Warm greetings to all of you ! I must confess, DX-wise, the Romanian trip wasn't as good as it should have been... Socially-wise, it wasn't too bad, though many people has completly changed their lives since 12 years ago when we moved to Canada and some mysteriously vanished... But still it was an interesting trip, nevertheless...
The houses out there are made of concrete walls, ceilings and roof meaning you need to move outside to DX... My greatfather made a good job in choosing a metal house for his flowers standing just outside the concrete balcony. Not only this metal house was acting like an antenna, but when mixed with the telescopic antenna of my Sangean althogether it brought armchair copy of several fairly weak signals such as Morocco-9575 (well it was a pest during the evenings, but during the mid-mornings it was quite weak). Evertyhing would have been just fine for shortwave DXing, except there were some weird noises coming from poorly insulated CATV leakage which got worse on the lower tropical band or 48m band frequencies... So must of my "shortwave DXing" in fact was more SWLing than DXing; the stronger signals had a better punch because they were boosted, but the noises swamping the weaker ones were boosted too, so finally, nothing worth of mention got heard. On LW we had noise, most probably CATV related (CATV insulation has always been very poor in Romania) all over, though on the second night when I got outside of the house to DX, I found that some French signals along with Poland-225 were cleanly audible on the very few clean spots I was able to find. However, I wasn't able to confirm wherever the Turkish transmitters on 162 in Agri or on 180 kHz in Polati are still active or not. For MW, I didn't had ANY antenna other than the Sangean barefoot and on the botton-end of the dial the PK LW loop set to the highest frequency which was somewhat better than the Sangean barefoot between 520 and 567 or 576 kHz, afterwards it didn't make much of a difference. Many catches I expected would be easy were either not heard at all or at a very threshold level. I was quite disappointed with MW with maybe 1 or 2 pleasant surprises, but not that pleasant overall. I had at least two weird signals on the X band which may have been from a Greek or maybe a Dutch pirate, but the reception was too poor and too hissy to stay with it ! In any event, I would like to thank George Maroti for having given me a few pirate tips ! On FM, I tried to get in touch with Romania's top TV-FM DXer, but he didn't seemed too interested in meeting me... This was quite disappointing, as on May 19, he got an astonishing opening shifting directions wildly and he got Morocco on FM which must be at a douple-hop Es distance from Bucharest. His videos are on YouTube, they are really appealing... I should do the same ! Otherwise, it seems that Romania is getting more Es than North America... There are days when some weak random Es on the botton of the FM band around 88.2-88.3 from Lebanon are audible very often. DXing from the airplane was more than disappointing, it was almost useless, especially when we came back from the transition flight in Paris and the other times I mostly got the public service broadcasters from several European countries such as Hungary, Germany or Croatia and even Italy which are the most powerful ones ! It seems that the telescopic antenna of my Sangean is beginning to die... When I connect a short wire to the AM EXT ANT. terminal, the reception is cutting down and doesn't comeback when I take it out unless I play very hard with the antenna on both SW and FM (USW, really...). Doing that, I was caught by the Air France stewarders which told me I didn't had the right to use the radio during this part of the trip and they suspected my radio was causing harmful interference. At least, I did enjoy a great movie and the music on the Air France musical airchecks was appealing to my tastes. What was really entertaining was the comeback to Montreal with the stronger Latins and Caribbean BOOMING IN which is somewhat of an exceptionnal