Re: [IRCA] Excellent cx to the north

["Bob Foxworth" <rfoxwor1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>The late CM Stanbury (in Crystal Beach ON) claimed to have heard
Pyongyang on 655 in the late 70s, but the logs >were extremely tentative
at best (carrier with traces of audio etc).   Since he used a longwire,
he wouldn't have been >able to use a loop to confirm that it wasn't a
Latin American (655 also had El Salvador and maybe one or two South
>Americans at the time).
>
>I can't recall if anyone in New England heard Pyongyang.  Given the
rivalry/animosity between Mr Stanbury and >Gordon Nelson, Stan's claim
may have been inspired by something Gordon said or did.   The Pyongyang
station's >transmitter was quite potent in the early 70s and was not
co-channel with the Europeans on 656, so it might have >been possible
(though very unlikely) at Boston sunset.
>
>Bruce

>Russ Edmunds wrote:
>
>--- Bill Harms <wharms@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
>>>I understand that North Korea has supposedly been heard in  the New
>>>England in the 1970's.  that is not directly over the north pole, but
>>>
>>>it is fairly close.  Japan was heard on the East coast in the 1930's
>>>according to the old DX mags.
>>>


>>*** While I was very active in international DX at the time, I don't
>>recall anyone hearing North Korea in ECNA. If it happened, it would
>>have likely been one of three DX'ers - Bill Bailey, Ray Moore or
Gordon
>>Nelson.
>>
>>
>>Russ Edmunds


My recollection of logging of Pyongyang on ECNA is that there were
three reports which I thought had credibility, these were from Ben
Dangerfield (near Philadelphia), Gordon Nelson (near Boston) and
C M Stanbury (Ont. near Bufalo)  All these are from the 1970's or
earlier. Pyongyang was on 655 kHz with a strong signal. I think
GPN was pre-dawn on ECNA and Ben's was the same, though I
seem to remember a reception report for evening ECNA, which is quite
possible (in theory) in mid-winter. This may have been Ben, also.

Bailey and Moore could well have heard them also, I just don't
recall if and when they did so. Would not surprise me at all if
they had.

The evening (for us) short path exists for maybe a month, roughly,
around December. I have heard DPRK on 2850 and I think, 3015,
around 2200Z in December (local sunset 2125Z) from Long Island
with good signals, lasting maybe a half hour, back in the 70;s and
80;s when I was heavy into Tropical Band DX..

In fact there was a discussion thread on NRC quite recently in which
Ben recounted some 655 details, those of you on other lists would not
have seen it. He discussed using the diplomatic service to get a report
to them, which was answered some time later with a QSL card.

CMS's reports would appear in old editions of DX News, during
the time he was reporting there, or later in his own newsletter
"Short Wave News" which had limited circulation. He was never
very detailed in his reports as to technical issues with the reception.
Back in the 1960-era CMS also at one point reported logging  "Inner
Mongolia B" on 1200 kHz around 0400-0430 Eastern time, he said
they "had a pretty good signal for a little while". That, for him, was a
lot of detail. So who knows? This exists in DX News but I'm not
sure of exactly when. CMS had I believe just short wire antennas,
nothing exotic, and due to his partial paralysis, and being wheelchair
bound, I believe lacked the dexterity to operate loops, etc.

Nelson believed in path skewing. I recall that he called it a "tilt
mode"
and the idea was that normally the reflecting "surface" in the
ionosphere was a virtual plane that was parallel to the earth surface.
The signal path would then travel in a straight line from tx to rx.
When the "tilt mode" occurred, the virtual surface would be tilted
at some right angle to the path of the signal, so the signal reflection
would occur at some angle relative to the physical path between
tx and rx. These tilt modes would allow signals to "bend" around
the auroral oval as they crossed polar regions and escape the
absorption from the aurora.

There is also a "chordal" mode where the tilt would occur in
the same direction as the signal path, so the signal would hop
at a tangent into space, and not back to earth (for the first hop)
and when you had a reverse tilt at the other end of the chord, the
signal became a "one hop" over several thousand miles, and
arrived a lot stronger than it would be if it hopped normally. But
the path track over the earth was a straight line. These are
really uncommon.

The Xinjiang (then, it was Sinkiang) receptions on 1525 on the ECNA
were all, to my knowledge, made in December-January around 2200z.
The first ones I can remember were in 1965. My best one was in
late fall 1972 at 2200z. Russ Edmunds had telephoned me to tip
me off about it. I don't think these were greyline. As others have
reported, this was due to a reported 2 megawatts and a big DA
blasting RF into the european Soviet Union, and directly over to
the US. I think the North Koreans could be considered greyline,
as the path skims along near the sunrise terminator.

I guess I heard Xinjiang a half dozen times with some sort of
copiable signal. I lived very close to WTHE-1520 and remember
having to call them, after their sign-off, to kill their exciter, which
was pretty loud for me, so I could hear an "out of town station".
The WTHE operator thought I meant WKBW and of course I
never DARED try to correct him, hi.    I did this maybe twice.

1525 was in Russian with Chinese FS, ID was "govorit Pekin"
by man, then woman, Internationale, strident dialogs,
every time I heard them. Reception was with indoor loops
and Hammarlund 129/150, whatever I had then.

As we head towards mid-winter, recall that for those of you near
Washington State/Vancouver etc, a short path into Europe is
possible at Vancouver SUNRISE, where it is mid-afternoon
in Europe and the sun is already setting. I think NHP has had
some success with this (1314) . This again is a very short
window on the calendar.

Fascinating stuff for me.

- Bob                        1237 edt


_______________________________________________
IRCA mailing list
IRCA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://arizona.hard-core-dx.com/mailman/listinfo/irca

Opinions expressed in messages on this mailing list are those of the original contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the IRCA, its editors, publishing staff, or officers

For more information: http://www.ircaonline.org

To Post a message: irca@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx