[HCDX]: Scandinavian MW DX feeding-frenzy

[wa1ion@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (Mark Connelly)]

from Mark Connelly (WA1ION) Billerica, MA, USA

Neil Kazaross mentioned "absolutely the best ever" European DX
from his home near Chicago, IL a couple of nights ago.  He listed
stations that he hadn't even heard in Newfoundland a month earlier !
His latest report spurred me to do some listening during the 0500 to
0800 UTC time period (midnight to 3 a.m. local).  Generally I've
neglected this time block because (a) I usually like to sleep then.
and (b) with cold weather, meddling non-DXers (police, etc.) operation
from the car at high-quality shore locations doesn't usually work out
too well.  Neil's report of good high-latitude propagation and some 
really good sunset-period reception here of stations such as Sweden-1179 
gave me the idea to do some tuning from the home QTH in Billerica, MA
(25 km from the seashore) between 0500 and 0800 UTC on 27 DEC '97.

It paid off !  I had my best-ever reception of Finland-963 and, at 0715
UTC, a nice sign-on from Faroes-531, a station I'd heard only once before
from a US site (Harwich, MA ... a much better location than home for
Euro's).  Finland had a great signal for over an hour (before 0630 to
after 0730).  Kaliningrad-1386 blasted in with a great "This is the Voice
of Russia World Service" ID at 0600.  Of course the usual Scandinavian
big-guns (Norway-1314, Denmark-1062, Sweden-1179) were booming in at 
near-local quality.  Even at 0800, when I did decide to "pack it in" 
for a night's sleep, Norway and Denmark were still putting in good 
signals.

Southern Europeans (e.g. Spain) were heard, but the more-northerly
stations had the edge this time around.  I'd suspect that, if conditions
stay this good, there will be more US and Canadian receptions of Baltic 
countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, etc.), Russians, and other less-
frequently-logged northern and eastern European stations.

73 to all and good DX in 1998 ... Mark Connelly

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