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

AND4 (January 8-18, 2009)

AND4 (January 8-18, 2009): Participants: GF, JA, OF and TBV

January 8-9: Good conditions to MN (for instance 970 KQAQ), WI from the evening until early morning. Excellent all band WC conditions from the morning until early afternoon, in particular California stations had impressive signals. One of the best days in AND history. 1510 KGA surprised us by showing up as early as 22:25 UTC.

January 9-10: The evening was promising with stations like 1400 WSLB and 1410 WNER noted early on. Unfortunately the night and morning was disappointing. Propagation improved slowly until by 15h UTC conditions were about as good as one day earlier. WC stations faded out after 15:30 UTC with BC signals still present after 16h UTC.

January 10-11: CJVB stayed with us until well after 17h UTC. 3 hours later we were listening to EC stations. Quite a few signals from the US northeastern states. Some DT signals as darkness moved westwards with a strong signal from 1210 KTBK Ke Buena just before they changed to their nighttime pattern. Spot conditons to ID and WA a couple of hours during the night. Widespread signals during the morning, some DT signals from MN, ND during early afternoon.

January 11-12: Some MN in the late evening (920 KDHL, 1030 WCTS). Propagation improved all night and signals were unusually strong by morning with no particular area preferred. Excellent to the WC in the early afternoon with good GY signals. One example 1400 KJDY.

January 12-13: Fabulous conditions! Strong signals early in the evening from NL. WI and MN stations noted very early. Excellent all-band signals throughout the night, morning and into the early afternoon. We are beginning to wonder if we have sufficient disk space for another 5 days ...

January 13-14: Strong and early signals from ME, 1490 WBAE was like a local at 22h UTC. Good conditions to mainly the EC during the night and the morning. Poor during the day as the disturbance caused most signals to disappear.

January 14-15: Varied conditions over the last 24 hours as a weak disturbance continues. Excellent opening to the northeastern states in the evening, ME before 20h UTC, lots of NY DT signals 30 minutes later. Then the best propagation slowly moved westwards to MI. NA stations were replaced by South American signals after 22h and were absent until the morning when we got another excellent EC opening. Poor during the day, however, WA stations very good at 14 and 15h UTC.

January 15-16: Some ME and NY after 21:30 UTC, then good EC conditions all night mixing with a few Latin American stations. Excellent and very interesting morning and day to eastern, central and even southern parts of the US. Only a few dominant stations around. Some Mexico as well like 1320 XECPN La Mexicana. We are very pleased with the conditions.

January 16-17: Again nice signals from NL, ME and NY early on with peak propagation slowly moving towards the west. Strong signals during the night and morning with WC signals much better than the previous day.

January 17-18: ME stations from 19:30 UTC, then the usual pattern with some EC, and propagation focus moving slowly to the Great Lakes. Fair signals at night. Excellent in the morning with widespread signals. AND4 is over and this may well have been an even better DX-pedition than AND3 in terms of more stations heard and stronger signals.

ENOX13 (January 9.-15., 2009)

January 10, 2009
I set up my equipment in Enontekiö yesterday (Friday) evening. The first night was very lousy with some of the most usual dominants from Newfoundland , Ontario and Maine. In the morning AM was covered with stations from Venezuela to Oregon but the signals were not as loud as I expected to be. In the afternoon quite good HI- and AK conditions with the stations like KMVI 550 (fine local TOH ID) and KSSK 590.As I concentrated mainly in maintaining the antennas today I have not had time to go thru any recordings from today. However I let the SDRs rolling all day long.TuA

January 11, 2009
Generally better DX today than yesterday. Some interesting signals also in the night but after all the signals were quite unstable then. In the morning and around midday stations mostly from the EC then later on light improvment to the WC. Afternoon did not offer almost anything at all compared with Alaskans and HI on Saturday. Today’s new ones for me from a couple of recordings; WYSL-1040 and WSTV-1340. Hopefully the solar weather gets better…
About the weather in Enontekiö area; +/-0 degrees C and full moonlight. TuA

January 12, 2009
Clearly the best day so far during ENOX13 - the solar wx seems to be improving. Stations were audible all day and many of them even with decent signals. All GYs except 1450 kHz were more or less open and they offered some new stations for me. I slept all night thru but had my all SDRs working...From the logbook KBRB-1400, WLCM-1390, WZFG-1100, KBKR-1490, KGED-1680 (my last one from 1680 kHz). TuA

January 13, 2009
Not much to add to what AND- and LEM -crews have written about the conditions during the last 24 hours. Very strong NL –signals Monday evening and so I concentrated in hunting CFSX-870. And yes, I succeeded in capturing it after many years of trying. The signal was not really the first rate but anyway I even picked up an ID for CFCB-570. CFSX relays CFCB in nighttime and runs it’s own programming only during the day.Otherwise it was again hard to find something new on the dial. However, a couple of GY –stations saved the rest of my day.The weather is getting colder up here. Right now it’s -31 degrees C. TuA

January 14, 2009
Many stations from NL, ME and ON were audible last night very early. Morning was periodically OK as well but because the solar wx got worse midday and afternoon were disopointments compared with the previous days. From the recordings two new stations: WJON-1240 and KBEW-1560.This is my last report from ENOX13. It’s time to pack and clean the cabin. I’ll be on the road Thursday at noon at the latest. All the best to AND- and LEM- crews for the rest of the week. Special thanks to OF/AND4 for changing cx- and loggings information via SMS during my stay here in Enontekiö. ENOX13 is signing off./TuA

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

LEM266 Log Update

New update of LEM266-log is ready. A few new nice catches...

From now on, the log will be updated weekly on Mondays without any further notice.

So, check it out at: http://www.netikka.net/jsn/LEM266_loki.xls

73's and Happy upcoming Holiday Season to all of you, fellow DXers! (JSN & MKA).

LEM258: 26.1-9.2.2008 (JEÖ,PÄ) loggings

LEM258: 26.1-9.2.2008 (JEÖ,PÄ) loggings (Excel 132kt)

LEM266 log update

Hi,

You will find the updated LEM266 log at http://www.netikka.net/jsn/LEM266_loki.xls

You will also find this link on this blog's link section under "Other" (LEM266 Log (JSN & MKA).

The next update will be within a week. Still lots of files to be checked...

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