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Re: [IRCA] Some TA activity this evening (25 Mar)
Walt here, reporting in from Masset on the Queen Charlottes. Astounding TA MW activity last night. I was blown away when I tuned in just after 02:00 UTC, with the sun still well up in the sky. Happened to be on 1422 and heard a solid "9"....DLF in German. Nothing special there, but also co-channel in French, which I'm assuming is Algeria. The other powerhouse of the evening was 1377...also a 9, with France Info at 02:38. I'd say things were not quite as good as in September, but the best I've ever heard TAs otherwise here. Tripoli came in very strong on 1251 at 02:51. I'll have to listen earlier this evening for a hoped repeat. 1215 Virgin was there, of course, but not to the same level as the others. Russia (Kalinigrad) appeared to sign on at 0300 and took over the frequency for a while. Now, I'm REALLY hoping that I heard TWR Benin on 1566. There was a strong carrier there all evening and snippets of religious hymns. No TWR IS, though, although I'll have to li!
sten to the SDR-IQ files back home. Also heard quite a number of UK stations, Spanish, RVI on 1512, The Big L Radio London on 1395 from Holland (an 8 at 02:34)(. Most of the activity was on the bottom half of the band, although I did confine myself to the top half mostly. What I've noticed is a good surge of TA activity close to our sunset (and before). It then dies off around 03:00 UTC, only to re-emerge 60 to 90 minutes later. Wonder if any of the prop gurus can explain that. This has been the pattern every night.
As for TP activity, it's been fabulous as always up here. Of course the 2nd and 3rd tier JJ stations are all over the map, as were many Filipino stations. Some nice IDs for the latter were heard. 1566 this morning, had a relatively strong CC station co-channel to HLAZ. Will need to check on that one. 1575 had strong AFN for much of my stay. A real high light has been JJ lighthouse (?) stations on 1663.5. Not sure what these are for sure, as PAL lists 1670 and 1665 (I think). I heard at least 2 JJ stations with loops. Any word from the experts? Patrick? AFN 810 (Eagle 810 from Tokyo) well heard yesterday morning. (Today is Tuesday by the way....I leave tomorrow for Victoria, so one more day).
Other observations.....lots and lots of IBOC crap. Much more than in September. 680, for example, is a goner....my frequency of Alaskan interest (Barrow). Yuk....900 suffers the same fate. I seem to be able to use USB or LSB to escape a fair bit of the crap. The TPs often overpower the IBOC. It's worse in the AM, rather than in the evening...believe it or not. My Perseus is being used only sparingly. Unfortunately, my older Dell simply can't handle it, except on the narrowest download. Also it's a bit unstable causing clicking sounds when left on. The IQ suffers none of this. I'm assuming that this will all be history when I transition to my "new" Dell core-2 Duo. I was hoping to run both the IQ and Perseus at the same time, onto a 500 GB ext HD.
A final few observations. Noted bubble jamming on 972 on the 24th at 15:25. Possibly Iranian against the US tx in Tajikistan? X-band was relatively good most mornings with some audio. Not great, but passable. Heard the NHK2 local ID this morning at 13:20. Noted in September, that the IDs seemed to be absent at this time. Glad to hear them. Now to try for Okinawa tomorrow!
TA activity on the other nights (last Friday, Sat, Sunday were mediocre at best).
OK, hope this finds everyone healthy. Hope the TA activity made it down south last night!!!
................Walt Salmaniw, Masset (Haida Rose's coffee shop and internet cafe), BC
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