & Songs that inspires you. Since it has no proper programming, It broadcasts from 5:30am - 10:00pm.

Slogans:Let your heart speak! (Music)- Para sa Diyos, Para sa Bayan! Entertainment Radio!

PUDXK WINTER MEETING AT OULU&MUHOS 27-28 FEB

It was nice to meet again with the hard-core-dxers TUA, JVA, JSN & JPR at Oulu and Muhos (JPRs super QTH). Once again our Sun celebrated our meeting with a rapid rise of solar wind on Feb 27 causing a sudden decline of mw-propagation!
This has occured every time at our meetings during several years - so that was not a surprise!
We started the meeting at Oulu with nice meal at an old storehouse on an island "Pikisaari" near the city center - at "Sokeri Jussi Inn" with nice beefs and some wine and beer. Indeed the Inn´s recommended Red Wine of Spier, South Africa (Stellenbosch region) was very good.
Maybe we should have taken a wine of the Western World to enhance Trans Atlantic reception after all!
This session ended with beautifull view of the Moon and Venus right above us (nice conjunction although some clouds).

Afterwards the session at night was devoted to "Lessons 1-3 of Perseus receiver" at JPRs QTH. We examined, tested and made some test recordings of TA-signals using the antenna farm with no more than about a dozen long bevarages towards the Western Hemisphere. Unfortunatly the conditions were not that good. By the way, once again a projector and a big screen (of about 100 inches) was nice for older dxers (at the picture the attendances are looking at the big projected screen of the Perseus window of a PC).

Exploring the otherwise great Perseus receiver we made a short wish list of Hard-Core-MW-DX:
1)as we always measure the exact frequency down to at least 1 Hz and while we listen usb or lsb we want to see simultaneously the exact carriers using the zoom knob: however that was not possible but we had to switch the mode to AM to see the center frequency and all the carriers around it! So a button to change the window to center frequency also on SSB is almost a must for serious DX - what´s more a list of peak carriers automatically should be fine (like on SpectraVue-software)
2)the timeline has no time stamp, which makes it hard to know where you are, so the label should be a usefull addition here when checking the recorded file
3)the tiny timeline is hard to "hit" using the mouse, maybe a bit thicker timeline will make things easier.
4)also a stamp of the file (automatic putting the day&time to the file´s name) should be very nice.
We liked of course the good sensitivity and all the tools handling the selectivity with Perseus, not forgotting to mention it´s capability to record the whole MW-band to a hard disk!
73 TK

King´s Village DX-station, January 2009: 4QD 1548

The selection of the DX-station of January was quite easy to do. I happened to be able to listen during a very interesting propagation to East / Far East on January 12th before sunset at around 12.45 - 13.30 UTC. Although we had possibly the best conditions "over the Pole" about a week later with some stations from Hawaii etc (around 23-25 January) I decided to announce the most interesting catch of the month to: ABC Emerald 4QD 1548 kHz. I know it is quite common in the Scandinavian Arctic to capture, but not so in Southern Finland at least with modest antennas. Actually I had the station verified also from my active DXing period in the 1970´s, but I have tried to get the signal all the time when DXing in my rural King´s Village QTH since about 1995. Finally on Jan. 12th the path to the Philippines (with stations like 1494, 1512, 1530 and 1548 audible) and to Australia was open and 4QD was coming although the powerfull RUS relay in Moldova had already signed on at 13.00. Also the UK station was very weak at that time. At the picture you can see snapshots of Spectrum View at different times showing the dominants around 13.00 utc. The ABC is also "easy" to see being usually at about 1548.012. Another picture is an old QSL from 1976 - I do not know if they still have that one.
Below is a short video (SpectraVue demodulating the signal) at around 13utc with ABC and at the end the PHL station with ID of the 594 DZBB (at 1303utc).

