SPORADIC E: I have been filling in my TV table this last couple of weeks. So the dates in June are more up to date than May when I let it slide a bit. Always being intrigued by foreign English speaking stations, that rarely make it to the receivers here, obviously because on ratio terms, that English station will be the exception rather than the common style of stations in a particular country. I am always led to believe there are a load of English holiday / tourist stations down in Spain, but I haven't heard any this year at all, bar the English lessons from Madrid. Last night there was music, pretty stable on 87.6, but of course when it began to fade out at the end of the track, that was that. But there was some kind of English speaking station coming through at the fades, only a whisper. As the 87.6 music station was on it's own, I will probably never know even where the opening was coming from. Interesting all the same. As below, I had English on 69.2 last week, and an English stn in Madrid on 10th June on 87.9, with English lessons, called Vaughan Radio. (Shouldn't it be the English ex pats that are learning Spanish??) There was also a curious English stn on 52.9mHz area somewhere, with news, heard while looking for tv audio and Italian studio feeds. Was there some really short skip around and it was from the UK?? Who knows.
Also had interesting EE station with NX, on 69.2. Sadly faded out before chance to ID.
Below poss Syria. The top two have higher res images.
NEW MW STATIONS HEARD: There has been so much sporadic e around that I forgot to mention the other day I have two new MW stations from 11th November last year. I was listening to an old Perseus file and winkled out the following. KMON 560 with a god ID, as well as KVI Seattle with a poorer ID, and advert in Western Seattle. .
091111_1002_1005_1006_570_kvi_seattle.mp3
CLICK HERE FOR THE RNI JAMMING STORIES - radio_northsea_jamming_1970.html
I wonder if they will mention the Caroline broadcasts via RNI, when as payback for the Wilson / Labour government closing the pirates down, RNI / Caroline offered support to the Tories!! I doubt it, seeing as it is a BBC documentary. If they don't the programme will be shown as poorly researched. I saw some mention on another board of this programme, and also input from various contributor's own memory. I thought a little dig through the archives would be of value, and I have found the best data in the vaults of MW CIRCLE MAGAZINE. These old 1970's mags are available on CD in PDF format from the club web site. (mwcircle.org). It is unknown why DX clubs in general don't make use of the facilities the web offers, and make all their back issues available in the public domain. See the article below about secrecy and silly club rules I discovered while searching through the archives. (And no it wasn't MWC, but the Arctic Radio Club!!) I may be asked to remove the following page by the club at short notice, but it is on line today, complete with appropriate credits. radio_northsea_jamming_1970.html
RNI jamming from old blue album (7.6 meg) RNI jamming from Jumbo album (8.8 meg)
There are a load of recordings available from the download club in Holland of Caroline/ RNI from this time.
rni_last_news_1973_recorded_scotland.mp3 Above is my own recording of Radio North Sea recorded as a young lad in 1973 on 31st Dec I think it was, or maybe 30th. This was how they sounded here. I had just been given my first cassette recorder for Christmas, and started recording jingles and clips of radio stations. I am so glad I did. I even wrote for a QSL for that many years later to Robin Banks!! Of course I had to wait till I learned what a QSL was!!! lol....
AND AS USUAL A FEW OTHER RECORDINGS DISCOVERED:
twr_monaco_dx_special_1974.mp3 radio_moscow_ann_seven_49m_channels_1974.mp3 radio_sweden_saturday_show_1974_inc_caroline_sticker.mp3
I used to try and hear that "programme about other radio stations" on a Saturday I think in the 31m band somewhere. It seemed to be a hit or a miss if I found it. That was the TWR DX SPECIAL. I did like Radio Sweden, and this was an amusing Saturday Show clip, and then finally listen to the frequencies Radio Moscow announce!! Wish I had a longer recording of that, with better id's.
AMAZING DICTATORSHIP FROM THE ARCTIC RADIO CLUB:
The below makes amazing reading. Imagine meeting any of these clowns at radio conventions!!! "You will not contribute to any other publication if you are a member of MY club".. Kiss my ass!!!
SPORADIC E SEASON: As predicted regularly here, there has not been much intense dxing done this few weeks due to the nice dry summer we have here in Scotland so far. But I have been making some effort to keep up with the sporadic E. Sadly my notes and logs don't show that, as they are quite sparce. Suffice to say that there have been so many logs and signals coming through I have been overwhelmed.