event for late spring / early summer standards and, alas, no static scratches at all or almost !... Into the logs: Romanian logs: 153 ROMANIA Antena Satelor, Bod - this was the strongest LW broadcaster noted, though it didn't had enough punch to overcome the concrete structure at the Drumul Taberei building and got audible out there. However, in a concrete building in Baneasa we stayed in, it was quite good ! (Chiochiu-ROM) 162 FRANCE France Inter, Allouis MAY 17 0120 - apparent French talk very threshold inside the concrete building. (Chiochiu-Drumul Taberii-ROM) 171 UKRAINE Radio Free Cecenia / Radio Campanie MAY 23 1315 - with Russian dance music and talk between the musical items. Always IDing as "Radio Campanie". Very good signal in null of TVI ! The only station heard on 171 everywhere as expected... (Chiochiu-Otopeni-ROM) 183 GERMANY Europe 1, Felsberg MAY 18 2050 - playing one of the latest groove by Arianne Mofatt, a French Canadian singer (!) then more French talk about her career. Fair-good outside the concrete building. (Chiochiu-Drumul Taberii-ROM) 207 UKRAINE MAY 20 1045 - Fair signal on the Sangean barefoot in the Cismigiu park in the central-south part of Bucharest. (Chiochiu-Cismigiu-ROM). 225 POLAND Polski Radio 1, Solec Kujawski MAY 18 2054 - 80s Alternative rock musical selections and Slavic talk in presumed Polish. Good above the CATV QRM. See 183 for details about where this log was made. (Chiochiu-Drumul Taberei-ROM) 234 LUXEMBURG RTL, Beidweler / Junglister MAY 18 2106 - Slowly fading from very poor to quite good. In French ! TVI QRM ! See 183 for further information on where this log was made ! (Chiochiu-Drumul Taberei-ROM) 252 ALGERIA Alger Chaîne 3 MAY 18 2110 - Two men discussing the Gaza conflict (an old issue, I know and it gets even more silly when we are thinking about the porcine flu !). Fair signal, some TVI, poor overall, but audible even on the Sangean barefoot ! Probably my best LW DX catche during this Romanian trip ! See 183 for further information regarding where this log was made ! (Chiochiu-Drumul Taberei-ROM). 256 ROMANIA ??? MAY 20 1047 - unID NDB with a fair-good signal. (Chiochiu-Cismigiu-ROM) 261 BULGARIA BNT Radio Horizont, Bakarel MAY 20 1046 - Fairly good signal with English pops on the Sangean barefoot. Very slight QRM from an unID NDB on 256 kHz that was completly eliminated when tuned to 261 kHz in AM Narrow Mode, 262 kHz in AM Wide or either Narrow mode ! (Chiochiu-Cismigiu-ROM) 519 ROMANIA Baneasa MAY 31 1710 - semi-local NDB heard strongly at this time and at other times and other QTHs too. (Chiochiu-Drumul Taberii-ROM) 531 ROMANIA Antena Satelor, Urziceni - semi-local // 153 ! (Chiochiu-ROM) 558 ROMANIA Radio România Actualitati, Craiova (Oltenia) - semi-local that was slightly stronger using the PK's Shielded Magnetic LW loop set to amplify the highest frequency possible than on the Sangean ACS 818-CST barefoot ! (Chiochiu-ROM) 585 TUNISIA RTT, Gafsa MAY 18 2108 - Arabic music. Fair signal ! (Chiochiu-Drumul Taberii-ROM) 783 SPAIN Radio Rock and Gol, Barcelona MAY 18 2110 - Strong with Spanish sports talk in null of Syria ! My best mediumwave DX catche during this Romanian trip ! (Chiochiu-Drumul Taberii-ROM) 783 SYRIA ORT Wahad, Tartus MAY 18 2110 - Trad Arabic music in null of Spain ! Assumed to be this one, since I don't recall seeing any log of Mauritania-783 from eastern Europe (or Europe at all) and the null was too deep between this and Spain leading to the conclusion of Syria-783. (Chiochiu-QC) 1521 SAUDI ARABIA BSKSA, Duba MAY 27 1821 - (very tent.) Very threshold with man in apparent Arabic. My Sanyo MCD-S830 barefoot would had easily handeld this one. (Chiochiu-Aviatiei-ROM) 9575 MOROCCO Medi Un, Nador MAY 20 1244 - playing an Arabic track by "Mohamed Soad" and other nice stuff as well. Only poor-fair with a background hiss because of a lack of gain on the Sangean's own telescopic antenna. (Chiochiu-Otopeni-ROM) +MAY 21 1810 - HUGE later with a good signal using the telescopic antenna attached to the metallic roof that is saving the flowers of my