Report from Dunlo, PA, USA, for 24 January 2010

[Dave Valko]

24 JANUARY 2010: The evening before, Amica was doing fairly well, so I was disappointed there was no sign of it, Pirate Music, or even Mystery R. when I awoke. And there was only a very weak carrier on LHH. The MUF map was about the same as last week with a 5 mhz region between UK and Iceland. Except for a 5-10 minute substantial peak around 0830, conditions were just abysmal. Probably the worst all season. It was noisy as well. Conditions have been really poor since that very nice showing on the 20th of December. For as bad as conditions were from Europe, the (few) ZYs on 60 meters were quite good.

RX: Microtelecom Perseus SDR with ARR preamp.
ANT: 315' Beverage (BOG) at 50°.
QTH: Pennsylvania State Game Lands #26
Duration: 0705-0920 UTC
Solar Indices: Solar Flux = 85 A Index = 5 K Index = 1 No storms.
WX: Cloudy. Cool 27° F. (-2° C.)

4025 LHH 0716 just very short bits of weak audio every so often. More noisy down here on the lower freqs. (24 Jan)

5815.03 Orion R. 0753 signal already on at this time (wasn't recording). Mx start at 0754:56. "Offshore Echos" ad at 0807, into "Radar Love" by Golden Earring. Signal actually worse at this time. But, like Amica, seemed slightly better by 0818. 0824 "In the Year 2525". 0827 much much better; John w/ID and freq, greetings from R. Tina and acknowledged messages. Disappointed that it dropped back down after this as conditions once again returned to a very poor level. (24 Jan)

6220 Mystery R. Was getting a little Dance mx mixing in w/Cuba at 0708. "Feeling Stronger" by Chicago at 0726 . 0845 sounded like the CW ID. Was getting Cuba with 2 spurs at once here (multiples of 80 khz) at this time creating a mess; SP pgm from 6140, and the usual EG from 6060. (24 Jan)

6265.27 Delta R. (tent.) Something here at 0851. Definitely strong enough for audio on peaks after 0855+, but nothing positive. Still there at 0903 (when the recording ended) when Iann had them. Getting the usual crackling interference here.

6289.92 R. Altrex (pres.) Signal on at 0833:47. Definitely here w/possible bits of audio at 0838-0839. Adjusted freq at 0840:24 to 6291.91 then stabilized on 6291.97.

6291.97 R. Altrex (pres.) Peaks at 0844-0845 w/mx but not enough to recog. the song. Again at 0852 and 0855-0858. Still here at 0903. Getting some splash QRM from 6297.21 Sahara. (24 Jan)

7610.06 R. Amica 0720 nothing but a very weak signal w/out any audio. Disappeared at times. 0722 a few very short bits of audio, similar to LHH but w/out the noise. 0815 ID anmnt by M finally. Seemed just a little stronger, but still fady. 0823 "Don't You Want Me" by The Human League. (24 Jan)

Had only carriers from what looked like Altrex on 6309.97 at 0813, ukDXers UNID on 6307.34 at 0855+, and Shadow 6288.98 at 0902.

Really disappointed with the conditions. There didn’t seem to be that much activity either.

[JoJo]

Hello Dave, thanks for the log, much appreciated. Glad to be so often on the list

[Altrex]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for your log again.
Too bad for you that the conditions where so bad.
On the sunday there where a lot of stations on air at the time..

So still hope for better times.

kind regards,

Altrex