KINGS´S VILLAGE STATION OF DECEMBER 2008

It took some time to announce the December station at King´s Village. That´s the time of "new recording DX-machines". Maybe we are approaching the era of just saying "Last year I have logged 50 Tbytes of stations - I will be back later on".

As noted earlier I will try to pick up here the most interesting station of my loggings each month. Usually it is a new logging to me or some other kind of interesting happening like "special reception conditions".

In december the conditions were generally good. However the best reception was again concentrated to the North (North America) mainly with some exceptions. The conditions towards Asia - Pacific were not that good at my QTH. With modest antennas you have to follow the band quite frequently and mainly at sunriset or sunset times. One of the most interesting days to me inDecemeber was actually the 2nd December. The conditions towards Mexico City were remarkable good at around local sunrise in Finland. I was capturing the band from about 1290 upwards and found in about 15 minutes several stations with nice signals on 1290, 1410, 1470 and 1500. There were some unidentifies signals also which seems to be "somewhere in my HD".
The stations with best signals were: 1290 XEDA México DF., 1410 XEBS La Sinfonola, México, 1470 XEAI Radio Fórmula and 1500 XEDF R Fórmula, México. The Formulas 1470 / 1500 have been heard several times but at my QTH 1410 and 1290 very rarely, the last one only once since by DX-career.

So I decided to give the name of "December DX-station" to XEDA México 1290! From the stations web-page I can read that the station is not a young one- rather excatly it was 72 years old!
From the stations web-page:Radio "13" was officially inaugurated the December 3, 1936, broadcastingon AM band at 680 kHz. At first it was operating by Pedro Riestra and then by Angel Fernandez, its programming in the early forties was based on Hispanic music, with programs like " Spanish Times”. In 1945, Guillermo Morales Blumenkron Radio took control of Radio 13 and began transmitting and five years later, it began transmitting cinemas / billboard - programs with the "Cinema of Mexico." At that time it was known as "Soap Station California Gardens and transmitting already on 1290 KHz. Nowadays it seems to be mainly talk/sports etc.
Also this one web-feed as well and seems to be reliably heard via web as well.

The announcement of the January 2009 King´s Village Station will be posted soon, so stay tuned!
73 TK

Happy Northern winter Solstice!

Today at 12:04 UT was the northern winter solstice. King´s Village DX wishes You Best DX and 73 at this special moment when we have the longest darkness and so the longest possible Dark DX-season. Best Greeting also for the Holiday Season & Best DX for the Year 2009!
The photo above was taken exactly at 12:04 UTC - only some daylight even in Southern Finland because of rainy and foggy weather. I had to take some candle light to check my ALA100 connection box under the big oak tree.
73 TK

KING´S VILLAGE DX - STATION OF NOVEMBER: Radio Brisvaani Brisbane 1701 kHz

X-band Aussies can sometimes be heard in Southern Finland, but usually they are relatively weak. Also there is often heavy QRM from European pirates etc, so DXing these is a challenge for us. I have tried to monitor the band usually when visiting my DX-QTH and sometimes you can get some of them. Earlier the Sydney station 1701 was heard (and carrier was monitored quite frequently) - above 1701 (around +75 Hz) while there was something also below that one around 1701.04. On Oct. 30 the audio of Brisvaani was strong enaugh to pick up some commercial spots between the Indian Bollywood music programme. I put this on however as a station of November as I took me almost one month to get out the details of some of the spots. The frequency is 1701.035 (maybe drfiting a bit). Some other X-band carriers and audios were present as well. The most interesting one with Chinese program on 1656 - that is the channel of a relatively new Chinese speaking station at Brisbane - heard at least in Lapland quite recently.
I am using exclusively a BOG (or LWOG) of about 300 meters (at about 50 degrees) to listen to Far East/ Pacific. This antenna is quite free of local noise - although giving not very big signal - the S/N is good. At the beginning of November the near by farmer did make some extra plowing at my antenna field: now the BOG is 1 meter long ! The late plowing is really a sign of climate change! OK - now at the end of November we have 20-30 cm snow - no more plowing this fall - and hope to put my BOG again working (actually it can go under the snow & ice - a BUSI/LWUSI - antenna).

