Warm greetings to all of you ! I found some time the past night after the movie theater to DX, to casual DX the longwave broadcast band... A surprise, although not a good one, was hearing Morocco on 171 weakly with a huge jammer-like noise. Unfortunatly, when I nulled that noise, Morocco was weaker... They used to beam NNW from Nador during the last couple of months (years ?), but they may have changed their pattern since... Also something ver choppy on 180, QRMed by Europe 1 (see below)...
I didn't had the opportunity to take my mother's car yet this week-end, but I assume I may had the chance to log WICC 600 in C-QUAM STEREO as they were in strong around 6PM EDT (5PM EST) on the Sanyo MCD-S830 barefoot... But the most surprising thing was a change in my equipment, albeit a small one... Instead pf using my Sangean with its low-Fi sound (as compared to my trusty Sanyo MCD-S830), I used instead the Grundig G5 ultralight... Boy, does it sound Hi-Fi ! I had trouble sleeping with RUV's classic rock and cosmic rock music before, but now as it sounds much better, I went to bed around 0215 AM local and felt asleep quickly... As far as the sensitivity goes, it is just about the same or perphaps slightly BETTER than the Sangean (so a good point) although it is hard to rate... I should take it at the weekday's Hochelaga-Maisonneuve / MTL-EST house, even though like most ULR I can't aircheck my listening pleasures, but who cares, as I'll bring my Sanyo MCD-S830 in the cases condx switch to heavy auroral or at least semi-auroral, enough for some pleasant Radio Coro 780 airchecking... We don't have CDs in my mom's car, so taping foreign tropical signals is the only way to bring into the car SPANISH MUSIC... That being said, as far as my airechecks querry is concerned, see below my logs my biggest aircheck goal ! Well... Into the logs: Trans-Atlantic DX 153 unID NOV 1 0603 - something here with little or no audio. Very choppy sound ! (Chiochiu*Pierrefonds-QC / Chiochiu-ULR) 162 FRANCE France Inter, Allouis NOV 1 0606 - French hard rock tune noted in passing... They seldom play music on Sunday mornings, as they carry a litterature show. They stop the litterature show maybe twice during the hour for playing a wee bit of music. Very strong at this time, but consistently weaker than Europe 1. The hill right on the France / Germany border probably helps with Europe 1 better than the regular ground around the Allouis (Bourges area) transmitter site. (Chiochiu*Pierrefonds-QC / Chiochiu-ULR) 171 MOROCCO Médi Un, Nador NOV 1 0610 - news, very poor and difficult with jammer-like behind... Unfortunatly, it was almost impossible to null the jammer without also reducing dramatically the strength of Radio Méditerrannée Internationale. SIO 211. (Chiochiu*Pierrefonds-QC / Chiochiu-ULR) 180 unID NOV 1 0354 - The unID of the night ! unID carrying some barely discernable rock music getting through with a very dirty and choppy sound and some het from 183 kHz... Either crossmodulation from something on mediumwave or shortwave or maybe (who knows ?) TTT out of Polati, Turkey ? I know Turkey is occasionally making the TA trip inland, as Sylvain Naud heard them... The PK's Shielded Magnetic longwave loop is supposed to get rid of all the crossmodulation and false QRM problems, so I have high hopes for Turkey-180 ! (Chiochiu*Pierrefonds-QC / Chiochiu-logs) 183 GERMANY Europe 1, Felsberg NOV 1 0356 - with a health magazine. Among the items, was a recent increase of 55% in the H1N1 swine flu cases reported... Very huge, booming in... After the 0400 GMT news, they went into the latest French Top 50 show ! (Chiochiu*Pierrefonds-QC / Chiochiu-ULR) 189 ICELAND Rikisútvarpid, Gufuskalar NOV 1 0615 - playing a smooth blend of slow tempo and mid tempo classic rock, cosmic rock, pop-rock and prog-rock tracks, mostly in English, maybe a tiny bit in Icelandic... I felt asleep listening to them. At 5AM EDT (4AM EST) / 0900 GMT (UTC) they were still going strong with Icelandic chatter, as my mother told me... With the Grundig G5 in AM Wide mode, one could hear some splatter out of Europe 1. Wow ! I never imagined two TAs could cause hets and splatter to each other ! (Chiochiu*Pierrefonds-QC / Chiochiu-ULR) 252 unID NOV 1 0352 - woman talk... Unreadable, as was heavily QRMed by beacons on nearby frequencies. (Chiochiu*Pierrefonds-QC / Chiochiu-ULR) Additionnal comments: The friend with whom I was at the movie theater was DXing with me for a short while... He was surprised at how many (at least three) LW signals I was logging, even though in his country (Congo -> Kinshasa) there are no longwave broadcasters, only shortwave and ultrashortwave (FM). I'm surprised too to some extent that it's easier to DX longwave from the Montreal area than from my native Romania... Down there, I couldn't get a single Arabic station on LW... Here, I can (at least) get Medi Un, even though they are very poor, but, at least, they are there... Of course, all the LW signals received here had to cross the Atlantic to arrive at my radio shack, so they all have a hard-core DX connotation to them ! That being said, with the current slowly, but steadily increasing solar activity, I should be on the look out for some promising semi-auroral conditions during the upcoming weeks with enhanced Pan-American MW / SW activity and highly disturbed Trans-Atlantic LW / MW / SW activity... Any chance we will have a stormy November ? Back to social DXing...the last night I chatted with the ever-friendly Venezuelan guys for the first time in months !!! I was really astonished at the Jorge García's highly impressing World Music culture... He knews SARMALELE RECI better than I, which is a cult group from my own country (even though I'm half-French half-Romanian). I sometimes wonder how this Venezuelan guys manages to DX... Its hard to DX with the computer on and the radio on the next corner ! I will try to comeback to them, as soon as I finish this report and I find some time for breakfast. Last, but not least, does anyone remember AVENTURE FM here ? I would like to listen to some of their shows on tape, CD or MP3... They were run by the French army between 1987 and 1989 ! The frequencies ? Paris 105.9 Chambéry 105.9 Grenobles 105.8 Lyon 95.7 Reims 90.5 Bordeaux 88.4 (for a couple of days before MaXXimum started) As a reminder for the MaXXimaniaques, while Aventure FM had a very tiny audience, MaXXimum was extremely popular within the youngsters who were fans of Dance Music, but didn't play too many French songs. The French lobby put pressure upon the CSA (Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel) in order that RTL who purchassed Aventure from the French army could sell MaXXimum... They sold MaXXimum to Prisa a Spanish group who put M40 insteead of MaXXimum on 88.4 and 105.9. The other frequencies were already lost... MaXXimum didn't started in Paris, but in Rhônes-Alpes, Reims, Bordeaux and Perpignan (where Aventure FM broadcasted for about a month between September of 1989 and the 23rd of October of 1989)... That being said, while it is very hard to find unscoped airchecks, I would exchange any aircheck for an Aventure FM one ! This report is brought to you by Bogdan Alexandru Chiochiu, DXing from Pierrefonds (Montreal's West Island), QC using the Grundig G5 ultralight along with the battery-powered PK's Shielded Magnetic longwave loop May the good DX be with you ! Bogdan Chiochiu ---[Start Commercial]--------------------- Order your WRTH 2009: http://www.hard-core-dx.com/redirect2.php?id=wrth2009 ---[End Commercial]----------------------- ________________________________________ Hard-Core-DX mailing list Hard-Core-DX@hard-core-dx.com 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
