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New / Personal first's this month = 00
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LOGS / NEWS - MAY 2012 A site mainly dedicated to Mediumwave Dxing |
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What a load of bollocks, as far as MW dxers go. Spirit Radio has come on 549, noted on Thursday night, and at 0400 on the overnight recording. By 0800 it was off air, so no chance to check daytime signal, but from the signal at 0400, I would say for sure it is from the UCB site, in Co Monaghan. There is virtually nothing worth listening to on MW any more as far as entertainment goes. The last of the big Dutch signals (10 gold and Arrow Classic Rock) now long turned into religious propaganda. And here is another one on 549, and messing up the clear 550 dx channel as well. Of course I know the band is there to be used, and is not set out only for mw dxing!! But just once it would be nice to have a station that was listenable. Who after all can listen to non stop hymns and chants?? A sad reflection on radio in 2012. No wonder the audiences are measured in the dozens. There are only a couple of pirates left from Ireland that can be heard with any kind of a signal. Radio North mon - fri only have about 3 hours of programming, and Radio Star, well you get fed up switching off when the bible stuff comes on. Cheers to Stu for the typo error!!
WEATHER U TURN: I really should make a point of keeping a weather record here, of temperatures and wind direction etc. It wouldn't be hard, and is simple to settle a pub arguement!! But it wouldn't last if I started that, I know. But I am simply overwhealmed by the summer weather here in Scotland. Super. Send it on. More More....lol.. After the wintery weather we have had up until the other day, let's make the most of it!!
GOOD OPENING TO IRELAND: Today has been a rather good day here for Tropo from Ireland. Normally at the local high spot most of the following will be available most days, but one I heard jumped out at me. It was a promo for none other than BIG O. The station was part of the Q network, and was from the Newrey area. Big O was well known on the MW bands in the west of the UK during the Irish pirate heyday on the 80's. One of the best ads I ever heard was Cars Cars Cars of Newrey!!! Jolly Olly, to use another of his "handles" was a real character of the airwaves, although I sadly never got the chance to meet up with him at Boyneside Radio, Rainbow Radio, or any of the other stations. The band seemed to die pretty quickly, but a few things heard include the listing below. I had a much stronger lift last year at some point or other, when some really low powered local stuff was coming through. Still at least I managed to hear Sunshine and Q102 from Dublin, but no sign of Nova!! (Stealing legendary station names...I don't know..LOL)
87.8
RTE Border Booming Various other RTE and Newstalk transmitters were coming through as well..
Another month that there has not been much dxing done. A couple of days brought in some Latins, but the days I wasn't recording, Paul C and Davie have heard interesting North American dx on 1320 and 1370 (Stations I have never heard of before). I shall have to get a list made of the personal firsts that have not been mentioned on here over the last few months of poor dx. I had a couple of items in my head for inclusion in the last few days. One was the closure of the analogue Astra services at 19 degrees east, the old UK Sky location. The other was along the same lines, but has escaped my memory. It may have been the TEST CARD thing, see below.
MAIN BEVERAGE NEEDS ATTENTION: UPDATE: On test again, wire was pulled off at the ballun at the feed. Deer?? So up and working again. My main antenna that runs through the woods at the back is as suspected, though not proven until now, not working up to scratch. A low powered txer from Ireland was on the air the other day on the LF part of the band, testing, and although it usually booms in on that aerial, had a zero signal level. On another beverage the signal was fine, though a little more noisy than I was used to. Coax seems fine, proved by feeding audio up it. Walking up and down the full aerial length shows no breaks. So maybe I have a break on part of the cable that is wrapped around a tree or stick. Anyway, I shall have to spend some time on the said antenna. That said, the antenna of 420m through the open field in the winter months was not particularly impressive. Noisy and much lower signal levels than the now duff antenna. Yet a few years before, the open field antenna whipped the pants off the main permenant aerial. Yes, a bit of time needs to be taken to improve the set up here. Condidions during the peak of the season did not however help my enthusiasm this winter.