greatfather from the rain ! +MAY 21 0500 - Fair-good the next morning until close to noon ! Around noon, it is more appealing to a SW DXer rather than a SWLer though. (Chiochiu-Drumul Taberii-ROM) 9580 GABON Africa Numéro Un, Moyabi MAY 20 1246 - playing a wild mixture of soukous and coupé-décallé music. Poor-fair, only audible at this time, later covered by an unID Chinese broadcaster. Background hiss evidenced by the poor perfermoance of the Sangean ACS 818-CST receiver on its own telescopic antenna. (Chiochiu-Otopeni-ROM) 17690 IRAN Radio Farda MAY 21 1030+ - playing rhythmic Arabic and occidental vocals. Huge, like a major international broadcaster such as the BBC or Deutsche Welle ! (Chiochiu-Drumul Taberii-ROM) 89.9 ROMANIA unID pirate MAY 20 1107 - Romanian pirate playing gypsy maneles and even Arabic as well as Turkish dance-pop music. Good reception in Otopeni at the only concretefree house we stayed in ! (Chiochiu-Otopeni-ROM) I didn't note anything down, those are from my memory and from my tapes.... More were heard on both MW and SW. However, I tried as best as I could to list anything we heard on LW ! I was buzzy preparing the gifts for my relatives, so couldn't get the George Maroti invitation for tuning into Europirates, especially those who broadcast in SSB... I have failed to get those ones ! Regular Pan-American DX logs from home: 555 ST KITTS ZIZ, Basseterre JUN 2 0305 - to good peak with a nice reggae vocal. First time in June ! (Chiochiu-QC) 750 VENEZUELA YVKS, Caracas, DF JUN 2 0245 - with a talkshow regarding to what extent Latin America has been touch by the economical slowdown. This talkshow begun after YV baseball coverage. Huge, uneblievable, first time in June ! Generally OVER WSB ! Generally, during the spring and summer months WSB dominates and during the fall and winter months YVKS and WSB are received equally... Apparent Cuba way under ! (Chiochiu-QC) 760 COLOMBIA HJAJ, RCN Cadena Basíca, Barranquilla JUN 2 0154 - promos for "La Caravana Siete-Sesenta" inside the "Nocturna RCN" program. Fair under nulled WJR... +JUN 2 0135 - to HUGE peak over residual WJR with commercial ads, one of them being for Banco Popular with the "Está es sú banco" slogan and a coloquial conversation between one worker and one supporter of Banco Popular. I've heard this one during the month of May on two occasions before, but it's the first time I log HJAJ-760 during the off-season month of June... I guess Señor Conti must be right, the DX season never really dies ! (Chiochiu-QC) Additionnal comments: Aside from DXing a bit the last night in spite of being very tired after my last trans-Atlantic flight, I fired on the Sanyo MCD-S830 rig to notice great receptions of the above regular Pan-American targets and hints of good high-latitude short-skip domestics, so conditions must have been good toward all bearings ! During our trip, my father went to the garage and installed a Sony XFD AM Stereo car radio made in 1979 we purchased from EBay. I wonder why, NOTHING is audible on the entire FM broadcast band ! However, the performance of it on AM or mediumwave is astonishing ! I get clear reception of CJWI-1610 which was very hissy on our previous carradio and I can get as far south as Waterbury, VT on 550 kHz (albeit weakly) and as far west as Ottawa not only on 580, but on 1310 kHz as well ! CJWI-1610 is particularly good because it plays my favorite French Caribbean music ! However, the band ends at 1620 kHz, hence KJCC-1630 my most likely source of nighttime mediumwave AM Stereo skip is impossible for us to enjoy ! It has two filters: normal and wide, the normal one being quite narrow and being good for DXing purpose, for picking up signals 10 or 20 kHz from a local ! It does not receive splits, but what car radio does ? I wonder if Radio Coro on 780 kHz is broadcasting in stereo or not. If someone could null out WBBM AND CFDR to receive Coro using an AM Stereo rig, I would be glad. On their stream, they are in stereo, but the separation between the right and the left channels is slight. Back to DXing, I'm rather