[HCDX] very tentative TA reception (Spain-585 tentative log)

[aurel chiochiu <acq@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello to all of you !

A pretty uncomfortable night since when I waked, there was a lot of hurting hair on my cushions. Due to this reason and also because of the cold nights (the temperatures are slightly warmer than usual, but still drop around 10 degrees Celsius at night) wich could make me sick (the last blood tests showed a bit of a lack of red globules), means there will be no more Quebec City travel and overnight staying wich is sad since this city is at an "almost" semi-coastal location wich should mean much better TA possibi-
lities than Montreal.

But there is one advantage to this, I'm able to report to you another very tentative reception of RNE1-585. I wonder if anyone can confirm what I've heard. The signal was barely there, way down in the mud, but there was definitively something beetwen 580 and 590 kHz (!) on my Sanyo MCD-S830 barefoot.

Here is the reception in more details:

585 SPAIN, RNE Radio Uno, Madrid OCT 1 0210 - Very tentative; briefly in with man talk (I thought I heard "Latino" once or twice in his speach, but I may almost be hallucinating) at extremely threshold level. Then at 0237 when I tried again, heard man followed at 0237 by woman at 0238, then music followed by fade-out shortly before 0239. Briefly surfaced at 0243 for maybe 2 seconds w/ classical music then around 0243 w/ man announcer in Spanish (!), but way too poor to make out any words. Also when it had the man at 0243, the 580 / 590 splatter was more intense, but never extreme. (Chiochiu-QC)

Bogdan Chiochiu
on 4190 Edward Higgins
    Pierrefonds, QC
Sanyo MCD-S830 w/ ferrite bar antenna

 
I just received a few hours ago, via playdx a list of all the MW stations operating in Spain; this is an usefull tool, since it lists power, address et al for all the Spain's MW outlets and this country is one of the most reported one in North America (on Mark Connelly's Your First 50 TA countries article with countries listed per reception ease, Spain is no. 1) so it may be usefull for me. Also there is the address for RNE1 "Casa de la radio, etc.", so I may try to write a reception repport. I'm generally not writing those things (have done this with 3 FM stations I heard via Es as well as with 2 Latins, the last ones sadly didn't reply), but it may be the only way to actually IDing this one. In any event, is someone able right now to confirm what I heard ? Just for making me more excited if it actually was RNE, since I'm going to write a reception repport anyway. It would be super-nice to have a QSL from a...Trans-Atlantic
MW broadcaster ! Having a tape with that would have been much more helpfull, but on the high-side of 580 and the low-side of 590 + all over 585 I get a lot of tape "noises", sounds like SSB in bad position, so I can't tape this one, just listen. With such a weak signal, the room noises and the distorsion of a microphone tape recorder placed near my Sanyo will make the effort unworthy.

585 is one of the best channels for TA DX with not too selective gear, since there is nothing extremely strong on 580 and 590. On the higher part of the dial, I can only think of 1494. With my radio aimed E/W, WTOP-1500 is slightly nulled and it's up at a good, not excellent level, and it's not 1 or 2 kHz from the 1490 "graveyarders", but 4 kHz (the "graveyard" mess isn't exceptionnally strong) and this is where I heard France the past season briefly with more or less copiable audio (I heard clearly the worlds "parler" and "parlement") unfortunatly I wasn't so enthusiastic the past year for DX'ing and only sent this one to MWDX. The last night however, nothing between 1490 and 1500 ! Just some poor-strenght 1490 and WTOP QRM.

I wonder if CJFX is still active as last night when I tuned away from what sounded like very threshold Spain-585 I heard oldies on 580 at fairly good level about equal with CFRA wich thanksfully drop power at night to 10 kW (I opened up my radio this morning around 10 AM and heard intense distorted overspills from CFRA with my antenna E/W). I just looked on the Net and found out CJFX was supposed to move to 98.9 (I think they already done) 2-3 years ago, so might have been CKY in Winnipeg.

Condx were definitvely good on high-latitude paths with YVRQ being the only Latin really audible besides Cuban ballad way under WNNZ on 640. Even 530 was dominated by a fairly good CIAO with not even a peep from Caicos on the car-radio. However beetwen 1290 and 1300 while trying to dig COPE out of Valencia, heard just some overspills from 1290 and 1300 with slight het from CFMB 16 kHz away, it was difficult to tune below 1300 without still getting readable, albeit distorted audio from an unID ESPN Radio "pest" (somewhere near the East coast). 1305 wich has the RNE5 synchros on it was buried by mostly 1300 and some CIWW-1310 too, the 1310/1314 QRM was intense so nothing out of Norway and on the lower part of the "high-band" for 1242 wich is Marseille with 150 kW, while tuning beetwen 1240 and 1250 altough closer to 1240 didn't heard much as too much overspills from the 1240 graveyarders, some audio, but too messy too determine if it was 1240 QRM or actually France and it didn't last too long (or it couldn't last since I'm 99.9 % sure of it was actually 1240 QRM).

I will try again tonight for some possible TA DX, as solar conditions seems actually to be really low, haven't had a solar alert for at least 2 weeks and I heard CKEC a few days ago with very good reception (didn't tried yesturday around sunset, though I should). I wonder if the best time frames for TA DX is during sunset or during dawn enhancement. There are some people who believe TA MW is better at sunset due to less slop from mid-west domestics other that believe it is better during dawn enhancement due to higher angle incoming skip (an article on IRCA web-site suggest newcommers to try around tx dawn, the address is http://www.geocities.com/amlogbook/newmembers/dxta.htm, it even states that the local grayline conditions present at local sunset can provide more adjacent domestic interferences, this is sometimes true, it depends on several factors - usually at sunset there may be a lot of skip on the high-band, but the low-band has mostly groudwave, though there are times when the high-band is active at local sunset then the signals weaken, but it's not always true. I guess it depends on the solar conditions - complexe action the solar activity have over MW propagation is oen of the several factors that makes this hobby such great and fascinating, you never know what to expect. A DX'er with which I'm in touch even catched Nice on 1557 during Aurora a time not considered good for eastern and western signals). What is your opinion ? What have you remarked in TA patterns over the last few days ? I'd really like some help here. We're still thinking about the Sony ICF-2001 solution; the taxi we took towards school when there is no bus avalable at 11 AM when I'm tired due to the chemio and the one took towards the hospital costs us dozens of dollars and we aren't that rich, what I have is not really optimum for TA DX unless we have an opening like in Late December 1997 (I wasn't on the scene yet at that time, but came accross HCDX posts !).

I just received an e-mail from a Vancouver DX'er who was able to repair another trusty radio I actually have, a Phillips LW / MW transistor. I will certainly send a positive reply to this when I'll finish eating the dinner.

Well that's it for now !
Be the good DX stuff with you !
Bogdan Chiochiu
---[Start Commercial]---------------------

World Radio TV Handbook 2005 is out. 
Order yours from http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0823077942/hardcoredxcom

---[End Commercial]-----------------------
________________________________________
Hard-Core-DX mailing list
Hard-Core-DX@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://arizona.hard-core-dx.com/mailman/listinfo/hard-core-dx
http://www.hard-core-dx.com/
_______________________________________________

THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed
and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License
published by Michael Stutz at http://dsl.org/copyleft/dsl.txt