All. Best wishes to everyone in this holiday time. Maybe Santa's sleigh can trigger some solar activity for us as the DX season continues...
I am sure that we radio buffs all have some memorable holiday DX Logs, some big, some small. Here are two of mine that have stuck with me for many years. I enjoyed writing them and resurrecting the memories into words. Maybe others can relate..... it was Christmas Eve back in the early 1980's or so. It was the first real day off from school to start the holiday break, which was very welcomed to myself as a teenager at the time. Christmas Eve seemed to be the longest day of the year for me, so I would always try to somehow occupy myself every waking moment until all the family, festivities, and gifts started later that evening. I began my morning by going over to the desk in front of my bedroom window, firing up the Sangean ATS-803 radio, and check out the bands. It was snowing and blowing outside my window, adding a very special touch, excitement, and atmosphere to the Christmas season. When I was scanning the 31 meter band, I came across a strong station playing the "Ray Conniff Christmas Album". I knew this record because Mom would frequently play it during the Holidays. I was enjoying the music so I stuck with it. Ray Conniff's "White Christmas" was playing from some foreign land just as it was happening ri! ght outside my window before my eyes. It was somewhere around 14-15 hours gmt (9-10 AM local time) when the station broke. They gave ID as "This is the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation, Colombo". I was very excited as I pulled out the WRTH to look them up. Sure enough they were on 9720 as I caught the frequency announcement. They also gave a time check which did not sound right to me. The minutes did not correspond to GMT. I then learned about Sri Lanka's time difference ! This may not sound like much but it was a very memorable and special experience to add to some "tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago." The QSL came that hot summer. Again, it was Christmas Eve back in the early 1990's when I sat down to the R-5000 one local late afternoon to check out the bands. It was a cold and clear afternoon with a beautiful sunset glistening upon a blanket of snow with a nice late afternoon moon in the sky. I started the DX session on 90 meters and then to 60 meters. Both bands had their regular stations propagating. Things were quite normal. However, my interests were sparked when I found a very strong signal on an odd frequency of 4975. The broadcast contained a program of traditional holiday music with a deep voiced strongly accented English announcer. Hoping this was my first good catch of Uganda, I had zero beat the frequency to 4976 and quickly paralleled it to 5026. To my total and utmost surprise, it was them. The signal was armchair quality and the reception of Radio Uganda that Christmas Eve afternoon could have matched my local AM/MW stations. Radio Uganda was holding the meter well into the re! d zone. The programming consisted of traditional Christmas songs and hymns. One of the songs was the upbeat version "Mary's Boy Child Jesus Christ (was born on Christmas Day)". Others consisted of Mitch Miller carols and songs from many other familiar artists. On that Christmas Eve, my parents, grandparents, and I enjoyed supper to some holiday programming, not coming from WKYE-FM, but from Radio Uganda ! As we were heading out the door for church later on, the extended broadcast was still going strong as the announcer said "We will switch programming to Vatican City for Midnight Mass with Pope John Paul II." And they did. With that, I powered down and headed out for my own Mass to start the holiday festivities with a memory I will never forget. We still converse about the "Radio Uganda Christmas Eve" fifteen some-odd years later. Oddly enough, I have never heard Radio Uganda of that signal quality since that Christmas Eve. The QSL came that spring. Does anyone else have any cool memorable Christmas DX ? Stephen Price Johnstown, PA ---[Start Commercial]--------------------- Order your WRTH 2008: http://www.hard-core-dx.com/redirect2.php?id=wrth2008 ---[End Commercial]----------------------- ________________________________________ Hard-Core-DX mailing list [email protected] http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/hard-core-dx http://www.hard-core-dx.com/ _______________________________________________ THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License published by Michael Stutz at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/dsl.html