surprised I got those late-season LAs, but the most surprising of all findings is some fading noticed over the last two hours on CIWW-1310, a fair-strength semi-local in Ottawa I'm listening right now as I type this. It seems like the groundwave+skywave mix has begun to appear around 1600 EDT which means 2000 UTC, incredibly early for this time of the year ! The last night I didn't had any batteries ready, but now as I've charged the battery for my PK loop, I'm ready for another late-season run of longwave TAs this evening ! I think this could make the Glenn Hauser propagation column, winter-like propagation on LW and MW in the summer... I never heard groundwave+skywave propagation mix on CIWW-1310 on a mid-afternoon sunny late spring day ! It's the first time ! Also, I didn't expected anything when I randomnly tuned around the last evening, so ANYTHING is possible ! That being said, now at 1800 EDT, the signal has dropped to VERY DISTORTED for a full minute before coming back as fair and listenable which means a huge component of it has to come my way by skywave rather than groundwave or more precisely a groundwave+skywave mix with the distortion being the effect of one canceling each other ! Last but not least, as good as my Sanyo MCD-S830 is, it is clear that this receiver is slowly beginning to die. If I tune too fast, I get some scracthes and I loose any contact with the dial, just a very slight hiss unless I hit very hard the tuning button and then the stations reappear, so I have to be very careful when tuning... Is this an alignment problem ? It dissapears somewhat when I carry it... It is one of the reason I'm scared of bringing it during long flights ! Before leaving my computer, if any of you are knowing a list of Latin American stations broadcasting in AM Stereo, I would be glad to know them... Has anyone received Mexican, Central or South American stations in the northeast (New England, southern Canada, western NY, etc.) and under what reception conditions... Is WICC-600 Bridgeport, CT still in AM Stereo ? What about CKAT-600 in North Bay, ON ? Was CKEC-1320 ever in stereo ? What NA domestics and LAms should I try to get in AM Stereo ? Has anyone on ABDX or elsewhere DXed AM Stereo recently ? I see that I have no local broadcasting in AM Stereo, though I have at least two oldies semi-locals and three ethnic ones that include CJWI-1610 that would have sounded awesome in stereo ! Now, I think my next DX bug would be to get an AM Stereo portable to listen at home ! When has CJAD-800 dropped AM Stereo ? While they are mainly a talker, they play some music on Saturday evenings and on the beginning of each talkshow that would have sounded great in AM Stereo ! Any chance CJAD-800 is still in stereo, but my carradio does not really decode stereo well ? I'm having a buzz with AM Stereo lately... are there still some used receiver on EBay that receives the X-Band as well... My biggest DX dissapointment is the impossibility of tuning in to KJCC on 1630 kHz and like many other disappointments, I'm sure I'll be able to make it a thing of the past one day ! This repport is brought to you by Bogdan Alexandru Chiochiu DXing from Otopeni, 10 km north of Bucharest (Chiochiu-Otopeni-ROM), Drumul Taberei in western Bucharest (Chiochiu-Drumul Taberei-ROM), Cismigiu a park not too far from downtown in central-southern Bucharest (Chiochiu-Cismigiu-ROM), near a friends building in Aviatiei (Chiochiu-Aviatiei-ROM) and from home at 4190 Edward Higgins Pierrefonds (Montreal's West Island), QC H8Y 3M9 using his Sangean CST 818-CST / PK's Shielded Magnetic LW loop combo for LW and MW as well as his trusty Sanyo MCD-S830 rx barefoot only for MW May the good DX be with you ! Bogdan Chiochiu Btw.: Has anyone an idea why the car-radio Sony XFD we purchased from EBay does not receive FM at all ? It was in good shape... Although while the seller was able to talk to me on EBay and to answer my questions, I was sick with huge fever that week and never managed to get in touch with him ! ---[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
