KEN'S DX DIARY AND LOGS - WEDNESDAY 30th SEPTEMBER 2015

NOTES FROM TODAY:

I have been recording again with the Perseus. Today, Wednesday 30th, CJOB Winnipeg was in the clear on 680 at 0605, with wx and into coast to coast. At 0600 the freq was a bit mushy....So maybe things are looking better after all.

 

KEN'S DX DIARY AND LOGS - TUESDAY 29th SEPTEMBER 2015

WEB UPDATE AT LONG LAST:

At long last I have found a minute or two to update this web site. I have totally been lacking in time this last few months due to new work situation. In fact I did not even manage to hear any sporadic e on the vhf bands this summer. I am not even sure what was happening, or whether it was a good, bad or indifferent season.

I have a few notes that I shall include that almost made it to a June page. But even that never got finished. I will stick it at the bottom of this page. Although there has been absolutely no activity visible on the site since February, I have been listening a lot to old radio shows from the past.

In fact I do want to pass comment on some recordings from 1988.

 

1988 RECORDINGS:

I was listening to a couple of 1988 recordings the other day. One was a test transmission from KISS FM Monaghan, and the other was Caroline on 6210. At the time I really thought KISS was the best station ever. It was heard well over Europe on 1008 at night when the Dutchie signed off in the evenings.

Anyway, as I listened, it became clear that at least during the tests, KISS were playing those dreadful 80s mega mixes and 12 inch disco stuff. In all fairness I am not so sure they played this kinda stuff during their day to day programmes.

Caroline on the other hand were still in their Kylie Minogue format, but at least it wasn't the extended megamix versions..

KISS had by far the better jingle package. Caroline seemed almost hobby pirate like by comparison, yet I enjoyed the Caroline stuff better than the KISS tests when listening now. Maybe later in the week I can stick on some KISS full day broadcasts with presenters. I suspect the music choice will be much more suitable.

But oh what fun it was to turn back the clock and relive 1988!!!! That took 28 years off me...lol!!!!

 

REPAIRS TO ANTENNAS:

A funny thing happened this past Saturday.

For many a long month I have moaned and bitched and whined about the lousy MW conditions. I guess the TADX has really been very poor because I am not the only dxer to complain of this.

I have had a 250m drum of satellite coax kicking around, bought for the purpose of renewal of the beverage coax on the main 500m north west pointing antenna, due to the large amount of joins I have on the cable. I think I had intended to get this done last winter and never bothered my shirt due to lack of interest because of the crap signals.

So on Saturday past, Davie H offered some assistance and we decided to try replacing the coax to see if there was any benefit. I had assumed that 250m of coax would be enough. Not so. I must have at least 300m of coax between the shack and the start of the antenna proper!!!! (I have never measured the coax).

Anyway, as Davie held the drum, I reeled it out and walked to the start of the antenna in the woods.

As I said, we first of all tried the run to see if it was going to reach the shack. It didn't. So a hasty change of plan allowed a connection to the long single run of thick coax that was undamaged all except for the place near the shack I had to cut it and let it go into the river some time back due to high water levels and flooding. (Large trees catching heavy coax could have ripped the side out the shack..lol)

So I have a 300m run approx with only 2 joins now, and not the dozen or more joins

But the story doesn't end there.....

When we went back to the start of the antenna itself, I had a quick look at the balun.

"Hey Davie", I say, "Come and have a look at this".

"Bloody hell the aerial is connected straight to earth" (Language tamed a bit for publication..lol)

And so it was. The wire came in from the sticks holding up the antenna, and ran to the earth point. Now I have to think back carefully, and try and think when last I was messing around with the antenna.

Last year about this time maybe, the farmer had been digging ditches, and the digger had caught the coax and hauled the lot out into the field. Luckily it was tough old cable, but there was still some damage. I did at the time re-route the coax so that hedge cutters could not get it again, in theory. But this digging up of the coax had nothing to do with connecting the antenna to ground. The area around the start of the antenna is in thick woods, and was untouched by the JCB. So why was it connected to ground??? When had it been so connected?

I can honestly say I have absolutely no idea.

I see in September 2014 I am whining about very poor mw dx. In October there was some good dx on 14th. That included graveyarders on 1230 and 1340. I was also commenting about good Euro separation again from the TADX.

After that, I think the MW dx was just so poor I eventually gave up recording.

So does this mean that the one really good day in October was just using the coax as an antenna???

Maybe?

I note that in January 2015 I have said I walked the antenna a few times and found nothing broken.

Maybe the connection had been wrongly made in the dark? I quite a number of times sent music up the cable and took a speaker to the woods, to check the continuity of the coax. I guess I must have sent music up the cable after the JCB dug the cable up. Who knows.

One final note. Since I had some cable left over after joining the coax to the thick stuff already running to the shack, I wondered if it was long enough to reach the shack from the shorter westerly beverage. It certainly reached a point where there was a majorly thick cable running into the shack from a past antenna. Back in the shack Davie asks me to try 981 Radio Star on the beverage. Usually better on shorter bev I tell him. Clicked the switch and sure enough it was better.

"Hang on", says Davie, "The coax isn't joined up to the new stuff".

He was right of course. This reception of Star was only on the coax!! What a crazy mixed up aerial system I have here!!!!