PERFECT SIGNAL OF THE RARE TEST CARD: I switched on the TV this morning to find that RUV ICELAND had a perfect signal for a few minutes of their test card. It is a rare event these days to catch a decent test card. Alas, by the time I shuffled around trying to get the bloody digital camera to come on, the signal was all but gone. Valve gear came on faster than some of these modern digital things!!!! The setting I use all the time for TVDX involves a lot of button pressing after it eventually comes on, and defaults are not storable. That is typical. With the old film camera I would have grabbed it and snapped. It was always ready. Then I would have to wait till the film was finished, trudge to the chemist, usually the outlet about 12 miles away, and go back in a few days etc.... And then maybe have to return if they had decided not to print that treasured test card frame!! Yes the digital wins hands down, but it's sluggish speed can be frustrating. Reminds me of tuning to a MW signal while messing around and a rare station pops out the mush when you are not recording. Such an annoyance. Below, the first image shows the signal fading out and the flash has also went off, and the second image at the peak of another fade in. It was absolutely beautiful during the first fade in I had.
WHKT NEW FORMAT: I had to listen twice to the following recording from 0300 22nd, as I initially thought I had heard the word FORT SMITH back on 1650. 100622_0300_whkt_portsmouth_freedom_1650.mp3
Well that question was raised in a TV documentary last year. But today I found some of them!! They were seemingly investigating around the shack, and were buzzing around above the door for about half an hour today. It wasn't a full swarm, but there were a lot. I thought we might have had to sit in the shack with a bee veil on shortly, but they seemed to move on!!! I wouldn't have any problems with a bees nest, but not above my door into the shack..lol..
PERSEUS SAM / AM CHALLENGE UPDATE: I have only had two people try the quiz set out the other day. I was going to make a link to the answers page, but Guy has published data about it on his site as of yesterday, so I will let it run till Saturday probably. Guy scored an amazing 6/10, while Phil I am not sure if he understood the objective. Phil may have been under the impression that it was one mode per clip, repeated twice, but there are two modes on each clip. The objective was to tell which was which. Whether SAM then AM, or AM then SAM. GW Dave on the Perseus group reconed he couldn't tell the difference. My point of the excersise was to demonstrate how little difference there is between SAM and AM with the Perseus. Now had that been AM and USB for example, there would have been a much easier distinction. (I use SSB during serious MW dxing). Maybe I never used weak enough signals?? I did think the WHAM and KJR mixes would have been a reasonable demo. What I guess didn't surprise me was that none of the guys that claim that the SAM is far better than AM even bothered to try the challenge. And I think I know why!!!!
ETV TO LEAVE BAND 1: David Hamilton reported to me today that ETV Estonia are to leave band 1 at the end of the month. This is one of the visitors we have had this year during the openings to the east. Davie says that there is an Estonian ham operation ready to install a 50mHz beacon come the beginning of the month, so it looks like that date may be genuine. The longest closedown in history must have been Spain. They threatened to leave band one for about 10 years, and finally did during the winter months. (Certainly no logs this season anyway!! lol). Although France was reported to have left band 1, strong signals are still being seen and heard here.
It is a pity the larger caption was on a fade when these shots were taken just the other day.
CAMERA COMPLAINTS FOR TVDX: For taking TVDX photos, I still use the old tried and tested camera method. It works not too bad. The TV that I have the best results with is too old to have any in's and out's. It's an old black and white portable from Pye / Philips that I picked up in the 80's, marked off in channel A, B, C etc. . Sometimes I long for a good completely manual digital camera with a few decent lens. I am harrased by the current model, NIKON Coolpix 8800, which is semi auto, and such a pain to focus on the old TV. I still get clearer screenshots from this old TV than anything else I think, but sometimes the focus is not as sharp as it should be. It may even be less keen to focus this summer than last, I am not sure. So annoying when automatic crap doesn't do what it is meant to, and they have no manual over ride. It also annoyingly reverts back to silly default settings every time you change from video mode to still mode. The prefered settings do not memorise. Still, it's better than the days of the old manual Zenith, which I had to trudge 12 miles to the chemist with film every week in years gone by, and then have to return many for shoddy workmanship, usually not centred, with half a screen in 1 photo and the other half in another etc. Did anyone else experience this??. The old Zenith was a dream to focus. Manual, everything about it was manual. It never had a 1/25th setting, only 1/30th so I had some shading, but not the big black lines this automatic thing gives on video. (But not all the time). I took all the old test card shots in my tvdx countries listing freehand, ie no tripod. I guess the digital NIKON is not built for taking TVXD photos!!! The drawbacks over a traditional manual 35mm camera are as follows:
1. Manual focus virtually non existant 2. Slow to click, maybe by a second, and the picture has often faded by the time it decides to work. 3. Slow to save even on reduced quality 4. Silly default settings return when switching to video and back. 5. Flash goes off in default settings, without being asked. 6. Even running off the mains, it switches itself off when untouched for 20m or so. It is not possible to overcome this, and then it is a case of trying to get it started again when something fades in.
