[HCDX] AM dial's loggings from the past night

[aurel chiochiu <acq@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello to all of you !

As all of you know, I heard Spain-585 last night. I was literally in a state of shock, almost crying of joy. Into the logs:

Report from Bogdan Chiochiu
4190 Edward Higgins
Pierrefonds (Montreal's West Island), QC
Sanyo MCD-S830 w/ internal ferrite bar antenna
Sangean CST-818 barefoot

Trans-Atlantic DX (times in UTC)

585 SPAIN, "Radio Naciónal de España", Madrid OCT 2 0210 - Faded in w/ music (sounded like a female SS AC vocal but too poor to be sure) to 0212 when I hear man in SS (improoved in strenght during his speach) and "Radio Naciónal de España" mention ! + OCT 2 0336 - "almost huge" (at least pretty fair audio, carrer was stronger, I believe) now w/ great female trop. vocal, then woman talking and saying "lo mejor, lo mejor..." (it was indeed among the best Spanish tunes I heard recently) as well as "Vamos (?) como viajo, no, oh, (laughing) ... Mal aconstumbrado hace siempre nuestro programa" + OCT 2 0359 easily readable on headphones w/ time pips, news jingle then man talk "Radio Naciónal de España buletin informativo" and "Buenos Días..." the rest of the newscast (in fact all of it !) was lost to a somewhat minor 580 / 590 splatter. + OCT  2 0457 - Extremely poor but readable on my good ears on the headphones with Celine Dion's Titanic them "My Heart Will Go On" followed by the same stuff as at 0400, but the "Radio Naciónal de España" ID was barely readable way down in the noises. Not heard again. NEW and one of my first TAs ! (Chiochiu-QC)

603 unID (Spain, France and Madeira are possible) OCT 2 0330 - a high-frequency sound that popped continuosly for almost one second out of two on the high side of 600. Wasn't audible with the ferrite bar oriented N/S. Is it what one would call a (3 kHz) TA het ? (Chiochiu-QC)

Pan-American DX (time in UTC)

670 CUBA, CMQ, Radio Rebelde, Arroyo Arrenas OCT 2 0014 - Tune-in to a really beautifool Spanish dance tune (fairly similar to "Que Viva La Noche" from the Auberge Espagnole comedy movie from a CD burned this winter) followed by Incomplete from Backstreet Boys (not really my pice of cake) then pgm spot w/ mention of "música cubana" followed by a nice reaggeton tune (since it's Cuban, it might have been Cubanito 2002 wich planned to lance a new album soon as well as having an European tour - gira -; reaggeton is huge there with Daddy Yankee's Gasolina and Al. Sanz/Shakira's La Tortura on top of Romanian charts - I per-
sonnally wish them luck !). All this music was heard until 0030, when they carried old-fashionned jingle w/ man over it saying
"Rebelde, La Havana - emisora de la revolución" followed by baseball game with Sancti Spiritus versus another team. Two of the 
scores were 34-14 and 38-14. The signal was very good and stable, usually way often residual WSCR (one 1 occasion when the back of the radio faced E/W I could get remains of nulled Rebelde way under this Chicago 50 kW blowtorche), with some minor to moderate WFAN-660 and CINF-690 QRM, but on some occasions residual WSCR-670 overpowered it strongly (this leaded to the log of Madrid) // 5025 heard on the Sangean CST-818 with the random wire was huge. The only Latin American that was "really" audible; RVC-530 was very poor with Spanish preaching, just slightly stronger than weak residual CIAO - actually RNE-585 was stronger than Caicos-530 ! (Chiochiu-QC)

Domestic DX (times in EDT)

580 CKY Winnipeg, MB OCT 1 2207-2208 - Tentatively heard with oldies over co-channel QRM while looking for Spain + OCT 1 2338 - Tentative with oldies over CFRA and no sign of Spain-585 on the Sangean barefoot. Also heard on Friday night. WTAG being nulled, there is just CFRA in the way but they drop power at night from 50 to 10 kW so aren't a really big problem. Probably the best channel for hearing Manitoba in Montreal. (Chiochiu-QC)

1320 CKEC New Glasgow, NS OCT 1 1822 - Tentative w/ a slightly familiar rock'n'roll tune with the lyrics "I wonder, why, why, why, why, why" w/ slight female inclination on the "why,..." despite being interprated by a male singer followed by a really boring happy R&R one. Then after the second tune, ID was apprently given but it was buried by others so couldn't understand, but during such great high-latitude conditions this one dominates on early evenings before others like CJMR takes over. No sign of Norway or Spain on adjacent 1314. (Chiochiu-QC)

