Friday, March 13, 2009

KXOL Brigham City UT 1660 - La Favorita!


KXOL is a very usual catch on 1660 kHz. It has a Spanish Mexican format and it can be heard almost daily during the season in the Arctic with a proper antenna.
I have tried to get this one verified for many, many years but for some reason it does not seem to care DXers reports and audios from overseas. However, this time I was lucky and got a kind email verification from La Favorita's Office Manager.

KXOL is my UT #22 and the last one on 1660 kHz.

Friday, March 06, 2009

KOZE Lewiston ID 950 under the KJR's carrier

Hearing an Idaho -station on the same frequency with KJR Seattle booming in at the same time is not an easy job. But if you are lucky enough it can be possible. When I heard KOZE in November 2007 during ENOX3 it was middle of the night in Idaho meaning that KOZE was running only 1000 watts. At the same time KJR was using 50000 watts! However just on the top of the hour KJR took a few seconds break and on right this moment KOZE gave its legal ID under the KJR's carrier.
KOZE verified last night with a kind email after two earlier attempts back in 2007 and 2008.

WKLJ Sparta WI 1290

WKLJ is an ESPN affiliate in Sparta, Wisconsin. It's not an easy catch at all but however, it has been captured every now and then in Scandinavia in recent years. It was heard during last October on ENOX10 as well with TOH call -ID and later on with ESPN programming. WKLJ verified last night with an email and it became my second WI -station on 1290 kHz.

Thursday, March 05, 2009

Radio Disney on 1190 kHz - KPHN Kansas City MO

Another interesting station fading in and out on October 26, 2008 during ENOX10 was KPHN Kansas City MO on 1190 kHz. 1190 kHz has not been very interesting frequency for me since before KPHN I have picked up only those usual WOWO, WLIB, KEX and CFSL. It needs always somehow special conditions if you want to hear anything else on this frequency. In addition to those stations I mentioned at least five more US AMs have been heard in Scandinavia: WBIS, WBDY, KFXR, KVSV and KNUV.
KPHN verified with an e-mail yesterday.

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

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

KBLL Helena MT 1240








I heard KBLL on the 2nd of November, 2008 during LEM266. Right after the ABC News they broadcast their local weather forecast presented by forecaster Erin Yost.

I send an email to Erin, who works at KTVH in Helena, and to the station. Last Friday night, during our PUDXK-meeting in Muhos, I got a nice reply from Erin. Here's one of Erin's comments: "That is INSANE! Ha ha! I've taken a couple radio classes in college over in Missoula, Montana (University of Montana) and have heard of signals going further than expected and whatnot... that is unbelievable! Wow! It's a small world :)"

Yesterday evening I also got a reply from Chief Engineer Jared Dickert. Thank you very much Erin and Jared!

What comes to QSLing, last Friday was a very nice day. Two other email-qsls found their way to my mailbox:
Joseph Rizza from Davidson Media Group verified my report of WPYR Baton Rouge LA 1380. I picked it up on the 5th of November, 2008 during LEM266. It was the first time WPYR was heard in Finland. Since then it has been picked up by several Finnish DXers. Thank you Joe for your confirmation!





Jeff McMurray, PD verified my follow-up report of Sports 1140 - KHTK Sacramento CA. Heard it in January 2007 during LEM241. Came in quite well during their local break at 11:45 UTC. Thank you Jeff!

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

WBGX Harvey IL 1570 verified - finally!

It was way back in 2003 when I picked up WBGX for the first time. The reception wasn't very good at the time and I never succeeded in QSLing the station back then. But on February 20 this year during ENOX14 the reception was much better and I managed to capture a clear and a loud TOH ID "AM1570 WBGX Harvey-Chicago". And just an hour ago I got a short but a kind verification from the station. My IL #32.

Saturday, February 28, 2009

KGVW Belgrade MT 640 and a T-shirt

Just a couple of hours ago I received a nice surprise from Montana US as KGVW 640 verified my report and mp3. KGVW's chief engineer, who is an active ham operator as well, wrote an interesting email telling about his hobby and his relatives who have lived in the North of Finland a long time ago.
I picked up KGVW way back in October 2007 during ENOX2 and since then I have sent a couple of reports to the station without any answer until now. CE told me that he had sent me also a T-shirt some days ago and it should arrvive before too long. KGVW became my MT -station #30.

ENOX10 loggings - 1.st draft

ENOX10 loggings - 1.st draft

Sunday, February 22, 2009