KING´S VILLAGE DX - STATION OF OCTOBER:"Radio Alegría, Lima 1340

DXing TA-stations with only a longwire in Southern Finland means that you have to concentrade to morning sunrise enhancement moments. These moments can be very short, usually no more than 30 minutes with best reception at sunrise time and a just after that.

On October 7th I was staying at the cottage and did a usual check on mw at around 5.30 ut before going to work. After discovered that something unusual was going on I decided to record (by SDRs IQ & 14) the band from 1300 to 1700 kHz.
Soon after 0530 quite good conditions were noted - mainly to Lima Peru and Puerto Rico at the same time. Soon a station with nice Peru Folklore was heard on 1340 kHz - a channel usually having a Colombian station (Bogota) slightly above the nominal. Butthe music was only Andean - Peru folklore and the style of the programming was totally different of normally heard here. Some of the suspected was of course the Lima area station which on the other hand should have a religious format. After some connections with other DXers I was told that the Swedish DXer BIH had been listening to the same station a bit later - it was interesting to compare also the fades which were of course not in the same time. BIH discoverd maybe first that the lady was speaking about Radio Alegria? after several weeks with great detective work of Henrik Klemetz - once again a Big Thank - with info also from other sources the secret was discovered: the Lima station (at least studios at Lima?)was really Radio Alegría, a new name to a Radio LaLuz/Bendicion.

The signal was peaking just at about local sunrise (04.46ut) - at times the signal was better than the European on 1341! The exact frequency seems to be a bit below the nominal at 1339.993 whereas Bogotá has been quite steadily at 1340.006. There are often a Spanish Latin on 1340.000 which I believe is Caracas.

Other strong signals from Lima were noted on 1300 (Comas, no ID, but ads for Lima), 1320 La Cronica (relaying R Nacional), 1380 Nuevo Tiempo, 1400 tent. Collao with sports, 1470 CPN and 1500 (1499.858) Santa Rosa. Quite a few very interesting split frequencies were noted on sev. channels as well (e.g. near 1440 and 1560). From PR the stronges were on 1430, 1520, 1600 and 1660.

R Alegría will have the "official start" in the beginning of December.

King´s Village DXing August-September 2008

Testing the Perseus (software 1.1.b vs 1.1.c)

Indeed the latest version runs quite OK even on my laptop (T40, with 512 MB memory, 1.3 GHz processor) and on my old table-top (Fujitsu) of 3.0 GHz/1.5 Gb mem. only slightly better actually. All these recording 1600 kHz RF-file. And the new file being 16-bit file, it saves HD and now you can record (without modifying the windows parameters) 5 minutes files (of about 2.2 Gb each). The latest version has also the “zoom” when you can zoom the frequency reading to be able to read rather precise frequencies down to below 1 Hz. However on my setups, it is still rather slow and there are problems when trying to do that when playing back the recorded file. Still I find easier to use SpectruVue for exact frequency read-out. Otherwise the Perseus software is fine with many bells and whistles like the DSP-noise reduction etc. Well done, Nico.

August/September: Dario goes King´s Village´s DX (sdr & car-dx)

Famous DXer (“PlayDX”) Dario Monferini from Milan visited my DX-QTH at King´s Villages for a few days at the end of August. Dario enjoyed some good openings on mw as well as on FM (St Peterburg stations). Dario tested also SDR-DX using Perseus and SDR-IQ receivers. He managed to get quite a few Trans-Atlantic signals. I had to work all days – so my job was more to obtain cooking and make food for us. We enjoyed Salmon “Lemon” with some Italian style vegetables (with Italian Mozzarella) among others (like pasta etc!). Dario “DXing” can be seen on the picture. Some catches of Asians were made also using my car´s RX – these includes good reception of Korea 1566 and JOIF 1413 (at 2000 UTC)

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More pictures of Darios adventures at the Play-DX-site.

