Report from Dunlo, PA, USA for 27 February 2011

[Dave Valko]

27 FEBRUARY 2011: When I awoke, conditions seemed better than they have been. Was getting some audio on 6959.8 Atlantic R. and 6210 LHH's carrier was audible (in SSB). The propagation data looked really interesting. The Solar Flux was elevated and the Geomagnetic Field was fairly quiet. A 6 mhz MUF was shown from UK to Greenland. I also finally got the new 4.0a version of Perseus working on the computer. So I was kind of anxious to get up to the SGLs. Got started earlier but had a hard time. Forgot my headlight at work and had to improvise with the small maglight I've used in the past. Hung it from the visor. On the way up I realized I never saw Windows Mail in the new Windows 7 setup. Sure enough there was no mail program of any sort when I checked while setting up. So had to resort to Notepad. There was also no SRS Premium Sound, so the audio didn't sound quite as clean/good. I was still getting the computer noise when I twisted the USB cable but I wasn't getting the scratchy ticking noise. I think the Perseus receiving software is a little more stable without all the (pre-installed) useless garbage I had previously. Plus, repartitioning the drive gave me much more memory space to record. When I started, I found 6959.8 still had a little audio and there was a signal on 6210 (which has been unusual) when I checked around 0645 UTC. It took awhile to get the Perseus settings adjusted to my preferences and for best reception. Propagation conditions ended up pretty decent. As good as the best, or the best of all Winter!! It was good to about 0815 UTC then faded. I was thinking about calling it a night at 0900, but then Paardenkracht came on and was audible followed by a few more stations, so I decided to stay. I was surprised when conditions actually started to improve towards 1000. It was probably better between 0950-1005 than the previous 50 minutes. After that it faded pretty quickly. I was shocked that Paardenkracht was still audible at 1025 when I quit. That was 4:53 hours after sunrise in the Netherlands!!!! It was 11:25 AM there !!! I probably never heard stations on 48 meters coming in that late at this late stage of the season. Truely amazing. Its interesting to note that some listeners in Europe found propagation rather poor. Further proof that when conditions are poor in Europe, its good here (long distance).

RX: Microtelecom Perseus SDR with ARR preamp.
ANT: 315' Beverage (BOG) at 50°.
QTH: Pennsylvania State Game Lands #26
Duration: 0650-1025 UTC
Solar Indices: Solar Flux = 90 A Index = 5 K Index = 2 No storms. X-Ray flux was B2.
WX: Cloudy and very windy. Around 30° F. (-1° C.)


5800.04 FRSH Big signal on the air at 0751:00. Audio on at 0754:17 w/same Rock song they've used before. IS routine. "FRS Holland, quality 1 on shortwave" jingle among others. Full ID, date, 3rd installment of the "30 Years of FRS Holland" anniversary show 1998 to present. Nice signal and sounding fine in a wide bandwidth. Still fairly good at 0940. Easily audible at 1003 w/mx. And still a little readable at 1025 when I quit. That's an incredible 4:53 minutes after sunrise in the Netherlands!!! I might expect this on 41 meters but not below 49 meters!! Getting machine gun UTE QRM and some SSB traffic QRM at 0945. (27 Feb.)

5820.02 Orion R. On the air at 0758:35. Start of usual s/on routine at 0800:18 w/Percy Faith, but no mx before. Pretty nice in width bandwidth. ID and into mx. 0807 canned ID, Off Shore Echos ad, then live ID w/freq by John. Very nice!! Hello to R. Saxonia. Said had some Internet problems. 100% copy...when the machine gun UTE wasn't on. Into song by America. 0815:10 great "He's back again..." jingle. 0835 John back w/listen acknowledgements from Central Finland and the UK. Beach Boys, Elton John, Pink Floyd, Zager & Evans Faded a bit by 0830. Came back up some in the next 20 minutes, then faded again. Gone at 0936 check, so obviously signed off early. One of the best, if not the best signal ever heard from Orion R. (27 Feb.)

5820.26 Free R. Victoria?? Just a little spike here at 1024 per Iann's blog. Can't really be sure if it was Victoria or not. Unid. reported here in Ricks Pirate Radio Blog. (27 Feb.)

6200 R. Trans Europe A signal here at 0913:50. Definitely had some mx on brief peaks. Went off the air at 0947:27. Hopelessly too weak. Thought it might be China until I saw in Iann's blog that he heard it. (27 Feb.)

6204.07 R. Dr. Buis (tent.) Came on the air at 1010:45. No chance as it was much too weak and too late. Could still see the signal in the display at times though at 1025. (tnx Iann and ukDXers blogs) (27 Feb.)

