Walt here, reporting in from Masset on the Queen Charlottes. Astounding TA MW
activity last night. I was blown away when I tuned in just after 02:00 UTC,
with the sun still well up in the sky. Happened to be on 1422 and heard a
solid "9"....DLF in German. Nothing special there, but also co-channel in
French, which I'm assuming is Algeria. The other powerhouse of the evening was
1377...also a 9, with France Info at 02:38. I'd say things were not quite as
good as in September, but the best I've ever heard TAs otherwise here. Tripoli
came in very strong on 1251 at 02:51. I'll have to listen earlier this evening
for a hoped repeat. 1215 Virgin was there, of course, but not to the same
level as the others. Russia (Kalinigrad) appeared to sign on at 0300 and took
over the frequency for a while. Now, I'm REALLY hoping that I heard TWR Benin
on 1566. There was a strong carrier there all evening and snippets of
religious hymns. No TWR IS, though, although I'll have to li!
sten to the SDR-IQ files back home. Also heard quite a number of UK stations,
Spanish, RVI on 1512, The Big L Radio London on 1395 from Holland (an 8 at
02:34)(. Most of the activity was on the bottom half of the band, although I
did confine myself to the top half mostly. What I've noticed is a good surge
of TA activity close to our sunset (and before). It then dies off around 03:00
UTC, only to re-emerge 60 to 90 minutes later. Wonder if any of the prop gurus
can explain that. This has been the pattern every night.
As for TP activity, it's been fabulous as always up here. Of course the 2nd
and 3rd tier JJ stations are all over the map, as were many Filipino stations.
Some nice IDs for the latter were heard. 1566 this morning, had a relatively
strong CC station co-channel to HLAZ. Will need to check on that one. 1575
had strong AFN for much of my stay. A real high light has been JJ lighthouse
(?) stations on 1663.5. Not sure what these are for sure, as PAL lists 1670
and 1665 (I think). I heard at least 2 JJ stations with loops. Any word from
the experts? Patrick? AFN 810 (Eagle 810 from Tokyo) well heard yesterday
morning. (Today is Tuesday by the way....I leave tomorrow for Victoria, so one
more day).
Other observations.....lots and lots of IBOC crap. Much more than in
September. 680, for example, is a goner....my frequency of Alaskan interest
(Barrow). Yuk....900 suffers the same fate. I seem to be able to use USB or
LSB to escape a fair bit of the crap. The TPs often overpower the IBOC. It's
worse in the AM, rather than in the evening...believe it or not. My Perseus is
being used only sparingly. Unfortunately, my older Dell simply can't handle
it, except on the narrowest download. Also it's a bit unstable causing
clicking sounds when left on. The IQ suffers none of this. I'm assuming that
this will all be history when I transition to my "new" Dell core-2 Duo. I was
hoping to run both the IQ and Perseus at the same time, onto a 500 GB ext HD.
A final few observations. Noted bubble jamming on 972 on the 24th at
15:25. Possibly Iranian against the US tx in Tajikistan? X-band was
relatively good most mornings with some audio. Not great, but passable. Heard
the NHK2 local ID this morning at 13:20. Noted in September, that the IDs
seemed to be absent at this time. Glad to hear them. Now to try for Okinawa
tomorrow!
TA activity on the other nights (last Friday, Sat, Sunday were mediocre at
best).
OK, hope this finds everyone healthy. Hope the TA activity made it down south
last night!!!
................Walt Salmaniw, Masset (Haida Rose's coffee shop and internet
cafe), BC
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