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DX Quick Tips - June 17, 2026

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  DX QUICK TIPS June 17, 2026 Once again, propagation conditions have been good over the past two weeks. Here are a few stations monitored across the shortwave spectrum.  All logs below were noted on my own receivers and antennas - NOT via Internet streaming (for God's sake!!). Where signals were very weak, several broadcasts were checked and confirmed against a Kiwi remote SDR at a more favourable location; those logs have been noted accordingly. Equipment:  SDRPlay RSPduo, Yaesu FTDX3000 transceiver, Kenwood R5000 receiver, Yaesu FRG 100 receiver, Kenwood TS2000 transceiver. Antennas:  80m long horizontal sky loop antenna, a delta loop antenna for 10 MHz, a double bazooka antenna for 14 MHz and a 5/8λ centre-fed vertical for 21 MHz and above. Yankee Doodle Makes a Return! Over the past few days, the Voice of America has returned with test transmissions from Kuwait, Thailand and the Philippines. These tests were registered with the HFCC recently. Some broadcasts wer...
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OPENING THE LOGBOOK - JUNE 1972

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  OPENING THE LOGBOOK - JUNE 1972 Each month, I open the old records to see what I (and others) heard decades ago.  It has been fun looking back at old issues of the Australian DX News (ADXN - the newsletter of the Australian Radio DX Club), bringing back lots of memories. Here are some memories from June  1972—54 years ago!  All frequencies in kHz; all times are UTC (or GMT, as we used to say in those days!). BBC MONITORING SERVICE BBC Monitoring Service: A Layman Looks at Caversham Park is a   publication written and published in May 1972 by DXer and author Alan Thompson.  Long-time DXers will remember that the BBC-MS came into the limelight in the early 1970s, with their Frequency Schedules and Reception Notes being available to DXers worldwide on a subscription basis.  Thompson, who was Editor of "Bandspread", the bulletin of the British Association of DXers, visited the facilities and operations of the Caversham Park monitoring service. Written f...
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VOACAP: Understanding and Using the Voice of America Coverage Analysis Program

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  VOACAP: Understanding and Using the Voice of America Coverage Analysis Program by Rob Wagner VK3BVW My thanks to Jari Perkiömäki, OH6BG, for his assistance in preparing this article. It first appeared in the April 2026 issue of my World of Shortwave Listening column for The Spectrum Monitor magazine. Further details on this excellent publication are available at www.thespectrummonitor.com When you have spent time on the HF bands chasing DX or tuning across the shortwave spectrum, you will know that propagation can feel unpredictable. Signals that are strong one day may vanish the next, and paths that seem impossible can suddenly open without warning.  VOACAP, the Voice of America Coverage Analysis Program, helps make sense of this constantly shifting landscape. Originally developed by engineers at the Voice of America, VOACAP began as a professional planning tool for international broadcasting and has since become one of the most widely used propagation prediction systems am...
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CHU CLOSURE AND DX QUICK TIPS - May 24, 2026

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  CHU CLOSURE AND DX QUICK TIPS May 24, 2026 CHU Canada's National Research Council has announced that the time station CHU will cease its standard time and frequency transmissions on June 22. The notice simply states: "As of June 22, 2026, the shortwave radio broadcast of the NRC's official time signal will no longer be available."  The NRC announcement does not provide a detailed technical justification on that page. However, it directs users to alternative official time-distribution methods, including the NRC web clock, the telephone talking clock, and Network Time Protocol (NTP). This strongly suggests the same modernisation pressures that ended other HF time stations worldwide: internet-based synchronisation, GNSS/GPS timing, and declining dependence on shortwave dissemination.  This is probably no surprise, as  other Canadian services, such as its Weather Radio, have also been in the firing line.  However, i t is still sad to see a famous time station depa...
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