BUT there is a major PLUS: I took about 800 TVDX photos last year. Correction, I kept about 800, and deleted many more. There are 781 images and movies in the 2010 tvdx folder already. Many need deleted, but imagine trying to do this with a film camera. Total cost using the digital camera? ZERO. I think some TVDXers see me as working in the dark ages because of not using a TV card to capture. I have to add a comment here. I have been trying to make movies by using video out from the little JVC TV, to a DVD recorder. What comes out the DVD recorder certainly isn't the quality that goes in, and is nothing like what you see on the screen. So I really just mess about as best as I can and get the best quality, using the equipment I have. It is very annoying that I can't quite record the quality you see on the screen during peaks. But I suppose I can't grumble.
Today I have made up a quiz with 10 audio clips for those dxers that have keen ears and can tell the difference between SAM and AM with Perseus. I recon I would struggle with this quiz, and so I created 10 audio clips at randon from strong stations, weaker stations on busy channels, and strong local stations to test the keen ears of anyone who fancies a go. Contact me with the answers via e mail. Or come to think of it, why not leave the results on this public board?? I was going to delete the links to this anyway as it wasn't being used. http://members7.boardhost.com/mw_dxing/
CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE QUIZ PAGE
The answers should read for example: 2. SAM then AM 3. AM then SAM The audio clips are of the same piece of audio, repeated again in the other mode, either SAM or AM. Maybe this wasn't clear in the first place.
A surprising but welcome fast addition to the Perseus software 3.0 beta from Friday was released yesterday. It included a fix for the long time wish of a repair on the howling playback bar. Loud tones no more. Well done to Nico for taking the time to make this long needed repair. For us MW dxers who use the record function on a daily basis, more so in winter, this is just what was needed. I am not sure if I will even bother with the keyboard hotkeys script any more. It is good having a forward 10 seconds and back 10 seconds at the touch of a key though.
RAINY SEASON STARTED: It is easy to become used to the sunshine. We have become somewhat used to it here in Scotland in the last few weeks. But It seems to have started. Yes the rain is here again. The biggest problem on the West of Scotland is that the rain forgets to go off once it has started. On the plus side, the trees and the grass are lush green again after the long winter.
SPORADIC E CONTINUES: I checked the bands yesterday and found once again that the band 1 television was coming in from all over Europe. I did a quick tally of the stations seen, and counted 14!! I think some dxers assume there is very little to see nowadays, with many countries having switched off band 1. But 14 different stations in one day can't be too bad!! That is discounting Iceland which appeared the next morning. See my TVDX table for 2010. There was also an unid Arabic on E3 sound only. Jordan??
The first note was the different sized window when you click record, which has an effect on how the hotkey files click on the save button. Look below. The mouse will miss the save button now, so the coordinates have to be changed slightly on the text / .ahk files. The keyboard AHK file seems now to open another instance of Perseus.
2.1i
3.0 BETA
Well what can I say about the sporadic e season this summer. It was all doom and gloom at these lattitudes here last year at this time and the traditional openings in May never really happened. June never happened till towards the end of the month. This year though....Well.. what can I say?? It feels like there has been a non stop barrage of distant FM stations and TV stations from all over Europe, including the rarer Eastern openings. Other dxers have even had Transatlantic dx, on band 2!! The last few years, what has been seen was mainly Southern stuff. Italy and Spain and Portugal. But the band has been jumping this season. A welcome change. Imagine if it were somehow possible to record the whole of band 1, as well as band2, and listen and even view tv stations later. The hard disk space required would be excessive but hey, we can dream. A couple of years ago, recording the complete MW band was a wild dream. Now thanks to the work of a brilliant Italian scientist, we have the Perseus. One dream has become a reality. As happens, the sheer volume of sporadic e logs has again left me in a mess. Again I have too many logs to list properly, but I will try and do the best I can. I don't have logs every time RAI or E21 has come in on the TV, or even every day that they are in. I had full intentions of adding the daily logs to the table on my tvdx table page. This however has not been done. Too many distractions in summer.
TV LITHUANIA TEST SIGNAL: I caught a rare test caption of L7 TV , if that is the name of the station. I tend to call it L7 because of their logo. The screen shot below was caught just before sign off around 2100UTC on 1st June. Incidentally, I monitored the sound channel via a receiver, and the sound signed off first, and disappeared into hiss before the video. Sadly I wasn't making a movie at this time.
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