AUTOHOTKEYS - TIMER RECORDINGS, WHERE'S THE PROBLEM??? A while back, a dxer asked me why I didn't use a certain piece of software to record during the night with the Perseus. "Why should I", I asked. I have used autohotkeys files since Dr. Matthias Zwoch in Germany came up with the script. It has worked more or less flawlessly since 2008. I altered the script to keep it working with the latest version of Perseus, because Nico had changed a pop up box, and the location of the button had to be updated as well. I also got rid of a very silly pop up box that asked "Are you sure the antenna is connected". Having said that, maybe that would have reminded me the times that I HAVE forgotten to plug in the antenna or even connect the Perseus...LOL. So I have a folder with pre prepared script/ files for every hour and every half hour. There are also odd full hour scripts, and any others that are required are only a few keystrokes away. But it works fine, and fails no more or no less than the other software. ie once in a while.. The guys that use the other software also complain of the odd failure. I always meant to show a movie of how long it takes me to set hotkeys before I turn in for the night. The video is 13 seconds long, and that includes I'm sure a couple of seconds to physically reach around the camera which isn't usually parked there, and switch off the screen, leaving only the pc tower powered up, which also powers the Perseus. For the example on the video, I click on 02, 03, 04 and 0500, (4 clicks) and switch the separate mains plug, to kill the screen, and reduce possible QRM. Job done, not remotely complex. I am not sure why this is judged by some that have never even used hotkeys as complicated and slow. I can usually afford 13 seconds before switching off for the night. And anyway, life with your PC is not black and white. No one way to achieve the same goal is better than the other. It is simply another way. How many ways are there on a PC to get to Control Panel for example. Anyone that has used a PC for any length of time knows that there are always multiple ways to achive many of the common functions. Of course I agree with the general opinion of dxers that a Perseus built in timer should really be available within the main software, but development seems to have come to a halt for the time being, which is a pity.
RADIO TRANQUILITY HEARD IN SCOTLAND: UPDATE: Thanks to W for reporting the broken link to the audio file below. File spelling repaired, and link wasn't. OK now!! The other week, while chasing through some old cassettes from 1980 looking for recordings of an old station called Sonic Independent Radio, I came across a log and a recording of an unid station. I listened a few times and couldn't make the ID out. It sounded similar to Radio Saint Paulina, but not quite. I knew it was a London pirate by the accent, although quite why I never pursued the log at the time is anyone's guess. A partial ID is written in the log, but that was about it. After I listened the next day, the ID jumped out at me. Radio Tranquility. They were in QSO with Radio Buccaneer, which was heard a few times north of the border. Note the time, of 0150. I wonder what the power of this transmission was?? 801221_sunday_0150_1327_buccaneer_and_tranquility.mp3 ireland_a_to_z_irish_pirates_sonic_independent_radio.html
RADIOWAVES.FM FORUMS TO CLOSE: A great source of information on broadcasting in Ireland has come to an end. The Radiowaves forums have been running for 12 years time now, and although mostly about current legit stations in Ireland, there were often threads about the 1980's pirate heyday. No idea what if anything will come out of the offers to rehost the site. Let's hope someone can rescue plans to simply delete the site. (Like Guy's former excellent Perseus site, which was wiped from the map).
WEATHER HERE IN SCOTLAND: After a number of real hot early summer like days towards the end of March, April and May up until now (18th) have both been particularly chilly and non summer like. The trees etc are very slow to open, and you feel a good few days of real sunshine would give new greenery and life to the woodlands and the fields. Last year, many of the beech trees were actually burned brown in June because of the exceptionally cold weather we had last year as well in the early summer. So I am still in the winter woolies here!! Thought. Where are all the Global Warming crooks / money grabbers hiding in this weather??? UPDATE: At last some real hot weather arrived on 22nd May, after a bitterly cold and miserable few weeks, that felt like October, and not a mid summer..
ASTRA ANALOGUE SERVICES CLOSE: After many years on air, the Astra analogue services at 19 degrees east have gone off air. Eurosport was on the air until I guess the end of April, as well as a bouquet of other German channels. It has been long enough since I have even checked out the satellite channels, but many of the German free to air stuff we used to see beside Sky One and Screensport etc are still on the 19.2 degrees Astra, in digital mode.
