LOGS / NEWS - FEBRUARY 2014 A site mainly dedicated to Mediumwave Dxing |
| 820 | WWLZ | Horseheads NY | 
0600 6/2/14 (updated 1st a day earlier than the first log. better recording
as well.) |
| 930 | WDLX | Washington NC |
0600 6/2/14 |
| 1390 | WKPA | Lytchburg, VA |
0200 12/2/14 |
| 1600 | WAOS | Austell, GA |
0700 27/2/14 (20KW / 67watts... LOL !!!) |
= "Play Clip" button
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WAOS AUSTELL, GA 1600: New one
heard here, today at 0700. This is interesting in the fact that it is also a SS / Mexican format, and dxers hearing the music might have assumed wrongly that they had heard WUNR which is a common powerful pest here in Europe.
OTHER DX: 1510
WLAC Dominant 0700
NEW ELAD 6 MHZ SDR RECEIVER: I have brought this item forward a couple of days, to include a few more links to video and to software and sample wav file via NILS. I have been reading of the latest advancement in SDR's on line in recent weeks. It looks good, with it's 6mhz bandwidth record capability. Of course, to buy this receiver, the software and the performance against strong local signals is going to be very very important. The first question, would I buy the receiver if there were no record facilities?? Certainly not. To work as a single channel receiver, I have plenty other sets. Why would I want an SDR with no wideband record facility. I am not buying it to watch a silly spectrum. As a band 2 dxer, the only interest I have is the wideband recording, to allow for example 6mhz bandwidth recordings of big sporadic e openings. Imagine having 6mHz worth at the top of the hour to go back through at a later time and check out, rather than having a single chance at a spot frequency you may choose on the hour. That 6 mHz would be far more useful than the Perseus FM+, with it's 1.8 mHz ish bandwidth, my absolute dxing limit at this time. It also sadly looks as though the Perseus SDR is now unsupported in some respects, as far as updates and improvements are concerned, so there is little hope of having a wider bandwidth receiver from Microtelecom. Rumours however have been floating around of Nico creating a new gadget. But no further details available, make it kinda irrelevant at this time. If it is the long awaited GEMINI, reputed to be much more expensive than the PERSEUS, it will remain irrelevant for me. I note there was no price tag on the 20mhz winrad receiver either.
http://sdr.eladit.com/Sample%20wav-files/DK8OK/Video/elad_fdms2_6mhz.mp4 http://sdr.eladit.com/Sample%20wav-files/DK8OK/Video/elad_fdm_s2a.mp4 http://ecom.eladit.com/FDM-S1-nome-prodotto/en ================================================
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE ELAD SDR SOFTWARE: I downloaded the files from NILS which for a 6mhz file, amounted to about about four and a half gigs worth. My first trial was on a laptop. dual core 4 gig ram. (can't remember the figures for processor speed). The file wouldn't play properly. Stuttering and all that carry on. Unusable. I tried it on my current main PC that incidentally is going to be changed soon, as the FM+ doesn't work at full bandwidth on it. The ELAD software wouldn't playback the file on this PC either. I tried it on the FM+ PC, a 64 bit Vista machine with 4 gig ram. Voila. Works a treat, as far as the stuttering goes. I never found any PC spec so far required for the ELAD, but it looks like it could be power hungry at 6mHz. Understandable. The software itself is certainly no Perseus. One of the things I have found with it is that in a very unconventional way, the controls for the receiver are at the right hand side, and not the left. For years, we have been used to opening up Windows Explorer files from the left, and they open the folders in the right hand pane. Or in Nero, burning a disk even works that way. If I had been interested in this set, it would take a lot of getting used to the software. At the first trial, it seems very clumsy to operate. There is no mouse over the tiny horrible red freq display to change frequency. trying to find the right "step" setting wasn't simple. The bandwidth / filter is not nearly such a powerful tool as in the Perseus software, and in fact at first glance seems a trifle awkward to adjust. No smooth mouse over and turn the wheel here. Everything about the software seems to be tiny. Freq readout for example, not to mention chasing through drop downs to find bandwidth and mode etc, where as with Perseus it is a single click or the turn of a mouse wheel. The beauty of the PERSEUS GUI is the freq size, mouse over every digit changes it, MODE settings are large buttons that don't disappear on you behind other windows. The basic functions of any receiver has to be mode, freq, and tune, and with SDR, mouse wheel freq step, which are so easy and straight forward with the Perseus software. In fact the Perseus took no time at all to master the controls. Anyway, I am hoping that NILS can upload another couple of files.. MW from Euro night times, and a busy FM broadcast band. And I have to spend some more time at the software to see just how interesting this 6mHz piece of kit can be. ================================================