DX-meeting at Haapavesi with Aurora Borealis and the EDXC

After Dario’s DX-days I drove to Haapavesi-QTH with Viktor Rytkovsky (picked up at the trailway station Kouvola). We went via Joensuu and took MR (Mauno Ritola) with us. As always during the last years we soon noticed geomagnetic disturbance starting when driving up North! And indeed at the night 4^th Sept we could even see the Aurora Borealis. Thanks to Jari Ylioja – an active photographer of Space & Aurora (more Jari´s pictures at SpaceWeather Auroa Gallery) the Aurora was photographed at the same time only 1,5 kilometres to the South of our QTH! So dxing was no so active, the only “result” was a carrier of the Nigerian station on 917 kHz (s/off around 23ut).

Aurora during the DX-meeting at Haapavesi. (photo thanks to Jari Yioja – more Jari´s photos at SpaceWeather.com)

After the meeting we went to Vaasa to the EDXC 2008 meeting. It was nice to see many DXers at Vaasa, although my staying lasted only a few hours.

Some DX in August– September

So far I am still waiting to be able to use my Far East BOG. So most DX is made using my longwire of 130 meters (NNW). Some nice openings to Latin America has been noted with some new stations for me. I decided also to announce “The King´s Village Station of the Month” each month. These are new for me or otherwise interesting to be announced.

I will put my presentation of the latest trends of SDRs in Finland later on the web later on.

KING'S VILLAGE STATION OF THE MONTH - AUGUST: Rádio Itapirema 1390

This station was particularly interesting as it took some days to discover what is doing a strong het on 1390.0 kHz. Soon I noted the signal is coming from Brazil above the nominal on 1390.215 kHz and after some work it was discovered to be Radio Itapirema of Ji-Parana, Brazil. Thanks JEÖ & MR for listening to the clip!

I am not sure if this split still exists, later on I have noted Rádio Jornal here (which is more usual at my QTH).

KING´S VILLAGE STATION OF THE MONTH – SEPTEMBER: Radio Libertad, Arequipa 1310

This station was first noted on Sept. 29th with nice Andean music. First it was a bit difficult to say what station is saying “Libertad” here although the music was “very Andean” music with nice melodies. The station even had time signals which were rather exact (not so familiar on Latins). Soon I noted the loggings of last year (credits to JMS, JEÖ and TSM in Finland) and indeed the station was the same as then – Radio Libertad de Arequipa, which seems to be a new station started last year. Actually the station seems to be on split as well, on 1309.98 kHz. I also found a RF-recording on my last winter´s HD of 4^th December 2007:

Radio Libertad with same kind of programming and announcements – and on the same split! The station has been dominating the channel also after September – many times in October – sometimes with good signal and only some QRM from at least two others (one being Venezuela with Nat. Anthem at 0430 – this one a bit above on 1310.01, the other one with programs sounding like Radio Maria – could be Radio Maria, Panama (carrier frequency rather near the nominal). Radio Libertad has also web-pages and program feed on web - very nice! On October 7^th some other stations from Perú were noted with good signal.

TESTING THE PERSEUS- SDR

KING´S VILLAGE TEST BENCH:

PERSEUS SDR-RECEIVER – A Pretty Excellent Receiver of Software … OR – A Poor Example of Receivers … - First Impressions (by TK)

These impressions are something found during a brief test arrangements on January 21-22 with a Perseus + Table-top PC Fujitsu-Siemens (about 1.8 GHz – 1 Mb mem. + 250 GB HD). The rx was compared mostly to a SDR-14 & IQ + a communications receiver Icom R9000.