6210 LHH Signal was there when I started recording at 0705, but not strong enough. At threshold by 0714. Little peak at 0729, but readable w/"Sweet Surrender" by Bread at 0737 followed by "The Guitar Man". 0742 song anmnts, then horrible SSB traffic QRM from 6212 for the next half hour but it didn't matter as the signal dropped down in the mud. Really nice peak later at 0829. Mentioned "6210 in the 49 meterband" during annmt at 0831. Would be rather respectable on short peaks every so often, but it never stayed in long enough. Still getting a little audio on this at 1017. (27 Feb.)

6214.63 Probably King Shortwave here coming on at 0733:37, but totally blasted out by Black Bandit. Occasionally stronger than LHH just below when LHH was audible, but couldn't hear an definitive audio on this. So must be really undermodulated. Thought heard some mx at 0800, and possible brief M anmnt at 0801, and then off at 0801:38. Back on at 0819:38. Some extremely weak mx during a couple peaks in the 2 min. at 0829. Up to 6214.76 at 0830. Still have a signal on 6214.81 at 0920. No one else report King Shortwave, so maybe it wasn't them. (27 Feb.)

6218 R. Black Bandit On the air w/humongous signal at 0719:44. Mx start 0723:23, then turned down a minute and a half later and signal gone. On again at 0725:41 and same Dance song continued. Some sort of promo/ID "...naturally the world is strange...strong voice coming from space..." and ending w/electrnoically voice altered echo ID "Black Bandit, Black Bandit" at 0736 and 0737 but couldn't copy all of it. Same canned simple "Black Bandit" ID and immediately off at 0740:43. Came back on at 0748:05 and "Take My Breath Away" about 2 min. later. Went off at 0753:56 w/out anmnts. Unbelieveably strong. Could have easily heard it on a small portable with whip antenna!! (27 Feb.)

6219.89 Misti R. Signal came on at 0811:00. Mx started about 45 seconds later. Easily audible at 0813 but didn't recog. song. Nice short peak at 0816. Faded in the next 4 min. and only barely audible on peaks after that. Apparently it went off sometime in the short 30 second time span when I stopped recording at 0846. No ID hrd but IDed by Iann and Irish Paul. (27 Feb.)

6250 UNID. A signal here almost from the start. Still there at 0740 so doubt its Malabo as it should have faded out. And right on freq, so couldn't be Pyongyang. (27 Feb.)

6254.75 R. Saxonia (very tent.) Came on at 0830:25. No chance for this, but some of the early peaks were getting close to audio strength. Could just barely see it rising above the noise floor at times at 0910. Intermittant UTE QRM on both sides of this. Freq matches Ricks Pirate radio blog. (27 Feb.)

6282 R. Shadow Hrd early too. Came on at 0713:15. Didn't start getting audio until 0719. Low level audio until canned echo ID by W at 0725 as "This is R. Shadow on shortwave". Fortunately the freq was clear of the UTE QRM at this time. Low level mx audio continued then. Would have been nice if the level was up to 100% when the signal was peaking at 0728. Finally was able to recognize "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straites at 0740. Audio still just at threshold at 0900. Horrible UTE QRM from 6281. Finally off the air 0948:19. (27 Feb.)

6289.97 UNID. Very weak signal here at 0930. Nowhere near strong enough for audio. Strongly suspect a Pirate though. Definitely some mx at 0949 getting better along w/Paardenkracht!! Good enough to recogn. song at 0951 but was just an unrec. instru. Sounded like a Schlager at 0954, but fading back down. Wisps of Schlager at 1002 w/readable peak. Faded but still visible at times and off the air at 1012:10. (hrd Unid. by Irish Paul too) (27 Feb.)

6299.96 R. Black Power Big signal from the start w/end of the Hollies "Bus Stop" followed by "Pride" by U2. ID over U2 at 0706 w/morning greetings; "A very good morning. This is R. Black Power with a little bit of music on this Sunday morning. I hope you receive me". Bee Gees at 0711, then Herb Alpert. "Music Power" jingle at 0716 then "Venus" by Shocking Blue. Another jingle and "One Vision" by Queen. REM at 0726. Voice anmnts were very bassy. Getting 6297 SADR slop-over QRM from 0728 making it really tough despite Black Powers strong signal. Nice ID jingle at 0734 amid slop. More live ID anmnts at 0745 but difficult. Went off sometime between 0821 and 0825 while I was checking other freqs. (27 Feb.)

