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Re: [IRCA] Grayland: The Second Morning.
Hello John,
Very sorry to hear that the mediocre conditions are dragging on for a
second day at Grayland, but I'm glad that 531-2PM and 549-2CR showed up for you.
Regarding the 531 Australia stations commonly mixing at Grayland during
the DU season, Leigh Donaldson of Brisbane (a member of the Ultralightdx
Yahoo group) gave me an incredibly detailed assessment of my 531 UnID Aussie
MP3, recorded on 7-26 with the 8' passive loop. He mentions all three of the
usual stations (including 531-2PM), and their current formats. I thought
you might be interested, so I've pasted his comments below.
For the testing of the Kchibo D96L's 1 kHz selectivity against that of the
Murata CFJ455K5 filters in the Slider E100's and Slider SWP's, by a
fortunate stroke of luck my wife has agreed to a family trip to the Grayland
Motel for one night this coming weekend, from 8-8 to 8-9. Unfortunately our
compact Toyota Corolla will be crammed with family items-- meaning that my
favorite DXing toys like the 8' tuned passive loop and the 30" loopstick
ICF-2010 spotting receiver can't be taken along. I'll need to use the hot-rodded
ICF-SW7600GR (with a 7.5" external loopstick) as a spotting receiver, and
whatever size of collapsible frame PVC loop I can design and build in 3
days (probably a 24" square model) that will fit in a Corolla trunk. Whether
this modest setup can adequately test the D96L's 1 kHz selectivity in
Grayland is anybody's guess. But like you say, with the TP propagation changing
rapidly, by the end of the month we should have strong Asiatic signals at
home on our standard antennas-- including the new 9' sided tuned passive
loop here.
73, Gary (in Puyallup, WA)
G’day Gary
I believe you in fact have three Oceanic stations (not necessarily all
Australian) mixing here… and I thought idenitfying 1 kw South Pacific Islands
Sporadic E FM DX was hard!!! This email is much longer than it should be,
my apologies, but to improve readability a bit, I have put it into segments.
Female journalist
I have listened to this about a dozen times now on headphones via my
DVD/HDD recorder, but it still has me wondering. About a third of the way
through, you can hear the voice of a female journalist/jock. I distinctly
recognize this voice as a female journalist from the 2SM Super Network. They have
translators here on FM on 103.9, 104.1 and 107.1 MHz so I am very familiar
with the network. The problem is, however, that I cannot understand why she
would be on-air at 10:30 pm local time on a Monday night. 4KZ and Radio
531 Port Mac only do “top of the hour” news at this time. So there are two
possibilities:
(a) the time noted down, 12:30 UTC, for this recording is wrong, it is in
fact “top of the hour”; or
(b) she is reading a community noticeboard bulletin during the ad break –
most commercial stations definitely do this & given the skeleton on-air
staff these regional stations have the journo would indeed be doing it.
3GG can be eliminated
The female journo can NOT be 3GG. They are taking “Talking Back the Night”
with Jamie Mac (who has a distinctive male British accent) at this time.
This programme is networked nationally out of the Gold Coast (an hour drive
from Brisbane). Some of the music programming heard is almost certainly
4KZ, doing love songs from the 70s at this time. 3GG are adult contemporary,
with a much more modern playlist.
Male voice with ID no help
I can indeed hear a male voice saying what maybe an ID/sweeper, but all I
can make out is a “y” or “why” which means nothing to me. I think the
voice talent is pretty poor, which leads me to think it is more likely an ad
than an ID/sweeper. If indeed it was an ID, it would be an ID of a small
independently-owned regional station, which rules out 3GG and Radio 531 Port
Mac, who only use national voice talent. I’ve done some on-air radio
training myself in the mid 90s so I know most of the voice talent on Australian
commercial stations is done by only a half a dozen people. I don’t recognize
this voice. Of course, this is pure speculation!!
4KZ propagates extremely well
Based on signal strength here in Brisbane on the Kchibo, with 2 KHz
bandwidth selected and the stock internal antenna, Radio 531 is extremely strong
while 4KZ – a hell of a lot further away, some 1,300 km– and using the
same power is still very competitive. This was checked last night at 4:30 am.
Closing thoughts
I would be tempted to log both 4KZ and Radio 531 Port Mac as “presumed”
loggings in these circumstances. Ultimately, of course, it is up to you.
Sorry I cannot be more definitive, no smoking gun here sadly.
Cheers
Leigh Donaldson
--- On Wed, 29/7/09, D1028Gary@xxxxxxx <D1028Gary@xxxxxxx> wrote:
From: D1028Gary@xxxxxxx <D1028Gary@xxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: July 26 Grayland, WA MP3's from Australia
To: fm104rockinstereo@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Received: Wednesday, 29 July, 2009, 1:04 AM
Hello Leigh,
Thanks a bunch!
As I shared with you before, the 531 Australia stations have been a
classic fiasco with me for over a year now. Attached is the latest episode, with
a new UnID station dominating over the "no ID" pop music station
(presumably 3GG, as you related). This new UnID has almost religious-like music at
the start of the recording, then has what appears to be an ID (or maybe a
song title) during the first minute. The signal strengths were not bad,
compared to what we usually get on 531 kHz here in North America.
Any comments would be greatly appreciated, Leigh-- thanks!
73, Gary
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