[IRCA] TPs on August 30: Unstable Wonderfulness

["John H. Bryant" <bjohnorcas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Got up a little after 4:30AM local this morning.... you know us old guys.

Anyway there were already some pretty decent Asian signals about, 
even though it was two hours before local dawn here. Things really 
heated up in that second hour, 1230 to 1325UTC.  However, the 
conditions were quite unstable..  Things would peak up to very good 
levels for ten minutes or so and then be way down ten minutes later 
on recheck. I had TP hets at least at some point on 80 different 
channels, about the most ever for this location, and certainly a 
record for August (and September too, for that matter.) Of those 80, 
I heard at least threshold audio on almost half (37) but only 14 were 
in listenable audio.... where I could distinguish the language and 
hear individual words (or better.) You can see that I had an awful 
lot of low-level audio.

The most notable loggings:

567 JOIK NHK-1 Sapporo  We hear this one at Grayland relatively 
regularly, but I don't think that I've ever had audio here, before. 
Decent audio early... the first 150 kHz of MW are an RF jungle here 
on Orcas Island, thanks to the Vancouver, BC and Blaine, WA stations 
that are 30 km across an all salt water path..

756 JOQK NHK-1 Kumamoto in low level audio for a first-ever logging 
here.  We hear them semi-often at Grayland

774 JOUB NHK-2 Akita. This is the most regular of the Japanese Big 
Guns, but for a while it was running louder than I've ever heard it 
here and maybe at Grayland.  Measured at various times S-9 + 10 dB or 
-61 dBm... also measured at 75 microvolts. WOW!

891 JOHK NHK-1 Sendai. This is fairly rare in audio at Grayland and 
unheard here previously, I think. Here for a while in low but 
identifiable audio.

963  The Chinese Nat Radio Russian Service has been doing quite well 
the last couple of weeks, but I've never heard it at well over S-9 
before, even a Grayland.

972  HLCA, Dangjin, South Korea. This is the mid-band Korean Big Gun 
here, but I've noticed that it doesn't seem to be doing as well this 
fall as in previous falls.  Then, the last three mornings, their 
modulation seemed to be way low. This morning, the carrier was almost 
S-9 and the audio, if it was them, was just at threshold.  It could 
have been that they were totally Open Carrier and I was hearing some 
other Asian behind them.  Serious trouble, in any case.

1008 UnID Chinese station here in Standard CC.  There are multiple 
locations listed for this in PAL. Absolutely not the more normal 
JONR. First time for me either here or at Grayland.  Will watch this 
like a hawk.

1053 Like 972, the Korean jammer on 1053 seems to be having 
modulation trouble.  Yesterday, had a fairly good signal, but no 
jamming sounds at all, just OC. Today, had very good signal but very 
faint jamming audio.  No sign of the JJ station that is normally 
beneath the jamming from this perspective.

"1206" The Chinese Korean-language service from just northwest of 
Pyongyang has been doing quite well these last couple of weeks. FOR 
THE PAST WEEK IT HAS BEEN ON 1205.98.... solid as a rock.  This is a 
strong enough station that at least the carrier might be notable over 
a wide area, especially while it is off-channel.

Needless to say, my new "super-size" 65' x 100' EWE pointed at East 
Asia, up the Gulf of Georgia from Orcas Island, is working pretty 
well, despite having only minimal grounding yet.  This weekend will 
change that.... Also, the WinRadio 313e is a marvelous DX 
instrument... and the active scope in the 313's GUI makes seeing 
off-channel stations VERY easy.

Whadda morning!

John Bryant
Orcas Island, WA




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