A 10 MHZ SDR - AIRSPY: For my own interest in dxing, the MW band is covered by the Perseus SDR, recording top of the hours overnight over the full band. I don't really need any other MW receiver, and the ease of use of the Perseus makes other software feel almost amateurish. But for FM broadcast band dxing during the sporadic e openings, a wider bandwidth would be ideal. 20mhz would be excellent!! The AIRSPY SDR is approaching this with 10mHz of bandwidth. 2 of these and you have the whole band covered almost. On the AIRSPY web site. there is no mention so far of estimated price or even country of origin, I don't think on this site. Hmm. The only concern for me with the airspy is that it looks tiny, and dongley. I had very very limited success with a dongle here, and found it to be just what it was. A 10 quid dongle. Cheap and prone to overloading and sprogs. I later bought the Perseus FM+ which opened up a new ball game for band 2 dxing, but at a much higher cost. It works great here. I have however heard many complaints from city dxers of overloading and sprogs due to megawatts of rf nearby, rather than the 10kW of my local BBC txers.. I can't say that I have found this problem here, unlike the dongle. (The RTL thing) Anyway, airspy is a site perhaps worth a watching for updates. ================================================ THE 20 MHZ HACK RF: There is another one that is available but is a transmitter as well, HACK RF. They seem to have a bit of cash pledged for development. This item looks interesting, though it is such a shame there is not a receiver version for enthusiasts that have no interest in transmitting. It is also bound to be half the price?? The trouble
with SDR developers is that they tend to develop software and harddware
for their own uses, and this does not usually mean for broadcast band
dxers. Even much of the Perseus has been developed with ham radio
in mind, yet the important and in fact exclusive reason for buying
in the first place for many mw dxers was the record facility. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mossmann/hackrf-an-open-source-sdr-platform/ http://ossmann.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/hackrf-present-and-future.html http://ossmann.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/introducing-hackrf.html
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INTERESTING WEB SITE ABOUT ANTENNAS: The following link was posted to me by Mark in NJ I think it was on our MW Skype chat.. http://www.aytechnologies.com/TechData/ShortBev.htm
What a mixed bag we have had here. Stormy propagation, but Saturday night was sounding pretty good. had the TIS station again on 1710 at 0300. Today's signals were pretty poor / average, but Sunday morning as I said was much more interesting. It's a pity the station with the dx tests on 1440 hadn't chosen Sat night for the test. As it happened it was Friday night into Sat, and from 0500 onwards, so RTL was already signed on by this time.
LOGS OVER THE LAST DAYS: 1070
Radio Santa Feh 0400 23/2
SOME VINTAGE SW RECORDINGS: I discovered this site while browsing around the web, and while many of the recordings come from SW in 2014, there are some historically worthwhile sounds from the 60's. I am not sure who has created this site, it is very anon, and although they use some very poor bitrates, the historical recordings are very much worth a listen from the height of the cold war. http://www.shortwavearchive.com
What a difference a day makes. In anything in life I guess. But yesterday at 0600 and 0700 we had west coast coming in pretty well in the shape of Mexico / San Diego on 1700. Today?? Virtually nil. Band dead. The most unusual thing was Rebelde alone on 600 at 0800. Big deal.
ANOTHER LOG FOR 6/2/14: Perseus technology is great for going back and playing back a previous day. I regularly listen to older files, and have found an SS on 740 at 0600. Still trying to find an id for this one. The band would perhaps suggest a SS US / CARRIBEAN station, more than a Latin?? But that is of course not even close to 100% certainty. There was a distinctive Cuban warbler as well on the freq. Perhaps Cuba?? Cuba also dominant on 710!
NO MW RECORDINGS OVER THE WEEKEND: I have no recordings from Saturday night or Sunday night. It was an unlucky weekend for technical boch ups... As I was on the way out the door on Saturday night, and setting up the recording timer, my PC sat down and wouldn't restart properly. I hurried up to connect up a spare pc, which happened to be a VISTA machine. The Perseus drivers etc all worked, and timer was set. I was being hounded by the YL to get a move on..lol... So there was no real time to check things were gonna be 100%. In the morning there were no files recorded. On Sunday I found a quick 5m to investigate, and found that a "save as" dialogue box was a different size in Vista. So the HOTKEYS script couldn't finish properly. Bugger.... But also on Sunday I had a distinctive smell of electrical burning in the shack when I was in to try the recordings. After a few minutes, I still could not find the source, so being of a paranoid nature the power to the shack was cut overnight. That source was found on Monday to have been another screen that seems to have stopped working. But that is not the end of the story. To record on Monday night / Tuesday I had to use either an XP machine or change the scripts for the overnight recordings. So I fired up original PC that has been in use here for a few years now. Working fine. No problems. Why?? Who knows. I popped the RAM chips out and in, just incase they had become partially dust ridden or something, blew the whole thing out with an airline, which as it turned out was badly needed, and replaced the original PC into it's position. It has worked fine ever since!! Such an inconveniencel!!