Here is how my TA reception happened: I became boored with Rebelde-670 and constating it was occasionally QRMed by a strong residual WSCR, I was thinked that if a residual domestic like WSCR was QRMing a strong Cuban despite the nulls of the ferrite bar antenna of my Sanyo are sharps, then conditions had to be extremely non-auroral for WSCR to be extremely strong as it was and good for high-latitude paths. Good high-latitude paths means good TA condx, so I decided to check out 585, tuned right in the middle of the distance beetwen the 580 and 590 kHz domestics and heard only slight splash for a minute or two, then a pretty nice female AC vocal surfaced at a poor level followed by man in SS and Radio Nacional de España mention at 0213. It was unbelievable, but true. I have heard tentatively France-1494 (I don't know yet if I should count it or not) last season with two words making the trip clearly "parler" and "Parlement", but this was my first ID out of a TA station and my best reception on my own. I didn't even heard TA IDs when in New Bruntswick in the 2003's summer and then I had to press my hand over the radio to have any, more or less interesting audio, of the assumed Virgin-1215, COPE-1296 and a very few others (the human body is apparently conductive to electromagnetic signals). 

Some comments about the RNE programming: first of all the music was quite eclectic, it ranged from Celine Dion just before absolute fade-out, Lonestar, Frank Sinatra to apparent Julio Iglesias, probable SS Adult Contemporary vocal and the nice Spanish tropical tune heard at 0336 to tropical; the Spanish tunes heard were really nice, the other ones not really my pice of a cake. I especially loved the woman's tropical one and hope to find out the performer. I only heard "Radio Naciónal de España" IDs and never heard any "Radio Uno" ones. Is this typical of RNE1 or the "Radio Uno" IDs were during fade-outs or buried in QRM ?

When talking about the reception it's self, totally amazing ! It was in and out (I think more often in than out) until 0500 UTC; the fadings seemed more abrupt that most of my Latin American DX but this is hardly surprising at almost 5560 kilometers (I think). 

It was strange however that after the news announcements at 0400 UTC in 2 seconds just as the announcer was saying "Buenos Días..." the signal dropped to fairly slight adjacent QRM. It reminds me of YVLX-570 wich popped up in the mess for a few seconds with the dorbells and "Noti-Rumbos Informa..." everything else after Informa was completely lost, this was back in March 2001. This was probably my best catche, since it is way much less commonly reported than Spain-585. The Nicaraguan on 600 I heard in // with it's web-cast isn't far behind. At 3870 kilometers with 10 kW, it certainly beats RNE 585 at 5560 kilometers but at a fat 600 kW. But, let's not diminush this astonishing catche ! 

After dark, I will try to hear Morocco-594 since it's 4 kHz from 590 kHz. Since there is nothing extremely huge on 600, I may also try for RNE5 in Sevilla with 100 kW (or France, Madeira is also remotely possible, but very unlikely) as there was definitively a het on the high-side of 600 kHz but still a relatively fair amount of 600 QRM and not strong enough for audio. 3 kHz is probably the big limit for my not extremely selectif Sanyo (even then it would be tough for a TA new-commer like me); stations 2 kHz away like Morocco-612, Ireland-612 and Canaries-621 or Saudi-1521 would definitively be extremely unlikely unless they are strong enough to het the domestics and this means an East Coast trip to some point. Obviously, I won't be able to DX late like last night, but I hope I'll manage to get at least one TA station, even if a relog of Spain-585.

Steve Whitt of the UK via MWDX (I heard of him before as being in the Medium Wave Circle) suggested me several TA frequencies. WPHT-1210 is usually very strong not really nullable (even the relatively commun YV, Radio Anzoátegui is really hard - never actually IDed them - maybe during a good Aurora), but around dusk I may be able to get some Virgin Radio dusk before WPHT splash is too intense if conditions are good enough. The same goes for 1134. Most of the other channels are relatively fine especially Holland-675 (though they lowered their power recently, so not very likely), 1035 sounds interesting as local CJMS is not that easy to null in the part of the house the radio is now, but I may try again. There is a part of the bedroom where nulling local CJMS-1040 is easier, but then there are more noises and for weak long-haul signals like Portugal-1035 computer generated noises aren't ideal. Beetwen 800 and 1000 kHz my radio isn't really sensitive and selectif (I wonder why, since below 800 kHz and above 1000 it's a really wonderfull radio), so TA reception is probably out of question for me on those frequencies. For exemple I seem to get Venezuela-910 regularly on the car-radio, but it is not easy at home despite a fairly clear channel (especially with WABI nulled) on my Sanyo. 1575 is definitively impossible, super-pest CFAV does away with that for me. I have it's splatter down to about 1500 and short-skip WPTR in Albany is now relatively tough at my location.

I will enjoy LW TAs too, soon. I'm sure when Spain-585 and the 603 signal were making in there was some activity on LW, unfortunately I don't have anymore as of yet a good radio for LW DX'ing, but I will !

I hope I don't boore anyone with such long messages, but I love explaining my thoughts about DX'ing, targets. I also find interesting to say my comments about the music heard on various DX signals, as I'm not a computer who just report basic details, but a human.

I wish everyone a good night of DX !
Be the good DX stuff with you !
Bogdan Chiochiu

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