Transatlantic / Transpacific MW Logs

kilokat7 · Aug 28, 2011

I'll kick off the season with this one:

1521 khz - 0200 UTC - BSKSA Saudi Arabia peaking to audio for long durations through the 1520 splatter with Middle Eastern-ish chanting (Quran?). I'm having to narrow the bandwidth down to 1khz to receive this, sacrificing audio quality, but it's clearly parallel to a remote SDR in Greece also tuned to 1521. I never could find a working Internet stream for this one.

radioman148 · Aug 28, 2011

kilokat7 said:
I'll kick off the season with this one:

1521 khz - 0200 UTC - BSKSA Saudi Arabia peaking to audio for long durations through the 1520 splatter with Middle Eastern-ish chanting (Quran?). I'm having to narrow the bandwidth down to 1khz to receive this, sacrificing audio quality, but it's clearly parallel to a remote SDR in Greece also tuned to 1521. I never could find a working Internet stream for this one.

It's amazing that you can tune out Buffalo on 1520 to hear that DX.

spunker88 · Aug 28, 2011

Nice catch, if I remember correctly WWKB is directional to the east at night so it shouldn't be that much of a problem there in Michigan.

kilokat7 · Aug 28, 2011

WWKB gives me 20 over S9 on the S meter right now, so it's definitely a pest when listening to 1521.

radioman148 · Aug 28, 2011

I can hear WWKB here quite often in Northern Illinois with just a regular wavemagnet in radio antenna.

pianoplayer88key · Aug 29, 2011

That 1521 in Saudi would be a TA I wish I could try for with my ultralights.

Being where I am, the main pests are 1520 KVTA (until sunset) and KOKC. I'm far enough from 760 KFMB so their second harmonic isn't too pesky, but barely. Think I have a chance from southern Calif, or what would be the best time of the year and time of day to try?

radioman148 · Aug 29, 2011

tfcwings said:
That 1521 in Saudi would be a TA I wish I could try for with my ultralights. Being where I am, the main pests are 1520 KVTA (until sunset) and KOKC. I'm far enough from 760 KFMB so their second harmonic isn't too pesky, but barely. Think I have a chance from southern Calif, or what would be the best time of the year and time of day to try?

Somebody else can answer better than I about whether you have a chance or not, but I know how well KOKC gets out. They have one of the strongest signals of any mainland station in Hawaii.

ddsparxx · Aug 29, 2011

I have heard only the het on 1521 since the Buffalo station is in the way. Recently, I heard a het on 1269 but no audio.

kilokat7 · Aug 31, 2011

1089 khz - 0105 UTC - Small bits of clear audio coming through at times from Talksport (UK). This is only possible when 1100 WTAM has their IBOC off, which is the situation right now (yeah!) During the stronger fade-ups, there's also a het appearing on 1088 khz - an oddball frequency.

stormy01 · Aug 31, 2011

kilokat7 said:
1089 khz - 0105 UTC - Small bits of clear audio coming through at times from Talksport (UK). This is only possible when 1100 WTAM has their IBOC off, which is the situation right now (yeah!) During the stronger fade-ups, there's also a het appearing on 1088 khz - an oddball frequency.

2011 World Radio TV Handbook says 1088 is Angola, 25kW. Now that would be a catch! Lagos, Nigeria used to be on 1088 (20 yrs. ago...)

kilokat7 · Sep 1, 2011

stormy01 said:
kilokat7 said:

1089 khz - 0105 UTC - Small bits of clear audio coming through at times from Talksport (UK). This is only possible when 1100 WTAM has their IBOC off, which is the situation right now (yeah!) During the stronger fade-ups, there's also a het appearing on 1088 khz - an oddball frequency.

Click to expand...

2011 World Radio TV Handbook says 1088 is Angola, 25kW. Now that would be a catch! Lagos, Nigeria used to be on 1088 (20 yrs. ago...)