WEST COAST 0700: I have
again noted ESPN San Diego on 1700 at 0700,
OTHER LOGS: 1390
WGEP, WFBL, WLCM all in a mix 0300 18/2
CW ON 900: I don't
think I have ever tried to decode the CW you hear on 900 at the toth..
I see two cw signals on 897.5 / 902.5, and another on 897 / 902. The
897 seems to spell something like TNGNKT, while the other EMIET SITE.
Both sets of CW come up at exactly the same time, and therefore from
the same source. Is it only from RAI?? Or the SS stations? Strong
UTC 0000. I have made an audio clip with CW on both frequencies, as
well as perhaps what it is meant as, some kind of a teletype signal.
Does the word site just happen to be the random word that is seemingly
spelt out in cw get??
I thought the band was particularly uninspiring and dull today as I checked the files. But my attention was drawn towards unid foreign on 1470, non ee non ss. It took a bit to realise that it was from Vancouver, and was Fairchild Radio, complete with the 3 pips at 0700, and better at 0600. Also 1520 was the classic country station in WA!! An unid Euro pirate pres heard on 1710, 02 and 03 with music... Strong here... Initially hoped to be something more exotic!! So we had at Florida 1660, 1680 , WA 1520 and BC 1470 all at 0700. Many channels were humm. 1590 and others. A few logs below.
No recordings today sadly. I had the windows fatal exception screen or whatever up when I came into the shack today. Prob something with the power, as lights were dimming up and down in the storm a bit last night. I still have a few audio clips to get together from the last week or so. Time Time Time.
The band seemed to be jumping at bed time last night, though this morning was less inspiring. Some strong signals from The Zone 960, WOOD etc will be worth making into a montage though. Further listening through the night required. 680 WRKO
Boston 0800 12/2
The band has been a bit less than good over the weekend, and particularly uninspiring, by comparison to last weeks enhanced conditions. I have deleted a few days of files, so lets hope I was not too hasty. But I am hearing daytimer WFLI Lookout Mountain TN on an almost daily basis, closing at 2300 with a loud ann. Signal levels have not always been great, but it is there. Other daytimers are coming through such as WCHP signing off at 2215.
760 WCHP
2200 7/2
RELISTEN TO 6/2: 820 WWLZ
Horseheads/ Elmara 0600 6/2
570 CFCB
2200 6/2 miserable cold wx forecasts... -36 etc..lol
A few logs from today. Band sounds good at first check. Good separation from Euros etc.. NB: Any unid logs are really there for me to recheck the files. I would make no claim of a simple unid with ABC news without finding a proper ID somewhere. These pages are my only log book these days, so as I say, the logs are for my own benefit, to go back and have a listen. I notice that although the band is jumping, the signals on X band have reduced significantly since last week. 560 Rebelde
0800 6/2
Band is looking more interesting here. Pity I was busy and forgot about the toth at 1000, but I was able to catch it by 1001. I came into the shack today at 0825ish, and managed tro hear a nice litte MB opening. 730 CKDM in MB was coming through but by 0855 the channel had returned to Montreal. If I hadn't been in at that time I would have missed that. Maybe this tells me something about the time between 08 and 09.
570 5-70
News reasonable 0700 5/2 WJDI 1620 STORY: I was reading a fantastic story about a real radio enthusiast that eventually built and used a 15kW transmitter on 1620 MW in the 1990's. I really enjoyed reading this superb article, and thaks to Tim for sharing and arranging the article. http://midx.wordpress.com/wjdi/
590 WEZE
Boston. weak id I have 0600 4/2
MONTAGE OF TODAYS SIGNALS: As I sometimes do, included today is a montage of signals heard from some of the stations that were coming through. Most are common here, but there were some booming signals today, so I include some loud signals. The ropey signals are really only included if they are personal firsts or rare stations.
