My subscription to Life expired, but I still have a subscription to Mad.

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

New loggings

Sunday morning:

📻  1000Z on 1160 kHz, WSKW in Skowhegan, Maine, transmitting 730 W about 270 miles to the north-northeast.

Monday evening:

📻  2300Z on 94.1 MHz, W231DJ in Danbury, Connecticut, transmitting 90 W about 30 miles to the southwest. This is WLAD's translator.

📻  0355Z on 684 kHz, RNE Radio Nacional in Dos Hermanas, Spain. Mostly talk with some short musical interludes. Transmitting 600 kW about 3500 miles to the east-northeast. By far, this was the strongest transatlantic signal I have heard in a long time on MW or LW.

📻  0400Z on 1570 kHz, WISP in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, transmitting 900 W about 150 miles to the southwest. Heard the top of the hour ID.

Equipment here: ELAD FDM-S2/SW2, ICOM AH-7000 discone (FM), 80-meter inverted Vee (LW/MW), Hy-Gain 18AVT/WB-A vertical.

Friday, October 13, 2017

Transatlantic x 5


The last 24 hours on the AM/MW band have been remarkable. Conditions have been very good and I logged four five new stations and all four five were outside the USA.

ERTU Quran Karem on 864 kHz transmitting 500 kW from Santah, Egypt, 5,489 miles to the east-northeast at 2325Z, 2017-10-12

RNE Radio Nacional on 774 kHz transmitting 100 kW from Valenciana, Spain, 3,703 miles to the east-northeast at 0500Z, 2017-10-13

RNE Radio Nacional on 855 kHz transmitting 100 kW from Murcia, Spain, 3,700 miles to the east-northeast at 0507Z, 2017-10-13 

SER Radio on 1044 kHz transmitting 50 kW from San Sebastian, Spain, 3,503 miles to the east-northeast at 0513Z, 2017-10-13

SBC Radio on 1044 kHz transmitting from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 6,921 miles to the east-northeast at 2305, 2017-10-13

Equipment: ELAD FDM-S2/FDM-SW-2 SDR receiver and Hy-Gain 18AVT/WB-A vertical antenna for the Egypt logging and 80-meter inverted Vee antenna for the other loggings.

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

What's New in the Log


LW/MW/AM band conditions were very good last night.

On LW, there were a slew of navigational beacons – all Canadian and all already in the log. But I did log a new broadcast station on 234 kHz at 0255 UTC: Broadcasting Center Europe (BCE) in Beidweiler, Luxembourg transmitting 1500 kW about 3686 miles to the northeast. The audio was weak, but good enough to ID the station.

On MW/AM, I heard plenty, but all already in the log. So I replayed my 0000 UTC top-of-the-hour recording and worked my way up the band recording any station identifications I encountered.

When I got to 760 kHz, there was WJR loud and clear as expected. WJR is the only nighttime station I have in the log for 760. It is so dominant, that I never expect to hear anything else. So I listened for their station ID, which was followed by a pause and during the pause, I heard the station ID for WETR in Knoxville, Tennessee transmitting 2.4 kW 703 miles to the southwest! WETR is a daytime-only station and this logging was almost an hour after Knoxville sunset, but I'm not complaining!

Equipment used was the ELAD FDM-S2/FDM-SW2 receiver and an 80-meter inverted Vee antenna.

Tuesday, October 3, 2017

Colombia!

AM/MW band conditions have been pretty, pretty good lately. Yesterday, I not only added a new station to the log, but also a new country.

HJAN, Emisoras Unidas, on 720 kHz transmitting 30 kW from Barranquilla, Colombia, 2,121 miles to the south. Those 2,121 miles represents my longest distance AM logging, finally topping my logging of Radio Americas on Swan Island (1787 miles) back in July 1967.

Equipment used was the ELAD FDM-S2/FDM-SW2 SDR receiver and the Hy-Gain 18AVT/WB-A vertical antenna.