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.

LEM266 Log (1st draft)

Here's the first draft of LEM266 log. Next update will be within a week.

http://www.netikka.net/jsn/LEM266_loki.xls

ENOX11: 13-19.11.2008 (HN, JVA)

During this expediton conditions on the band varied more than we would have wanted because of the stronger-than-expected coronal hole disturbance just in the middle of the expedition.

On Friday 14.11 we had a fairly nice Florida and east coast opening. On Saturday 15.11 GY-stations from the west coast. On Sunday 16.11 some “disturbance stations” early in the night and GY-stations from upper west coast ("ylämummo") whole afternoon. On Monday 17.11 nothing to be mentioned. On Tuesday 18.11 mid-west stations and in the last morning on Wednesday 19.11 a nice opening to CA, but we had to unplug just after 0900 UTC just as everything was hotter than on any of the days before !

Generally we listened only from 06ut to 14utc, with recordings on most nights. However, in the morning we noticed, that once again we just needed to erase everything, since there was nothing to listen to…. No daytimer openings in the evenings, even if CBG-1400 and/or WEGP-1390 were audible many times already around 19-21 UTC. Also only the most common stations from AK and HI direction were logged. Mexicans were almost totally absent.

Our full log will be published as and when we have had time to dig into the recordings more seriously. Samples of stations identified prior to more in-depth listening from recordings:

WFLF-540, CBEF-540, KUBC-580, KCSJ-590, KXSP-590, CHNL-610, KCMO-710, KFLN-960, KLAD-960, KJJK-1020, KFTI-1070, WDJO-1160, KQIK-1230, KDYM-1230, KSZN-1230, KPRL-1230, KORT-1230, KCVL-1240, KNEU-1250, KXRO-1320, XECPN-1320, KNSS-1330, CINL-1340, KCAP-1340, KTOQ-1340, WPDR-1350, KABQ-1350, WGIV-1370, KIHH-1400, WZAZ-1400, WSLB-1400, KODI-1400, KULY-1420, KLZS-1450, KZZJ-1450, KBBS-1450, WZNZ-1460, KDMA-1460, KTEL-1490, KSKR-1490, KOWL-1490

LEM266 1.11. - 7.11.2008 (JSN & MKA)

Hi folks!

Our Dx-expedition started in Hämeenlinna on Friday at 10:30 UTC when Martti started the engine. We drove up to Muhos (JPR's DXing OTH) thru a quite severe snow storm and stayed the night there. Thanks Jari for your hospitality, again! Hit the road on Saturday at 04:00 UTC and arrived to Lemmenjoki after 11:00 UTC.

This is only a short overview. Our loggings will be published later at pudxk.blogspot.com and hard-core-dx.com/online log.

The weather has been mostly sunny with temperatures between -1 to -12 degrees Celsius. At the moment we've got snow about 5 centimeters.

Receivers: Telefunken E1800/3, 1* Perseus, 1* SDR-14, 2* SDR-IQ

1.11. NA until 14:00 UTC.

2.11 The night started with Brazilians. Then NA from 04:30 till 11:00 UTC.

3.11. At night the same pattern, but now also Orinoco and some La Plata included. NA from 03:30 till 13:00 UTC. NHK-1 break at 09.59 quite nicely. From the Pacific Marshall Islands (1098) and Tonga (1017) with excellent signals, but nothing more.

4.11. NA started before 22:00 UTC (3.11.) and continued till 14:00 UTC. Today Marshalls and Tonga again + tent. Tahiti. NA started again before 22:00 UTC.

5.11. All night Puerto Rico and Orinoco with huge signals. NA started again at 02:00 and continued till 13:00.

We have been very busy with our SDRs and computers. But we have enjoyed the good conditions, weather, food and wine. We've already got a huge amount of SDR-files. Hope that we will not run out of disk space!

Here's a few stations "on the fly": KCKX 1460, KOFE 1240, KIOV 1450, KFBC 1240, KTOQ 1340, JOTG Aomori 963, WRRD 1510, KGOW 1560, KCAP 1340, KPOW 1260, KVOC 1230, KQTL 1210 etc.

06-07.11 The last two days were offering nice signals to NA and Pacific. We had a lack of propagation to La Plata and SEA and therefore unable to enjoy the last fine bottle of wine, 2005 Kaiken Ultra Malbec from Argentina. As a Finnish word kaiken means everything!On the other hand, we had the ultimate menu, better then ever in Lemmenjoki! We were equipped a lot of kettles , frying pans and special spices for our international kitchen.

Martti´s forecast for this period was quite accurate, disturbance started to effect early in the morning 7th of November and the days of our stay in Lemmenjoki were every day better and better to the final.

When driving away from Lemmenjoki we were able to meet two wolves (None of them were from Uhtua /ed.), a lot of reindeers and some dangerous drivers.

Next year's menu has already been planned, it will beat also Kongsfjord, if they are not able to invent something better than this year.

73's JSN & MKA

AND3: 16-26.10. (GF, JA, OF and TBV)

AND3 has begun. Conditions are promising with many AK and HI at good levels at 14 UTC. Participants: GF, JA, OF and TBV

AND3 report 16-17.10: Brief opening to Brazil after 20:40 UTC, 1240 Radio Sao Francisco was the first new one in the log. From 01 UTC strong opening to the Rockies and Mexico with west coast stations becoming dominant by late morning.

