Warm greetings to all of you !
The solar activity is on a SLIGHT, albeit fairly significative rise ! This
means that it is not impossible that toward the "official" beginning of the
2009-2010 LW and MW DX season we might get some auroral enhanced Latins
instead of those back-to-back TAs, as some of them seem to be heard
all-year-round (especially the LW ones).
While I was chatting to some highly charismatic YV DXers using SKYPE the
past week-end, one of them tried unsuccesfully to log Médi Un on 171 kHz and
was "rewarded" with a bunch of highly bothersome noises... I suggested they
loog at http://www.amradioantennas.com/ and I hope the next time I have some
time available to spent on SKYPE chatting with him, he will tell me what he
thinks of this promising website, a promise of feeding-frenzy TA LW DXing
and much more...
Last Tuesday night, condx were unusual with Medi Un getting at a good, not
at a fair level at tx-site dawn "greyline" enhancement, BBC Radio 4 making a
showing on 198 kHz (for the first time this summer) along with very faint
audio on 252 kHz through a computer-related growl, this growl being more
bothersome than the adjacent excellent strength local UL beacon on 248
kHz... Part of the reason I heard so much on LW was that I found a quiet
spot for the Sangean ACS-818CST / PK's Shielded Magnetic longwave loop combo
in my parents bedroom... Well...
Paul Karlstrand, the man behind PK, is receiving this message as well,
because I would like to ask my mom' if she could think about a fixed
frequency loop for 153 kHz for my birthday... The Shielded Magnetic LW loop
is awesome, except if I tune to the lowest frequency this tuned loop can be
tuned, I only get enhancement on France-162 and I don't start to see any
amplification on 153 kHz, I can't tune below 162 kHz, to take away the gain
needed for a clean reception of Allouis-162 and to get a noteworthy
reception on Tipaza-153 kHz... This is also the best frequency for Romanian,
German and Norwegian domestic LW radio ! Well...
Into the logs now:
Trans-Atlantic DX
162 FRANCE France Inter, Allouis JUN 24 0257 - heard with a nice
blues-rock song before the top-of-the-hour. Very good signal, but poor
overall due to some annoying computer popping growl that was only slightly
reduced by tuning the Sangean ACS 818-CST portable in AM Narrow mode on 160
kHz. (Chiochiu-QC)
171 MOROCCO Médi 1, Nador JUN 24 0350 - good on tx-site dawn enhancement
with some powerful rhythmic Arabic raï as well as slow religious plaintive
vocals leading to the 0400 UTC newscast. SINPO 45443. Toward the end of the
Arabic music broadcast, it dropped to SINPO 35332 ! +JUN 25 0150 - heard
with rhythmic Arabic music. Fair but with lots of static scratches as the
extremely hot wet weather Montreal is going through right now is making the
atmosphere prone to Thunderstorm activity. Propagation was at most average
as around 0155 UTC was starting to fade down to a very poor level because
the receiver sunset dawn enhacement effect was over ! SINPO 35232.
(Chiochiu-QC)
183 GERMANY Europe 1, Felsberg JUN 24 0245 - dramatic reading of the
"L'écume des jours" classical modern French book by Boris Vian interspead
with some nice Boris Vian French language jazz songs. Huge, better than in
my own room ! This station which was known for carrying broadcasts dealing
with the woman's sexual health is also carrying some days dramatic reading
on early morning hours. They do this probably to fight for France Inter's
status which is playing less music and more dramatic reading programs during
the early morning hours. By the way this station is located on the
France/Germany's border and is considered to be a French broadcaster. It is
among the first post-World War II FRENCH PRIVATE broadcasters, when private
radio was prohibited in France and a few owners such as the ones behind
Europe 1 had the bright idea of opening their stations with their
transmitter accross the border, but with their studios in Paris ! In French,
this is known as "radio périphérique"... The first legal landbased French
PRIVATE radio stations appeared in 1981 followed PS François Mitterand
election ! (Chiochiu-QC)
198 ENGLAND BBC Radio 4, Droitwich JUN 24 0259 - with top-of-the-hour BBC
World Service ID followed by "The World Now"... Very poor, but partially
readable ! First time in June ! Semi-regular during the fall and winter
months but not as strong as 189 Rikisútvarpid or 171 Médi Un. (Chiochiu-QC)
216 FRANCE RMC Info, Roumoules JUN 24 0301 - headlines in French, among
the main items was that Frédéric Mitterand was chosen to become the minister
of the culture ! Poor, but partially readable ! Unreadable earlier but there
and gone a few minutes later, as the dawn enhancement came to an end !
(Chiochiu-QC)
252 unID JUN 24 0240 - very threshold audio getting through slight
splatter from the local UL beacon on 248 kHz and through a huge computer
popping growl. (Chiochiu-QC)
9575 MOROCCO Médi 1, Nador JUN 24 2310 - with plaintive, yet abrupt Arabic
vocals. SINPO 33222 fair-poor overall, but best signal in a while ! Usually
when the solar activity is ridiculously low, SW-9575 comes in VERY poor on
the Grundig G5 / random wire terminated by a broken Yagi or Sangean ACS
818-CST / random wire terminated by a broken Yagi combo and LW-171 comes in
fair-good on the Grundig G5 / PK's Shielded Magnetic LW loop combo. Wiped
out just before 2359 UTC by major international broadcasters signing in on
nearby frequencies ! (Chiochiu-QC)
Pan-American DX
760 COLOMBIA HJAJ, RCN Cadena Basíca, Barranquilla JUN 24 around 0140 -
briefly fair in WJR null with an ad for a natural aboriginal water product
followed by at least two network RCN IDs. (Chiochiu-QC)
Additionnal comments:
A severe T-storm watch is underway for the Montreal area, so I'll try to
keep it short this time... The huge heat along with the wet weather that
Montreal is undergoing right now has succeded in making me very tired the
past few days which resulted in a few personnal messages I bypassed, such as
a personnal e-mail directly from the IDXD editor... I'll reply to all of you
as soon as possible. I'm also in the process of choosing a present for my
22nd birthday and it would most likely be a DX related one. My mom' has some
money available to help me improove my DX shack...
As I'm writing this, I just received a WWV minor storm alert... It is
unlikely I will be able to DX southern signals on mediumwave tonight, as
they predict strong thunderstorms for both this afternoon, tonight and early
tomorrow morning... However, I won't be surprised to receive a new
Venezuelan on Friday night... That being said, I'm ready to answer some
e-mails before the T-storm kicks off !
As soon as time permits, I will try to make a résumé for the past season
which was one of the seasons I was the most active on both MW and, for the
first time, LW with occasional forrays into shortwave as well...
This report is brought to you by Bogdan Alexandru Chiochiu, DXing from
Pierrefonds (Montreal's West Island), QC using the Sanyo MCD-S830 / PK AM
loop combo for mediumwave, the Sangean ACS 818-CST / PK's Shielded Magnetic
LW loop for longwave and the Grundig G5 / random wire terminated by a broken
Yagi antenna for shortwave (for hearing the 9575 kHz catche) !
May the good DX be with you !
Bogdan Chiochiu
Btw.: I send those logs to LatinMWDX because of the unusual "off-season"
reception of HJAJ-760 and because I expressed some of my feelings regarding
Latin American MW reception... LatinMWDX is a group at which I am one of the
two main moderators ! We host MP3 DX airchecks containing local ads, station
IDs and song intros from as many Caribbean, Central and South American MW
stations as possible... If you would like to share some MP3 or .WAV station
IDs etc of mediumwave Latins with us, please join LatinMWDX on Yahoo!
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