[HCDX]: Moroccan Bandscan

["Martin Elbe" <elbe@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

this Wednesday I returned from a two-weeks trip to Agadir in southern
Morocco. Of course I had my Sangean ATS 909 with me, and as the receiver
is rather deaf on mediumwave with the built-in ferrite antenna, I had a
50x50 cm loop with me to boost signals. DX-friend Erik Kugland made this
collapsable antenna, it fits perfectly into a suitcase and can be
assembled within 5 minutes. Tests here at home showed a significant
improvement of reception with this loop compared to a barefoot Sangean.

The hotel in Agadir was about 300 or 400 meters from the Atlantic, so I
had expected a lot. Madeira, Gibraltar, Azores, Senegal's regional
station R. St. Louis and Radio Syd from Gambia were hot favourites,
but...

Noise-level on the balcony was moderate, but in the early evening hours
a lot of TV interferences. As reference I had Hermann Boel's excellent
list of LW and MW stations with me. Sunrise was at 0630 UTC, Sunset at
1830 hrs UTC. Fade-in started about 60 minutes before sunset, after 1800
UTC the MW was crowded with Spanish stations.

Daytime reception was confined to Morocco, Canary Islands and Madeira.
Here's a short summary:

MOROCCO: Agadir on 936 was the strongest station, 600 kW about 20 km
south of the city. Second was 774 kHz, 50 kW running the Berber
programming for Agadir. Hermann lists this station as active from 06-14
hrs, but that's definitely wrong. Don't know, when they sign on, it was
not on during the morning hours, also not audible at 1000 hrs, but when
I checked later at 1300 UTC it was on. And it's used till the late
evening, but reception is disturbed through Spain in the evening hours.
711 kHz Laayoune was the third strongest Moroccan station. Strong
signals, but audio-quality varies a lot. Usually it was good, when they
were in // with 936 (and FM 91.0 MHz) relaying nationwide programming,
but during local programmes the audio was rather muffled, e.g. at 1800
UTC. Medi 1 was heard weak on 171 and strong on 9575 kHz, // to local FM
104.6 MHz. (Third FM station audible in Agadir was the French service on
92.4 MHz, with English at 1030 hrs. All FM stations in Mono only without
RDS.)

ALGERIA: The Saharan clandestine on 1550 came in from 0700-0800 s/off
and from 1800 s/on. Surprisingly the longwave 252 suffered from heavy
interference through Atlantic 252! Hadn't expected that.

MADEIRA: Two stations audible only. Posto Emissor de Radiodifusão do
Funchal on 1530 was the best, audible even on the barefoot Sangean, fair
to good with the loop. After sunset in a mix with Vatican and VOA São
Tome, but most times dominant. RDP 603 kHz was weaker and only audible
during daytime. From 1730 hrs onwards it was wiped out by Spain. No
trace at all of 531 kHz, maybe they are on the other side of Madeira,
screened by the hills over there. And absolutely no beep of the 1
Kilowatters on 1485, 1332 and 1017 kHz.

CANARY ISLANDS: All of the listed stations were audible in good quality.
R. Ecca on 1269 has poor audio, is rather overmodulated. 1008 kHz,
listed as Radio Voz in Hermann's list is in fact identifying as R. Las
Palmas and is belonging to Onda Cero network.

SENEGAL: Bad luck with Senegal. No trace of St. Louis on 1368 kHz. On
765 kHz I heard French, but that turned out to be Switzerland. So I
guess they are either off or on low power only. Bad luck also for the
rest of Africa, nothing from R. Syd.
Also nothing heard from the Azores. 836 kHz impossible due to powerhouse
COPE Las Palmas, not even a heterodyne in the night. 1259 also
impossible, with R. Algeciras coming in loud on 1260.

GIBRALTAR: That was on top of my list. I heard Gibraltar in the 80ies in
Spain and Portugal, but they didn't answer my reports at that time. And
as there was the news in the DX-press, that they are using a new
transmitter now, replacing the old, ineffective outlet, I thought that
would be a piece of cake. Wrong, completely wrong! Absolutely nothing
during daytime, one hour before sunset a signal faded in, turned out to
be Albania, relaying VOA and later on Deutsche Welle for Kosovo. From
1800 hrs onwards Sunrise Radio came in, they were extremely loud.
Infact, Sunrise Radio is giving better reception there than Luxemburg's
1440 kHz! I never heard Sunrise Radio so often in my life than down
there... Luckily, on one day I got pop tunes between 2000 and 2020 hrs
and English commercials. Bjarne Melde reports in today's HCDX, that the
new transmitter will come into service in November, so that explains a
lot. Nearby R. Algeciras in La Linea had a powerhouse signal on 1260
kHz.

CEUTA: 1583.6 kHz spoiled reception of 1584 completely. Nasty
heterodynes must make it unpleasant to listen to even in Ceuta. Alas, I
never heard a local programme.

PORTUGAL: Renescenca strong on 963 kHz, and R. Comercial on 1035, IDing
as "R. Nacional".

All in all nothing spectacular. With a barefoot Sangean results would
have been even more disappointing. Which leaves me with the question, if
there is any good receiver for travelling on the market? Lightweight,
digital readout, sensitive on MW and with good selectivity? I don't find
the Sangean very convincing on MW.

73's
Martin

------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a message from "Martin Elbe" <elbe@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
to hard-core-dx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx list. To unsubscribe the list, send
"unsubscribe hard-core-dx" in mail body to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
For more information, please check http://www.kotalampi.com/hard-core-dx/
or email Risto Kotalampi, risto@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
------------------------------------------------------------------------