AND3 report 17-18.10: Every MW DXer can easily imagine a dream DX night. Last night easily belongs to that category. For starters we were served very nice signals from Brazil after 20:30 UTC. From 22:45 our attention was on North America, starting from the Great Lakes and moving slowly westwards. During that process we were treated to numerous daytime signals from the Central and Mountain time zones, later Oregon stations almost convinced us we were actually there. Brief conclusion: A superb night and morning

AND3 report 18-19.10: Again a good night and morning, although somewhat less focused and interesting than the previous day. 1400 KIHH logged Oct,18.

AND3 report 19-20.10: Great start to the night with DT signals from the northeastern US and the Great Lakes. Improving signals from South America during the night, 550 CW1 and 760 LU6 were excellent at LSR. Good morning to the US EC, poor to the WC.

AND3 report 20-21.10: WEGP was heard at 20:40utc increasing our hopes for a good night. Despite some usual MI stations around 23:00 the night was disappointing. Early morning conds were very good to Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina. Excellent signals from eastern NA 07-09:30utc and then WC after 09:45

AND3 report 21-22.10: Good conds to Brazil and La Plata 21-00UTC. At midnight a few DT signals from CO and UT, then slowly improving conds until 04 UTC. From then and until just before noon strong signals from the Great Lakes and westwards.

AND3 report 22-23.10: Excellent to Brazil from 21UTC and until early morning. Sporadic spot conditions to NA 22-01:30UTC offered daytimers from all mainland US time zones. Later on relatively poor conds with stations mainly from the WC.

AND3 report 23-24.10: Possibly the best NA conditions this century. If it gets any better than this the last 2 nights we will not need to go DX-peditions again. Ever

AND3 report 24-25.10: Strong widespread NA signals from 22utc, at times mixing with Cubans and Mexicans. Boring during the morning. Towards noon improving with strong signals from WA, OR and CA.

AND3 report 25-26.10: Very interesting NA conds. At first many DT signals from the northeastern USA. Then a brief break before we got lots of of interesting stations from the Mountain time zone. Early morning had an extremely intense opening to WA, OR and BC. Then things changed very quickly with a strong opening to the eastern part of the USA. An excellent final day.

ENOX loggings update 13.10

.
960 +WABG Greenwood, MS (21.2.2008 ENOX8)
--------------------------------------------------
970 KNFX Austin, MN (tnx PAX71/A) - ENOX2
1050 +WDVM Eau Claire, WI (16.10.2007 ENOX2)
1350 +KCAR Clarksville, TX (12.10.2007 ENOX2) (tnx PAX71/A)
1350 XETB Torreón - ENOX2

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)

• 

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.

Recent Verifications

Hello fellow DXers and greetings from Vaasa!

Here's a few my most recent verifications:

KTNN Window Rock AZ 660 email
KRRZ Minot ND 1390 email
WTCH Shawano WI 960 email
KGHF Pueblo CO 1350 email
KHEY El Paso TX 1380 email
KRPI Ferndale WA 1550 email
WPLM Plymouth MA 1390 email
KLO Ogden UT 1430 email
KNWC Sioux Falls SD 1270 email
KDHL Faribault MN 920 email

Still quite a lot of LEM260 files from Asia and South/Central America to be checked. Hope to get them ready before the next LEM-expedition (with MKA) starting on the 1st of November.

73's -jsn-

ENOX9: 11-14.9 (JVA, TUA)

We went for a short antenna checking and DX-listening trip to ENOX for a weekend. Conditions were not so good, especially the last night was a disappointment.

Usually evening started with Brazil stations at 22-23utc. La Plata -stations were dominating in the nighttime and finally NA-stations were audible from 00-01utc until 04- 0445utc.

We had the best conditions on Saturday morning when several new stations faded in for us. The most interesting stations were from Florida and Ohio. Some loggings here – full log later.

540 CBEF Windsor, On
540 CBT Grand Falls, NL
560 WQAM Miami, FL
570 CKGL Kitchener, ON
610 WIOD Miami, FL
630 CHLT Sherbrooke, QC
670 WWFE Miami, FL
820 WOSU Columbus, OH
920 WMNI Colombus, OH
990 CBY Corner Brook, NL
1060 WLNO New Orleans, LA
1200 KFNW West Fargo, ND - daytime power?
1230 WSBB New Smyrna Beach, FL
1320 WOBL Oberlin, OH
1350 WGPL Portsmouth, VA
1560 KGOW Bellaire, TX with daytime power whole night
1570 WECU Centerville, NC
1600 WKKX Wheeling, WV
1630 WRDW Augusta, GA
1690 CJLO Montreal, QC
1690 CHTO Toronto, ON

540 R Auténtica, Bogota
620 ZYH590 R Globo, Fortaleza
620 R Rebelde
700 NBC Kingstown, St Vincent
870 CHML R Reloj, Sancti Spiritus
1310 LRA42 Radio Nacional de Gualeguachu, Gualeguaychu
1320 RCN
1430 HJKU Emisora Kennedy, Santa Fé de Bogota
1550 R Rebelde
1570 TGVE VEA Voz Evangelica de América, Guatemala