PORTUGAL SAYS GOODBYE TO BAND 1: The other day I saw just a tiny bit of TVDX on Euro channel E3. It was Portugal, on their last gasps before closing the transmitter. All that remains of this regular from previous years, is a text caption. There isn't even any sound!! As this is my first tvdx of the season, I wasn't really prepared, and while I saw the caption pretty clear, I never managed to take a decent photo of it. Camera not ready etc. Maybe it will come in again before the final switch off?? Who knows? UPDATE: According to a report that came to David H from Portugal, the signal is sadly gone. I hear it said amongst some tv dxers about their joy of most of the Euro countries now being off the air on band 1. I personally liked those wide open sporadic e days. You never knew what was going to pop up. There were many of the Euro channels that were seen as pests to some dxers. But when there is nothing from Spain or Portugal now, no French, German, Swiss, Austrian, Scandinavian etc left, there is precious little going to be seen in general. Sure on a really good day there may be the odd arab. But the TVDX hobby is certainly in serious decline. To keep me interested I would say I have to see pictures fluttering up. If all I ever have now is blank screens, it is hardly going to keep me keen. The novelty of seeing carriers on a speclab screen wore off quickly the first summer I saw them. Still, at least we have some fine photographs and short movie clips from previous years to look back on.
TEST CARD BACK ON THE TELLY: Who of a certain vintage will not remember the good old test card and music. There are even web sites with old test cards. But did you know that the test card is available on Freeview in the UK?? It is available on most receivers as far as I am aware. OK then, where is it?? It is hidden behind a series of button presses. 1) Go to channel 105 (BBC Red Button channel) and wait will the screen appears
2) Press the Yellow button within 30s, and then wait 5 seconds or so. 3) Switch to any other channel, eg 12, (or channel up then channel down or whatever) 4) Switch back to channel 105, and wait till the mainly green setup screen appears
5) Press the Green button, and the BBC Widescreen test card will appear, complete with the lassie and the clown. (The test card sometimes takes a little while to appear)
TELETEXT ON TWO: I saw the other night when I was up kinda late, that the BBC is still showing TELETEXT ON 2 at certain times during the night. Interesting. I was under the impression that the recently publicised London switch over was the last analogue. In actual fact after searching through the web, I did finally find a page that tells us that Northern Ireland is not switched over, and neither is the South East coast of England. I guess Teletext will then become a thing of the past. So for old times sake, I did record a few hours on a DVD, of the last of the Teletext on 2. These little quirky pieces of info are the things you used to get on some of the techie / media shows. I don't think there are any of these type of shows left now either. (Such as the one Bob Tomalski used to present on Sky News, or "Satellite Surgery" on whatever channels it was on) Anyone know different??
MEDIA NETWORK ARCHIVES: On the subject of Media programmes, Media Network was a great radio show from Radio Nederland that evolved into a firm favourite with dxers. Johnathan Marks the main presenter has been archiving many of his old recordings. One of his latest to be archived includes the amazing tale of Radio Nova Dublin boss, Chris Carey escaping from an open nick (prison) in England before fleeing to New Zealand!! He was caught and flown back to serve his time. This was after flogging hooky cards for Sky. Sadly Chris died a few years ago, and never quite recovered from a stroke he suffered in the nick.
BBC SCHOOLS: I had a favourable e mail from an old kronie about last month's school pamphlets which I reproduced here. (photos, not a full reproduction) I was also reminded about a kind of thing we used to get when we were 5-6, in the very early primary school days. Music and Movement. Yes, I do remember that and it was a kind of a girlie prancey type thing, not exactly running and jumping. LOL.. I'd forgotten about this one!! Other TV programmes I do recall were "WATCH" with a chic called "Roseanne" or similar, "Music Time", "A Year's Journey", "Around Scotland". On the radio we had "Singing Together", "Nature", "From Seven To Nine", and on a Friday in the early years at primary school, we had the afternoon story. It always followed "Listen With Mother", which we used to hear the tail end of, including the unforgettable theme tune. This would have been in 1968 / 69 I guess. There was something called "Poetry Corner" on a Tuesday I believe, from memory. I remember "Look and Read" with the little series, "Len and the River Mob". I think I may have seen this just before I went to school, and not actually during school. "Len" appeared in Minder as a dodgy motor mechanic pal of Arthur. On a Thursday we had the dreaded Religious Service first thing in the morning. It was a good time to fall asleep and daydream, but just sometimes the teacher would quiz you about this crap as well! Why o why did they insist on wasting kids time by ramming religious dribble down their throats. I also remember making things like ink blotters at woodwork. But everyone was using biro pens in my day, not the inkwell and nibs!!
