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Heard something on 171 kHz

D

ddsparxx

Tonight at 11:30 PM EST I just heard a very faint signal (less than S1) on 171 kHz, what sounded like Middle East or Asian music, and doing a Google search, the station is probably from Morocco. I also heard a very weak CW beacon on 216 in the USB mode, the CW mode just delivers only a weak carrier tone.

Has anybody heard any TA DX recently?
 
After reading your post, I decided to get out my Grundig G8 and listen to longwave but didn't hear anything on 171 khz.

I've never heard anything on the LW band here in Tampa with the G8 but tonight I heard some strange sounds on certain frequencies which I guess are beacons? and I on 387 khz, I'm hearing a loud series of beeps all in the same note and tone in a sequence of 1-2-3-4 and then a pause and then the 1-2-3-4 again.

Does anyone know where this could be from?
 
Is Allouise on 162 still the most likely Eurostation to hop across the pond? We've heard them lots of times.
We like how long wavers fade in at their local dusk and fade out at our local dawn but stay fairly constant between the two.
 
ddsparxx said:
Tonight at 11:30 PM EST I just heard a very faint signal (less than S1) on 171 kHz, what sounded like Middle East or Asian music, and doing a Google search, the station is probably from Morocco. I also heard a very weak CW beacon on 216 in the USB mode, the CW mode just delivers only a weak carrier tone.

Has anybody heard any TA DX recently?
Click to expand...

TA DX can be very challenging this time of year, but it can be done as someone on the board previously pointed out.
 
I'm still hearing the same beacon on 387 which is a good signal too late in the morning after 11:30.

According to this, there's a beacon on this frequency in the Turks and Caicos and also one from
San Andrés-Providencia, Colombia.

There's one in Iowa too but there's all land between there and Tampa.

http://www.dxinfocentre.com/ndb.htm

Also, this signal is strongest when the radio is facing a NNE/SSW direction which would seem to rule out the Turks and Caicos.

I wish I knew where this is from. :-\

When I first got my Grundig G8, I scanned the longwave band but didn't hear anything but a couple beacons and some weak strange noises but I also didn't realize the longwave uses the internal ferrite antenna.

Now that I turn the radio in different directions, there are more faint stations to be heard even during the day. None of them are talking, though.

I never took much notice of longwave until now.
 
Marine and aircraft radio-location beacons. Most are about 10w so they don't get very far. Use them for navigation (before the days of GPS). They same way you are locating them. Tune the frequency and null (or max the signal - I preferred null) and as long as the signal remianed null you were heading toward the beacon. They are being turned off (like Loran) as no longer necessary. Signal is usually the station ID in Morse. Look on a marine or aircraft chart to see which ones are still active
 
Hmmm. Here in VA, I didn't hear anything on 162, 387, or the 1 2 3 4 that was mentioned. The radio I was using is the Icom IC-R75.
 
Considering the direction, the all saltwater path, and the low frequency, I'm thinking it's the one from San Andrés-Providencia, Colombia which is not actually within the land area of the nation but a tiny island pretty far to the north of Colombia.

The distance is about 1,100 miles from here.

If that's the case, not bad for a daytime groundwave catch and barefoot, no less.
 
At 4:40 pm EST I am hearing the Morse code on 387 at less than S1 signal strength, with the antenna pointing south.
Click to expand...


Does it have the same kind of code as the vid I posted?

I just noticed something else. According to that beacon list I posted, there's a beacon here in Tampa on 388 khz. For some reason, my radio doesn't go in increments of 1 khz on LW and the next frequency when I tune is 396 khz.

If I'm hearing the 388 khz beacon from Tampa spilling over on to 387 khz, it doesn't sound like typical adjecent frequency spill over but like the signal is from 387 khz but I could be wrong. I'm able to null out the signal too when the radio is in the right position.

It sounds strong for a beacon that's assumed to be a great distance but weak assuming it's only from here in Tampa.

Don't know what to make of this.
 
OK, I din't know about the step adjustment and I just adjusted it to 1 khz increments.

Sure enough, it's the one from Tampa on 388 khz.

I'll delete the YouTube video because there's nothing exciting about hearing a station from your own town. :-[


At least there's now more possibilities to hear things on longwave with the 1 khz setting.
 
A two kilowatter on 396 Khz into a 400 foot radiator lives on Bimini, south island, Bahamas.
Covers South Florida like a local broadcaster, certainly better than any local becon or any of the ZNS's.
 
ai4i said:
Is Allouise on 162 still the most likely Eurostation to hop across the pond? We've heard them lots of times.
We like how long wavers fade in at their local dusk and fade out at our local dawn but stay fairly constant between the two.
Click to expand...
Here in SW Ohio, my most frequent longwave is Ireland on 252.
 
Icangelp said:
Here in SW Ohio, my most frequent longwave is Ireland on 252.
Click to expand...

RTÉ on 252 was my first LW log ('tick' actually...in my WRTH 2009 edition), with my only other 'tick' being Iceland's RÁS on 189 (I may have gotten more...but, I'd have to scroll way back through posts here). Given that both of these are 'only' 300 kW, I'm rather surprised that I've yet to bag some of the big 2 million watt power houses. I've fiddled around with wires and what not, for antennas, but they'd usually give me 'false images' of other broadcasters on the LW frequencies, so I stick to barefoot LW DXing (for MW, as well).

~BG
 
Here In McKinney, TX I get the 387 beacon in the USB/LSB mode. It obviously meant to be an AM station (it has a carrier tone), but since its so weak thats the only way to get it.
 
Our longwave DXing ended when the radio died toward the late 1970's when France Inter was actually still up on 164Khz.
All of our catches were below the region 2 beacon band which we believe starts at 190Khz
 
I had an amazing catch on my G8 traveller II on longwave last night. I caught a beacon from northern Quebec at 332 khz wich is over 1500 km's from me. Not bad for only 10 watts and a radio that's supposedly deaf on longwave. I wasn't using any antennas either...just barefo0t and it was as strong as one of the locals.
 
To effectively DX nav beacons, one should understand CW at least the basic 5 wpm.
By any standards, they send really slowly.
Lesson #1: there are no dots and dashes; those are dits and dahs.
When you tune in dah dah didit dah dididiit dah dididit, all you should hear in your mind is ZBB-ZBB-ZBB.
 
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