6300.65 R. Bonofox Signal came on here at 1010:50. Thought at first this might have been the 6289.97 Unid., but it had gone off a few minutes after Bonofox came on. No chance for audio really. Just too late. Could still see this on the display at 1027 though. (27 Feb.)

6304.90 R. Paardenkracht Signal on the air here at 0837:30, some buzzing as jacks were being plugged in(!!), and mx w/voice-over ID anmnts 0839:45. Morning greetings, freq, etc. Into "Waterloo" by Abba. Then apparently Black Bandit retured 100 hz above causing some buzzing to the signal at 0843.:03 Black Bandit went off then at 0847:20 leaving Paardenkracht in the clear, but it went off (changing freq) as well at 0847:25. Continued back here at 0913:55 where he continued the anmnts saying "...6305 khz, not stereo...". 0931 "Honey Honey" by Abba follow by "Stuck in the Middle With You". Fading by this time though. Barely audio at 0945, but suddenly coming up quite readable at 0947. DT anmnts at 0959:05. ID at 1000. Giving ID phonetically at 1004. 1017 played a couple oldies I couldn't recognize. Can't believe this was still readable at 1020. Was still hearing a carrier there when I checked back at home at about 1055!!!!. Fading quickly at 1025. (27 Feb.)

6304.97 R. Black Bandit Huge OC came on at 0802:10. 0807:40 Schlager started and pounding away!! Couple more songs and some from 0816-0819. When it restarted at 0819, audio was motorboating. Sounded fine though at 0825 when I returned. Went off at 0829:30. No ID hrd but IDed per Irish Paul. (27 Feb.)

6305.55 R. Sonic Signal came on at 0705:48, then mx started a minute later. Played songs I didn't recognize. Tlk in song at 0724 confused me as it sounded like anmnts. Signal came up pretty nicely at 0727. Anmnts at 0733 but all I could copy was a morning greeting. 0742:10 nice ID, e-mail, "good morning" and "...here on shortwave in the 48 meterband, it was R. Sonic on 6305". Went off at 0743:20 then. Not that bad of a signal but getting a lot of slop QRM from R. Black Power and SADR. (27 Feb.)

6309.88 R. Pardenkracht Changed freq from 6304.90 coming on here at 0847:30. Heavy SSB traffic QRM 1 khz above. Played some unrecognizable Pop/Rock mx. ID at 0913:20 saying he was going to move back to 6305 and did indeed move back down to 6304.88 where he continued the ID anmnts. Still pretty good. (27 Feb.)

6380.07 R. Scotland Int. Signal came on at 0952:52. Pretty good strength. Rock mx started at 1000:20. Could recognize "Crazy Horses" by The Osmonds at 1004. 1005 ID as "Scotland R." ment of 48 mb, then ID as RSI and ment of USA, canned jingle, and back to mx. More voice-over anmnts at 1012 w/morning greetings, etc. Into "Gimme Shelter" by The Rolling Stones, then more anmnts and saying the record has "broken down". Gave e-mail address, then said "one more record". 1022 jingle and off at 1022:19. Pretty clear freq except for machine gun UTE at times. (27 Feb.)

6380.87 R. Powerliner (very tent.) Signal on at 1023:57. Apparently the one here per Iann's blog, but I shut down at 1025 and didn't hear any audio. (27 Feb.)

6805 thought I had Rock mx here at 0846, but when I started recording it wasn't there. But there was a similar signal on 6837 and could hear bits of mx. (27 Feb.)

6959.8 Atlantic R. Got an ID around 0655 while setting up. 0705 "Old Man" by Neil Young. 0714 "Red Red Wine" by UB40. 0734 "Baba O'Reily". 0740 "More Than a Feeling" by Boston, followed by "You Can't Hurry Love" by Phil Collins. Peaking pretty nicely for a short time at 0750. Promo/ID at 0759 but weak unfortunately. Still there at 0921. Weak signal with only some occasional peaks. Getting some slop-over QRM from 6951 UTC. (27 Feb.)

7600.03 FRSH 0820 with the anniversary show tlk abt current events in 1982. Recordings of FRSH. Nowhere near as strong as 5800 at this time. Much much better at 0925 w/ID and freq anmnt. Tlked abt friendship and their old unique jingles. (27 Feb.)

[JoJo]

Hello Dave,

Thanks for the report and comment much appreciated. Wow one of the best signals ever so far As we all know it is all in the conditions because last months I am using less power as before!
Keep up the good work my friend, cheers!

[Trans Europe]

Hello Dave,

thank you very much for the report!
I did not expect to be heard in the United States last weekend.
I hope that conditions will improve soon and listening will be a little more pleasant.

Thanks again and keep listening!

Hans.
Trans Europe Radio.