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Radio Australia @19000 kHz heard in Iowa last week

B

Buckeyes2001

Using my Tecsun PL-390 with just the built in whip, I logged Radio Australia around 8PM CDT in central Iowa on 19000 kHz with a fair signal. Is this normal reception?
 
Thanks for the tip. I'll have to give it a try. Nice to see that someone has decided to give this band a go at it since NRK left (leaving international broadcasting altogether) and only Family Radio has been on the band.

8PM CDT this time of year is 11AM on Shepparton, so I'm surprised you got a fair signal from it.

I had fair signals from RA in the USA evening on the 21 MHz band in the past.

Much of the year, RA puts a very strong, and often steady, signal into the Midwestern US/Great Lakes area before and after our sunrise on 9580.
 
cd637299 said:
19000??
Click to expand...

Yes. They broadcast on 19000 kHz between 2300 and 0300 UTC, beamed toward the Caribbean and northern South America (Must be a lot of Aussie nationals working there). This is the upper end of the new and almost-unused 15 meter broadcast band (not the same as the 15 meter ham band, which is 21000-21450 kHz).

I haven't tried for it yet. In fact, I didn't even know the band was in use at all yet. But RA is coming in like gangbusters on 15160 into Arizona right now - and that's on a Grundig Satellit 750 with a wire cut for the 20 meter ham band stuck in its BNC antenna connector with no matching network. 19000 kHz may be doable at that time of the evening here.
 
Ya think I can hear it on my little Kaito 1102? or does it take a monster rig?

cd
 
Hearing it now (0156 UTC 8 May, Michigan, Grundig G8 indoors) poorly.

One note about bands.  The name 15 m is relatively close (and 16m is already used to denote the 17MHz IBC band).
The 15m amateur band is very much misnamed.  It's really should have been called 13 1/3m, but someone figured that since 21MHz is halfway between 14MHz and 28MHz, that it is halfway between 20m and 10m, ergo, it must have been 15m.  However, the length of a wave is proportional to the reciprocal of the frequency, hence it would be 13 1/3m.  Something to keep in mind if you're going to cut an antenna for the 15m amateur band (cut it for 13 1/3 instead).
 
I USED to hear a weak Family Radio signal on 18.930, and sometimes 18.980, back a few years ago.

-crainbebo
 
cd637299 said:
Ya think I can hear it on my little Kaito 1102? or does it take a monster rig?

cd
Click to expand...

I think you could. Kaito's are like chihuahuas- "big dog inside a little dog's body". If the 1102 performs anything like the 1103, they receive as well as any more expensive receiver. I prefer the Kaito over the Grundig Satellit 750. Why? because taking the 750 into the bed at night is unwieldy.

String some random speaker wire to your Kaito I've used a 150' long wire with no overloading. Good radios.
 
MarioMania said:
Care to expain 19000 kHz??
Click to expand...

Mario. Have you been to the Ontario DX Association web site, odxa.on.ca? They have several useful and frequently updated .pdf files that are very helpful for shortwave DX'ers. One of them lists all the English language broadcasts by frequency and by time.

Don't forget to donate if possible, as they are no doubt operate on a shoestring budget.
 
kinphoenix2 said:
cd637299 said:
Ya think I can hear it on my little Kaito 1102? or does it take a monster rig?

cd
Click to expand...

I think you could. Kaito's are like chihuahuas- "big dog inside a little dog's body". If the 1102 performs anything like the 1103, they receive as well as any more expensive receiver. I prefer the Kaito over the Grundig Satellit 750. Why? because taking the 750 into the bed at night is unwieldy.

String some random speaker wire to your Kaito I've used a 150' long wire with no overloading. Good radios.
Click to expand...

Yup....it was there, with longwire.....not a killer signal, mind you, and I could never hear the words "Radio Australia" well (they say it too fast); but the interval signal was indeed that of RA.

Time soon to feed this "chihuahua." :)

cd
 
I finally got around to checking out 19000 on my Eton E-10 barefoot the other night (I think it was Thursday or Friday) just before 10pm Central, 0400 UTC. I definitely heard something....mostly female announcer in what sounded like English. But it was very weak, and I couldn't ID. By 10pm it was gone.

I'll definitely keep after it.
 
^ I have noticed that they temporarily go into off-air/dead-air mode for a span of a minute or two, but then they return. Supposed to be 2300 to 0330 UTC, right?

cd
 
Also, Edit: Bad choice of words by yours truly, writing "interval signal" in my post above---I meant top-of-hour news sounder.

cd
 
I've been listening to RA on 19,000 Khz in the evenings. I do miss the old RA interval signal though.

Radio New Zealand on 15,720 is also receivable many evenings.
 
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