Wow - thanks! If Angola then I'd be content with just hearing the het

BTW, things are looking good again tonight, if not better than last night at this time. Lots of strong TA hets right now and audio on a few. The band is also much quieter tonight.

Tincap · Sep 3, 2011

Here we go again, looks to be an interesting season.

My first MW catch this season is MR1 Hungary, coming through the clutter on 540 kHz. I've caught this one last season as well, while trying to bag CBK...!

~BG

radioman148 · Sep 4, 2011

Tincap said:
Here we go again, looks to be an interesting season.

My first MW catch this season is MR1 Hungary, coming through the clutter on 540 kHz. I've caught this one last season as well, while trying to bag CBK...!

~BG

Outstanding. Are you barefoot?

Tincap · Sep 4, 2011

radioman148 said:
Tincap said:

Here we go again, looks to be an interesting season.

My first MW catch this season is MR1 Hungary, coming through the clutter on 540 kHz. I've caught this one last season as well, while trying to bag CBK...!

~BG

Click to expand...

Outstanding. Are you barefoot?

Yes, sir, as always! Using my DX-440, on internal antenna.

~BG

kilokat7 · Sep 4, 2011

Awesome catch!

radioman148 · Sep 4, 2011

Tincap said:
radioman148 said:

Tincap said:

Here we go again, looks to be an interesting season.

My first MW catch this season is MR1 Hungary, coming through the clutter on 540 kHz. I've caught this one last season as well, while trying to bag CBK...!

~BG

Click to expand...

Outstanding. Are you barefoot?

Click to expand...

Yes, sir, as always! Using my DX-440, on internal antenna.

~BG

I don't know how you do it, but congratulations.

Tincap · Sep 5, 2011

I love it when WWKB goes to dead air (which happens quite a bit), as it just did. Unfortunately...no sign of Saudi in the breach.

~BG

kilokat7 · Sep 7, 2011

I never thought I'd be reporting south Pacific stations, but 702 & 738 khz are becoming the frequencies to watch here during local sunrise. I had very faint audio on both on Monday and Tuesday morning (conditions weren't as favorable this morning). I can't confirm Australia (702) or Tahiti (738), and I won't log them as such yet, but it seems very likely after talking to some more experienced folks than myself and precise frequency measurements taken with the SDR. Just a tip for you Midwesterners - it's worth a shot if you can null out Zoomer on 740 and WLW on 700. This window of opportunity is short as conditions only peak for about 10 minutes, centered around 7:15am local time here (sunrise enhancement).

stormy01 · Sep 7, 2011

Tincap said:
I love it when WWKB goes to dead air (which happens quite a bit), as it just did. Unfortunately...no sign of Saudi in the breach.

~BG

Satellite-fed programming? How long does this 50kW station have dead air? 1 minute, 5 minutes? Very un-professional! Possibly a windstorm causing the dish antenna to mis-align from the satellite momentarily resulting in loss of audio? In Chicago, sometimes we can hear the audio dropouts on WLS and WIND. One would think engineering for these stations would either use a larger dish to gather more signal or brace the dish so the wind wouldn't cause the dish to move out of alignment with the satellite...

radioman148 · Sep 7, 2011

kilokat7 said:
I never thought I'd be reporting south Pacific stations, but 702 & 738 khz are becoming the frequencies to watch here during local sunrise. I had very faint audio on both on Monday and Tuesday morning (conditions weren't as favorable this morning). I can't confirm Australia (702) or Tahiti (738), and I won't log them as such yet, but it seems very likely after talking to some more experienced folks than myself and precise frequency measurements taken with the SDR. Just a tip for you Midwesterners - it's worth a shot if you can null out Zoomer on 740 and WLW on 700. This window of opportunity is short as conditions only peak for about 10 minutes, centered around 7:15am local time here (sunrise enhancement).

That's exciting--I'm gonna have to try & listen. Isn't the equinox period which we are approaching usually the best for north/south propagation?
I know it works that way on SW, but I'm not sure about MW.