Generally the look and feel is great with this equipment and the installation of the software was a piece of cake. The software (beta 0.31) was distributed on a CD with the receiver. There were a HF-Span software (showing 0-40 MHz span) and drivers + dll´s for the WinRad, too. It was very easy to calibrate the set using just the mouse to move the scale and the “CAL” button on the screen. As can be seen at fig.1 the user interface is nice and that can even be improved the Griffin PowerMate knob. There are normal demodulations like AM & SSB, but also syncro-AM (SAM) which is very good, locking easily (the freqyency readout does not change however). In addition you can demodulate DRM using the Virtual Sound Card driver (you have to be the latest version 4.8 for that) and the Dream-software. The screen having two windows is good so you can have a larger view up to 500 kHz and the demodulation window with if-bandwith etc on another smaller screen. It sounds also that the noise blanker works good for sudden impulses (like electric fences) whereas that of the SDR-IQ is useless. However I have not personally tested it largely as my local horseowner has switched the fence off!

On the screen you can set frequency also by clicking the arrows below the small secondary window. This is handy, when operating with a laptop without mouse. The averaging system in the software is done nicely on the screen – you can adjust it manually by clicking and dragging the vertical sliders both for the main and the second window. On the screen you can use also the memo (memory tables) where you can load lists of potential stations and there are already memos of EiBI list and HFCC-tables included. You can import your own list to the memo table as well. Software worked OK although there are some problems still with the listening to the recorded (captured) RF-file. While checking how many stations you can have on one frequency (if there is a vertical scroll) I found that you can but up to six on the channel - so a scroll should be good if you wish put lists like "potential NA / TA -stations" etc - these lists have usually dozens of stations on each channel.

You have to use the transformer (5 V) which comes together with the rx and I have seen reports that this unit (a switching transformer) does produce some noise especially to other RXs (using splitters), but I did not note very much interference in my set-up. However I have already some noise from other PC-equipments, mainly from my LCD-screen which I have to switch off when doing serious RF-recording at daytime with low signal levels.

Sensitivity & Strong signal handling seems to be adequate - I would say the sensitivity is a bit worse than that of the Icom-receiver (R9000) and I have seen some figures at about 2 uV (10 dB/SN, AM-mode); however, when used with active splitter (with 10 dB gain) and/or amp. of 10 dB with a LW of 150 m or BOG 300 m the rx did overload and I had to set the attn to -10 dB on the program. But this is what is happening with other sdrs (14 / IQ and WinR) as well. That is never a problem with my old Icom, AOR or EKD 515 (DDR-rx).

Frequency measurements are a bit harder to do with the Perseus (compared to IQ using Spectravue) basically as the minimum SPAN in receiving is 1.6 kHz (showing also the max. BW resolution 1.9 Hz). As can be seen at the picture, you have to “click” the markers on screen (you have to use as good resolution as possible) whereas Spectravue with 14/IQ gives you automatically the 4 strongest carriers of the SPAN. The comparison test was done on 1368 with a station (Taiwan) a bit below the nominal (see fig. 2) and also other tests showed that the accurancy of frequency measurements is about 2 Hz – generally about 2-4 Hz. Maybe later on we will have the span reduced to e.g. 200 or 500 Hz?

Selectivity is good and at least at the same level as that of the IQ/14 and a bit better than that of the ICOM R9000 or AOR (with SSB filters around 2 kHz). And you can adjust it how you want – also “asymmetric way”. You can also move the center frequency – about as PBT does. There are buttons also for the notch and PBT but they seems not to be active yet – this feature is coming later on, I suppose.