700 WLW
((only fair) CHANGES CHANGES CHANGES: Many stations run different power day and night. Hence the phrase DAYTIMERS. Remember to look for daytimers early in the month at this time of year, at say 20 or 2100 to 0000 approx. Some stations reduce power, some very significantly, others sign off completely. I am not sure if the switch over is automated in every case, or if there is still an engineer at some sites working this option manually. Sometimes you get the impression that automated proccesses break down from time to time. It can be difficult to tell at this distance if a station is on day power or day pattern or not. But recent observations here suggest the following changes for one reason or another. 1280 CFMB was on day pattern for some weeks on 1280. This is heard dominating the channel, especially in the earlier part of the evenings. You can tell here in Europe if they are on day pattern, simply if you are hearing them. If anyone has heard them change over, it is as though they signed off, even though they still run 50kw at nights. 1190 WLIB was booming in early this season and were up there signal wise with the best of them like WQXR, WBBR, WCBS, WFAN, WABC etc. Have they realised that electricity isn't cheap?? They just do not seem to have been booming much in the last weeks. Topaz lists them now as 30kw day and night, whereas they used to power down. (They used to be a daytimer only when I first heard them) 1070 CHOK. I noticed last night that CHOK had a strong signal and a news / sport format since the last time I heard them. Is this new? They have certainly been difficult to hear in the last while, so maybe their format has been this for a while. Maybe fixed the transmitter to run at higher power again? Or condx?? 1430 The Team. I have noticed WENE is conspicuous by it's absence. It usually dominated the channel here and even normally overpowered Toronto. Is it off air or on reduced power? UPDATE: Noticed at 0900 weak 5/2, so still on air. 930 CJYQ. There is of course one less station on 930 as one of the three dominant stations CJYQ left the frequency last week in a blaze of glory. I noted a couple of rarer ones in the mix last night.
Sounds good so far tonight. I wish I had recorded 22 and 2230 to check for daytimers. UPDATE: LOGS INCORPORATED ABOVE
A COUPLE OF EXTRA LOGS FROM OLD FILES: I am deleting some files to make some space. I am not even sure if they have been listened to, but dates were from 4th and 5th January. A quick listen reveals a few extra logs. I found the following on 5th. 1230 and 1240 were both just below id level at 0900!! The freqs have both been teasing all winter. 1170
WWVA Well over the Euros 0900 5/1
POOR WEEKEND OF DXING DUE TO FAILURES: What a stroke of luck. The conditions were good running up to the weekend, and I was looking forward to checking my recordings for Sat night and Sun night. Both recordings failed. The Friday night set failed due to the power cable not being connected properly to the drive.. My own carelessness, or maybe it is a drive fault. The second night, Sunday thru Monday, recordings stopped at 0000, and before that they were extremely stuttery. The answer I think is a faulty drive. Well it was an older 160 GIG IDE from and old Sky box. I have a few of these kicking around for times when I fill up the larger drives!! Which is about now due to some interesting conditions last week... So that particular drive is now scrapped!!
IS PERSEUS TIME CONSUMING OVER SINGLE CHANNEL RECEIVERS? Some time ago, I commented to some American DXers that the Perseus is not too bad for being time consuming if you don't want it to be. But I think I am going to have to back peddle a little if we talk of this past week of better conditions. When the band is jumping, you always feel there are hidden gems waiting to be discovered, and the files demand closer inspection!! So time has been a big problem this week!!! But it is so good to hear the band alive again. And NB. I still would not like to go back in time to dxing with single channel sets.
Well there we go again this year. Again I start the year by dating every entry on the January page as 2013!! I do this every new year!!!! Fixed.. lol
SOUND CITY STUDIO DOCUMENTARY - BBC4 LAST NIGHT: I watched an excellent BBC 4 production last night about SOUND CITY STUDIO which was an LA based production studio, that some of the classic albums of the years have been created. This is repeated again Sunday night about midnight or maybe 1am into Monday here in the UK. It is well worth a watch. I am a radio enthusiast because of music radio, and I received my musical education from ships anquored off the coast broadcasting on the mw bands. But many of the tracks played on the offshore pirates were recorded at Sound City. Folks like Kansas, Guns n Roses, Fleetwood Mac, Reo Speedwagon, Tom Petty, Neil Young, Rick Springfield, Cheap Trick, Foreigner, Johnny Cash. The list is endless. Music that shaped a generation. I feel I have to quote a classic from one of the production engineers describing the owner as a big lanky kind of fella, that just fell off the turnip truck, he likes you to think that anyway.....LOL. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_City_Studios
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03sltyb/Sound_City/
SNEAKING AN ID: We always like to sneak in an ID where there is not normally a chance of one. Sometimes you can squeeze an otherwise impossible ID if there is an audio break on the hour, like for example when WWKB will have a long silence sometimes, KOKC may be audable. Likewise, we had CJMR silent a few times this past month at various times on 1320. Today the sorry sounding Christian station from Dublin on 549 was silent at 07 and 0800 today and WSAU was coming through again. 550 was a good dx channel when that big txer in Co Monaghan was off air for a few years. But it is now back 24/7 sadly with bible bashing, so it is a lost frequency. It formerly carried an unlicenced relay of UCB, which at the time had a more powerful as well as a louder signal here in Scotland that the big RTE1 transmitter next door on 567..
BOSTON GOOD TOTH ANN: YAHOO
sports stn in Boston had a great ann for radio buffs the other night.
LOGS TODAY: 550 WSAU
with FOX id 0800 2/1 Blocked here by very loud local normally, but
the Christian crud was silent
EXTRA LOGS: 600 WMT
0700 1/2
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