DEMONISING HOARDERS - SOMEONE WITH A VILE DISEASE, OR A WISE MAN?? I was bemused the other night while sitting doing nothing but flicking through the tv channels (In itself a sign of not being able to get my head around anything more constructive, usually to do with a drunken weekend..lol). Anyhow, I came across some amusing programme or other about Britain's worst hoarders. I watched as some folks were assisting to get the homes and gardens of these so called hoarders cleaned up. But I got to thinking. Who are these jumped up college girls, and penguin impersonators that judge others anyway?? Well if the BBC had employed more hoarders and not stupid "clear out the old stuff" types some years ago, there wouldn't have been any lost episodes of Dads Army or Z Cars etc. But luckily for our heritage, the museums are full of "stuff" which has been collected by similar "hoarders" in years gone by. Much more has been lost and thrown away when falling into the hands of fools. Back to the story, and I was amused that these silly little green college girls go on public TV and openly talk about the so called hoarder's "serious illness" and his "psychological problem". They were quite frankly extremely rude, and I 'd have shown the likes of that the door. Straight away!! I'm sure they actually believed in what they were saying. HOWEVER.. Some of the places visited, the folk are seriously only keeping a hold of old papers and empty beer bottles and drinks cans, not as a collection of newspapers like a local library, or radio enthusiast for that matter, but more of a simple pile of old rubbish. Cat shit, years of fag ends, and dirty old shirts lying around the place, bathtub too full of crap to take a wash however is less like a hoarder, and more like just a dirty black b****** LOL... I think there is a major difference between someone that has run out of room for the stuff they wish to keep a hold of, and the "black, manky ba*****s, that are just simply too fat and bone idle lazy to clean the hoose!!! LOL I however have a few old sheds that are piled to the ceiling with junk that may or may not be used for something or other one day. That cracking old hi fi amp that works only on one channel now, that I may fix some day... that kind of thing. If I am looking for lengths of wood I could find enough for whatever wee job I am looking for. Or bits of metal for some project or other. Or spare PC monitors. Gees yes, I don't know how many I have piled up as spares!! I have had the need to use quite a few over the years. And old scrap PC's I have for spares, and old video recorders, incase the last one dies on me when a historical VHS tape requires to be transferred to DVD. Yes, quite a pile up of old videos are lying around here. The "auld fermers" used to go to sales and cart home mountains of "stuff". My own farmer grandfather had sheds full of lengths of wood, and other bits and pieces. I remember as a boy, playing amongst all his stuff. And there was never any shortage of timber whenever any major jobs were being done around the farm, or by his offsprings. I was in a house last year which is pretty local to me. The guy there did have only sitting room for one, among all this rubbish piled on his living room easy chairs and couches and table. And it was rubbish that seemed to be waiting to go into the bin. Carrier bags with old soap powder boxes and bean tins..LOL.. Another old farmer I used to visit had similar room in the kitchen, where he really spent most of his time. The big old kitchen table was piled high and no room even for a cuppa to sit!! How I wished for a rake through the place. That was one of the places that had worthwhile historical artefacts around the place. I have seen some very interesting historical collections come out of places like that!! I recently "lost" I have no idea how much local material. An old acquaintance was clearing out his "old hoarder" of a father's loft before selling the house, after a bereavement. I was given a loan of a small album of photos to scan. They were of celebrations from the 1935 jubilee. But despite his late father hoarding all his old original glass negatives he had in his loft, the son came around and threw the lot out. "Aye", he told me, "You have no idea the amount of those old gless things that I threw out". The old boy was a press man and a photographer, so I am in no doubt that he had good camera gear even in those days. I turned a funny colour when he told me this story, and cursed and swore and ranted and raved at him!!! LOL.. How can anyone now not be aware of the historical value of these things, after all the programmes that are on the television these days about antiques? There is a local history group on his doorstep, a publisher of history books, museums, and I live only a couple of miles away from his old folks house!! Anyway, back to the old hoarders, and I bet the self acclaimed experts that judge these old hoarders would be happy to obtain a second hand part for their cars at their local scrap yard, despite the scrappie's so called "obvious illness". Maybe some folks with the "illness that never was" stems from living in the country, when you just can't go down the local shop and get xxxx without a 30 mile round trip. Or maybe it's a case of "Why buy something new when something old will work". My own main PC, a well respectable dual core / processor thing came from a bin. What was wrong with it? A twenty quid power supply, that I had lying around anyway, because I am a hoarder. Maybe the so called experts have too much money around them, and judge everyone else in the same way, being completely clueless to being flat broke. I personally would have judged the jumped up shrink with his weird penguin outfit and bright yellow thing around his neck as an oddity LOL. Whatever the reasons, I seem to be in the category of being a hoarder!!! In the words of an old kronie of mine. "A tidy office is no' a busy office". |