The band is not great, but at least there are a few signals around now. Chicago was in on 1000, and 780 at 0600 29/9. I have joints still to solder and I had thought about replacing the aerial cable itself with 4 lumps of cable at 100m each, and making proper joints, soldered etc.

And it is good to have signals on every channel again, peaking here around 0600 at the minute.

 

REPAIRS TO RECEIVERS:

I have had a couple of radios which have been out of commission for some time. My second Perseus which had a feed of 12 volts some time ago was returned to Italy, and repaired at a very reasonable cost and even faster than the Post Office could update the tracking system!! The package was ready to be sent back to me while the tracking listed it as still in Milano awaiting delivery.

I also have an Icom 706 transceiver which I bought on ebay a number of years ago, as a receiver for band 1 tv carriers and sound etc, and also the 50mHz band. My old Tandy scanner never had SSB. The unit was sold as not transmitting. There was nothing obvious but I had heard through a ham friend that ICOM UK were very reasonable and efficient. I returned it to ICOM and was pleasantly surprised by the price for restoring the unit. So I now have a mobile for 2m and 6m as well as hf. Not that I am a much of a regular on the amature bands!!!

If I had this set returned a few weeks ago when I was away a road trip to make a pick up in Surrey for the work, I may have taken it with me. Though that might not have been too clever. I might have ended up through the hedge on the motorway..lol... Instead I opted for Heart, and Led Zeppelin, and The Eagles to pass away the long boring hours. I never even bothered trying for and of the London Pirates or the Midlands stations..

 

NEW FUNKY MP3 PLAYER / GHETO BLASTER / JUKE BOX..LOL:

I have been pissed off with the lack of sounds on the 45 minute journey to work each day. I was having a think that I should try and coggle up something that works of the cig lighter. My initial thoughts were for a small mp3 player, and car radio with a line in, and speakers. I sent off for a small ebay mp3 player that was pretty cheap. After trying this, it did what it said on the box. Played. But the screen was so small and multi function controls made it very inconvenient for me. So I took an old netbook someone gave me a while back. Built a frame around it, and stuck in a 20 quid inverter from ebay for working mains from a cig lighter. It also is usable on normal mains.

The speakers were not exactly what I had in mind. They are not that beefy, but will do until I can find better ones. which I do have kicking around somewhere..

 

 

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MORE EURO POWER HOUSES TO GO OFF AIR THAN WE CAN HANDLE:

After the end of this year, and I don't want to wish my life away, the MW band in Europe will look very very different. Over the years we have seen many of the Euro powerhouses go off air. There are already two QRO stations in Holland that have went off air in the last days. 747 and 675. The 675 mast is already demolished!!

But by the end of the year, we are apparently expecting to see the end of German and French high powered stations.

Frequencies I can think of that will supposedly close in Germany include 549, 756, 1268, 1422.

France is closing many of it's transmitters at year end as well... The WRTH listed France as 162, 603, 711, 792 (already off air), 837 (already off air), 864, 945 (already off air), 1206, 1242, 1278, 1377, 1404, 1494, 1557

RADIO NOVA DUBLIN PRESENTERS:

I was thinking the other day that we never really ever made listings of the Radio Nova presenters and news readers. (I don't think). So here goes with the ones I can think of.

OFFSHORE FAVOURITES:

Tony Allan, Chris Cary, Andy Archer, Peter Madison, Stevie Dunn / Gordon, Tom Hardy, Johnnie Lewis, Rick Harris, Jessie Brandon, Tony Garreth

LUXEMBOURG AND OTHERS:

Dave Christian, Casey Casem, Rick Dees, Gary Owens, Rosco

IRISH PRESENTERS:

John Clarke, Jason Mayne, Mike Moran, Mike Edgar, Dennis Murray, Greg Gaughran, Decklan Mehan, Tony Fenton, Hugh O'Brian, Colm Hays, Scott Williams, Eddie West, Chris Barry, Lawrence John, Tony McKenzie, Mike Hogan

???? Richard Jackson .....was Richard the same English guy who was also on Caroline?
Liam Quiggley.... Or was Liam only on Energy 103???

 

NEWS READERS:

Terry Riley, Bob Gallico, Sybil Fennil, Martin Block, Sibhaun Persil, Dave Harvey, Howard Hughs, Brian Dobson, Ken Hammond

 

JUNE 2015 - AUTUMN IN SCOTLAND (written in June but not published)

Well, hello to everyone out there in radio land. All is fine with me... and I thank those that were asking....

This blog has not been updated in many months. This is the first time I have had so long a gap without an entry since this part of the web site appeared in one form or another around 2007!!! The main reason has been a change at work, resulting in a much less amount of time available for radio. Though initially the lack of entries was mainly because I had nothing to say due to to very poor MW dx conditions. So poor were they, that I just gave up on this past season as a bad job. I haven't been recording with the Perseus at all in the last months

The headline Autumn is of course tongue in cheek, but once again this year we have had a serious lack of heat and sunshine. As we approach mid summer, we are in the midst of a freezing spell, much like a back end October day!! Shocking!!! I seem to remember that last year or the year before I reported a similar thing in June when the beech trees were turning brown with the severe cold weather.