TP Report from Masset 8Sep08: Asia all the way! Good morning. Quick comment on TA last night….zilch. This morning, monitored from 12:46 to 15:00 and it was an exclusively Asian morning, and a very good one at that with Japan, China, and Russia all very strong…often at armchair levels. Today, I concentrated on the lower half of the band. LW Russians were very strong on 153, 164, 180, 189, 234 (a 9 today…unusual), and 279 all with Radio Rossii programming. This is important as, apparently, all Russian MW transmitters carrying R Rossii have switched over to a new network called Vesti FM (ie News FM). I can confirm this on 810 at least when I heard clear IDs for the switch at 14:15. Mayak remains, which I had at armchair levels on 576 especially, but also // on 666. NHK1 continued it’s dominance of the lower half of the band with numerous frequencies being used. CNR2 heard at very good levels before 14:00 with English lessons on 630, with //720. 720 was battling it out with VOR in RR with “Kalinka moya” around the same time, with one dominant for 10 to 30 sec when the other started to dominate again. Great fun! Of the NHK2 stations, 747 was the strongest with an honest “10”….Even with this exceptional signal (which was also easily audible bareback on my Eton E100 portable), I could also make out KBS1 cochannel quite easily. Once again, 810 was carrying the new feed Vesti FM when tuned in at 14:15. For whatever reason, this Russian is always late appearing, perhaps waiting for domestics to disappear. Nice ID and IS for VOR in JJ before 14:00, with a CC cochannel on 720. VOR signed off at 14:00 playing the Russian NA (which is the same as the old USSR anthem) at very good level but cut off at 14:01 before the anthem completed to be replaced by a Chinese speaker plus North Korea (also strong on 719.85). 963 continues to be an anemic frequency for CRI in Russian. It just is not delivering the punch of last season, with other stations dominating the channel. It was overwhelmed by either the KK or JJ station this morning when checked. Did hear a smattering or two of Filipinos on 999, 1062 and 1530 this morning. Propagationally, I did hear a rapid drop-off in signal strength.around 14:45. Until then, signals remained pretty strong. A comment on antenna use: When things are humming, it seems like just about anything works. A times, all 4 of my antennae were delivering very good reception: The N permanent mini-Beverage, the 1000’ NW BOG, the Wellbrook phased array and the ALA 100 loop. In fact, the ALA at times gave better S/N ratios than did the others. The WB performed admirably right up to late dawn, when it began to die off, leaving the Beverages at best levels. The Hokkaido stations are the last to fade out here, as one would expect. Overall, a very satisfying morning. This may be my last morning, depending on ferry conditions tomorrow when we depart for home. If I’m lucky, I just might be able to do a brief session tomorrow using only my permanent Beverage. Have a great day!........Walt Salmaniw, Masset, BC. _______________________________________________ IRCA mailing list [email protected] http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/irca
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