Recording – Span Capturing (“Drift Net-DX”) is straightforward, you have just to decide whether you want to capture a slice of 100, 200 or 400 kHz, push the button and use the recorder-buttons on a lower left corner of the window. Actually you can even record a bit more (almost 500 kHz with 500 kS/s sampling?), but there can be false signals on both sides?). As mentioned earlier the play-back feature differs from that of SpectraVue a bit: you can not jump just back and forth. Instead, you can assign a portion of the recording for looped play-back. And there seems still to be some problems with the operation on playing back – I could freeze the computer using that and had to switch the power off once. Note that you should have the unit on – so you can not listen the files with another computer and/or at another place without the hardware using the Perseus software, what is possible with the SpectaVue and SDR-14/IQ. However using the WinRad-softaware you can do playback also without the Perseus hardware, which is good although there are some limitations using that one as there are no timestamp at the timeline and not even the stop button on WinRad´s timeline. You get 10 minutes recordings with the software automatically (about 1,7 Gb each). You have also to give the name to the files all the time before starting to record and the software puts the sequence numbers after the name like 1,2… The timer is not included, but there is a possibility to do a timer with windows macros, but I have not yet tried that. The timer function like that of IQ – Spectravue could be greatly appreciated! After this report was written I have heard that the "official" release of the software (1.0) is due out in February - maybe something of the wish list are in that version.

I used mainly my desk-top (a bit old) model of a Pentium 1.8 GHz machine with 1 MB internal memory. The software took about 30-40 % easily at 125 kS/s and when switched to maximum sampling rate of 500 kS/s in order to capture 400 kHz to the hard disk, it took about 80-90% of the resources. So with my setup, I can not use both Perseus & IQ at the same machine. I also had some play-back problems with this set-up, and had to start the playback again, which actually worked to that problem. Using my laptop of Pentium (1.3 GHz only, IBM T40) was about the same, but it seems this machine works better showing the maximum usage of resources at about 60-70 %. I have heard these small IBMT40´s really performs like about 2 GHz machines. I did not tried to record to external HDs, but it should work ok and that has been done by other testers without problems. I think that with modern pc´s of about 3 - 4 GHz and 2-4 GB memory these problems are not present.

All-in-all I have to say this is a great piece of equipment – good looking software with great capabilities – and the software is still in Beta-state – so what are we getting when that is the final version. Well Done Nico Palermo & Microtelecom!

Last but not least, I would like to thank all the impressions of earlier testers of the rx like Bjarne Melde, Guy Atkins and Giampiero Bernardini at their blogs and emails as well as Mauno Ritola & Jussi Suokas (& all the “DXing Wolfs” in Eastern Finland) who were the first in Finland to test the machine. Now we have the DriftNetter of 400 kHz, next year at least up to 2 Mhz or ?

73,TK

King´s Village DXing Oct-November

DX-ing in the King´s Village (which will be part of Loviisa town in 2009, by the way!)

Not very much to report from my King´s Village QTH on Oct - Nov although quite a few good DX-days noted also here. Still using primary my BOG @40 degr (300 meters on the ground), my lw of TA-dxing seems to be still a bit noisy.

Most of new stations logged here are from the East. Noted a few Philippine stations like 1062 and 1548 Super Radio (seems to ID only DZ-double B), the last finally with IDs several times in Oct-Nov. Some japs was noted as well, several commons with great signal.

SDR-receiver as "visual DXing" & frequency measuring unit:

As many of us using SDRs know, these machines are good to measure rather easily frequencies of stations. I made a mini DXpedition to my Haapavesi QTH and recorded on one morning channels 1190 - 1380 on Nov. 4th.
As CX favoured North - Central and part of South America, I was able to get at least one station on ecah channel. One new TA-station for me was logged also: WIVV 1370, which seems to be on split 1369.983. This has been rather difficult to get earlier.
Also made some measurements. At the picture you can see one example how stations come and go: on 1310.00 first Ottawa (Oldies 13-10) at 05.00, later on mix with Bogota (Manantial) on 1310.011 (with good ids and px announcements at around 0535), and the normal dominant best later on: RNV 1310.014. Also there was tentatively Maria Panama near the nominal as well.
All these DX was made with a SDR-IQ, Acer laptop (using only own batteries to avoid noise from the transformer). The antenna was a beverage of 410 meters at 290 degrees (with coax lead of 350 mtrs). By the way, as the antennas has been in rain for about two months with transformers, I noted very much attenuation somewhere - and found that the transformer at the end of the long coax led (350 meters) was wet - and the results was extra attenuation of at least 20-30 dB! ALthough the transformer is housed in a small pastic box this has not been enaugh as the rain has been severe for several weeks! So extra housing should be used indeed.
73 TK

King´s Village DX in September

Hi all;

Some DX in September:

Not very much of DXing to report during September. Still waiting to put my Far East BOG onto the ground. However I tested it a few days in Sept. with good Far East conditions (14-17): mainly Chinese, but some other interesting DX-catches also. I noted Mainichi Hoso JOFR 1278 with sign off for a Silent Period on Sunday night 18 utc - at the same time the programme was heard // on 1197 - that channel is pretty hard to get in Southern Finland. The station has call-ID just at 18.00 utc with all relay stations mentioned (JOFE & JOFO). A new station for me. Also some other interesting channels of Japanese (like 1233, 1368 NHK, 1422 were heard.
As far as TA´s is concerned, quite a few NA & LA-signals were noted during September. Only one more intresting for me was a Columbian HJJH Radio Ciudad Milagro Armenía on 1460 kHz. Usually it is Nuevo Continente here dominating, but on Sept 30 that was not the case. Call-ID at s/off 0403 utc, this one seems to be a bit lower than N.C. (on 1459.992). Thanks for checking my recording JEÖ & JPR!

New model of KWZ this / next year ?

I made a trip to Germany in September and I visited the factory of Kneisner&Doering briefly at Braunschweig. It was a nice discussion with Mr. Kneisner who unveiled a bit of the new model of KWZ-receiver: indeed we can wait for a true 32-bit DSP rx with some interesting features like even better dynamics than the old one + spectrum display etc. So I am really looking forward in seeing a real DX-receiver after many years of decline of producing of the good receivers for DXers also. At the picture you can see a part of the new set - the test of the control software was going on. We talked also about their model of SDR-receiver which we hope to test by the PUDXK-team later on. The SDR is based on SDR-1000 model using the same software.

Let´s start the DXing of the October's good DX-condtions (on Oct 8 - 16). 73´s TK

Northern Dimension DXers Camp 31 August - 2 Sept 07

The tradional Camp of PUDXK was held at Haapavesi on August 31... Sept. 2nd. This was the n:o 4 meeting and every year in August we have had terrible bad reception conditions during our meeting. So more time has been devoted to good meals etc. This year was not that bad, although the solar wind schock arrived a bit earlier than expected and there was too short time for conditions to reapper. Some Latins and Caribbeans were noted at first night but nothing very interesting (unless someone discover more stations from the sdr- or MD-recordings). We were 4 dxers (JSN, MKA, MR & TK).

This year we had some new tests:
- K9AY erected a bit more far away from the house - using special "tools" like some parts from a washing machine at the glassfiber mast & tradional wood poles (hay poles) at the corners (for drying hay sometimes in 1950´s)



- An unattended sdr-qth in the middle of forests (3 km to the electricity) using a SDR-IQ + 300 meters wire - it was a bit too southwards in order to get very much La Plata and later Orinoco signals although the beginning was promising when we started the meachine at 22.34 UTC. However the HP laptop survived about 4 1/2 hours capturing signals using the so called "travel battery" of the computer... when you use this kind of system it is best to remember to have all the softaware with you as now we had to drive again to the forests (50 kilometres more driving at night) to bring the Spectravue software ...


- a beverage of 410 meters (at 290 degr.) with 350 m coax feed was again a good antenna for TA-reception

The receivers used were "normal pudxk-equipments" sdr-14, 2 sdr-iqs, WinR 313e, NRD 515, AOR7030 and EKD 515 - but to be honest the most used equipments were the sdr-14/ iqs (+ EKD for JSNs "real listening pleasure").

About the delicious wines and meals more at the DX-Culinarism Blog.

73 tk


Back at my King´s Village QTH this week I tested briefly my East BOG of about 300 mtrs at 40 degr. (can not lay it down for longer period yet until my neighbour has finished all the agri jobs before winter!). Indeed a low noise and beautifull signals from Asia ...

Some antenna tests during the summer (ALA100) at the King´s Village QTH

I made some tests using the ALA100 during July. The first attempt was to make a
round loop of spiral wounding using the ALA100, the circumference was about 6 meters and the antenna was rotatable using some rods (supports of a tent) and a fishing rod, The antenna was mounted at about 5 meters. In the picture it is waiting to be erected up.
However it seemed that either the small diameter or sprial wounding made this set up not as good as a bigger normal square loop. It had approx. 10 dB lower gain than the sprial one.
I changed eventually the type to a square "<> - shape" loop of large aperture (ALA100) using about 24 meters of wire. The antenna was also constructed using one center mast (of 10 meter fishing rod) with the highest point at about 8 meters (<> - shape).
It seems this is a very low noise antenna indeed at least at rural QTH with noise floor at SDR-IQ (0 dB preamp.) at about -125 dB. The antenna is at least as good as my longwire of 150 meters but with lower noise level (approx 5 dB) , so the better S/N. However, it seems to be more effective to high angle signals - so the BOG or a good beverage could be better - that will be tested later on this Autumn.
73 TK
...

Short Wave Check with a SDR-IQ & Art of SDR-reception

During a Latin Check on Tropical Band 60 meters on 4725...4915 I found several stations from Bolivia, Brazil and Guatemala on July 24.
While studying the signal of Radio Universitaria (Bolivia) on 4732 I found this interesting picture using the SDR-IQs combo display. It shows nicely the terrible RTTY QRM on both sides of the station - the RTTY tx has short breaks after about 1 minute transmission as you can see. You can see also the close down of the Bolivian as well. The staion is usually covered byt the RTTY-QRM and can be heard only about 15 seconds between the pulses, however sometimes there are longer breaks. It seems the station has disappeared in the beginning of August.
73 TK

Happy Solstice on June 21 1806 UT!

So here we are just looking for another MW-dx-season even up here in the North (or at least waiting for the beginning in about two months...)

The photo above was taken just about 24 hours before (20 June at 1805 UT) the "Holy Moment" on June 21.

From the Spaceweather.com:
On June 21st at precisely 18:06 UT, Earth's north pole will be tipped to the max (23.5o) toward the Sun. Astronomers call this moment "a solstice." It marks the beginning of summer in the northern hemisphere, and winter in the southern hemisphere. The seasons are changing--Happy Solstice!

I wish You all the best during these midsummer days which are in Scandinavia often the n:o one Carneval time (crazy people going to Sauna - heat usually around +100 centigrades - then to swim even into lakes with cold water - and being outside at night with mosquitos)...
73 TK

Measuring RF-noise by SDR-RX (sdr-14)

Summer is time to check the antennas etc up here in the North when sun shines and low-band dxing at least to East & West is not possible. Two years ago I discoved the rise of noise below 1 MHz on most antennas at my rural-QTH like KAZ and long wires. A bit better with the BOG directed away from the cottage. Soon I noted that the house 500 meters away had started using the ADSL and the connection is via a old-type cable going only a few meters from my cottage´s roof! I used my miniwhip mounted on the fishing rod at about 8 m height (look at the picture) and measured a very big rise of QRM at around 700 kHz. The reception is almost impossible between 200 and 700 kHz. Above 1 MHz the situation is better and above 1200 kHz almost OK with "bottom level" around -130 ... - 110 dB (SDR-14 scale) depending on the antenna. But below 700 kHz the level rises up to - 45 dB when measured only 2 meters from the wire and yeat at about -60 dB at about 30 meters from the wire! The miniwhip itself is quite good for measurements as it really picks up noise easily (though it is a quite active antenna but really needs to be placed away from RF-noise).
Maybe I have to consult the local telephone company ?
73 TK