Mount Evelyn DX Report

VISITING AN OLD FRIEND  AND SOME NEW FREQUENCIES I'm still travelling around Eastern Australia, and have now started back down the east coast. After spending five nights at Cabarita Beach, near the border of New South Wales and Queensland, I made my way to Nambucca Heads, NSW. The beaches were spectacular, the weather was sunny and a very pleasant 25˚C, and radio reception was very good.  Michael at his receiving station. Then I arrived at Port Macquarie, the home of long-time DXer, Michael Stevenson, a man who is known to many of our readers. Michael, his wife Wendy and I caught up for dinner at his lovely home. It was great seeing both of them again and chatting about all sorts of topics, including some radio related discussion. After dinner, we tried out Michael's Eton and Tecsun receivers on two different antennas, and noted good signals from The Cross Radio 4755.5 kHz, Solomon Islands 5020 kHz, and at least four signals up on 21 mHz. Thank you to Michael and...

The Sun as observed on October 24, courtesy of SolarMonitor.org HIGH SOLAR ACTIVITY -  Check the Bands! I'm still "on-the-road", having been in southern Queensland for the past week. I've now crossed over the border and staying in northern New South Wales for the next 7-10 days. Here's a quick report from my hotel room, using the Sangean ATS909 receiver and 10 metres of wire hung across the room. Obviously the noise level from this location is high, especially from those awful "Touch Lamps" that make such a racket across the shortwave spectrum…….I've unplugged my lamps, but all the other lamps in the hotel are still connected! What prompted getting out the radio and wire was a report I received of high solar activity during yesterday, October 24. As of last night, the sunspot count was 126, solar flux was a very high 227, the A index was 11 and the K index was 2. This can often mean somewhat enhanced propagation conditions on the higher fr...

  DX NOTES FROM BAR MOUNTAIN My first week away from home, on the road up north of Mount Evelyn…..a long way north!! I took some time out to visit the Border Ranges National Park in northern New South Wales, very close to the Queensland border……hence the name of the park, I guess! Here is a mix of subtropical and temperate vegetation, depending on how far up the mountains you travel.  The temporary "radio shack" at the Bar Mountain picnic ground I stopped for lunch at a small picnic ground at a place called Bar Mountain. It's very popular for bush walking, although I saw no one during the time I was there! Pleasant weather at around 21˚C and with just a slight cooling breeze. Bright sunshine for most of the time. The equipment used was the Kenwood TS2000 transceiver, a small antenna tuning unit and a longwire antenna, rolled out to around 25 metres, about 1.5 metres high (the perfect height for strangling someone!!) ;-) But, as I mentioned, not a sou...

Announcers at Bhutan Broadcasting Service STATION NEWS AND THE LOGBOOK October 7, 2014 STATION NEWS: RUSSIA So then.........Has everyone been enjoying listening to the Voice of Russia since their glorious return to shortwave on October 1? No? Mmmmm....neither have I!! As I mentioned in a recent Station News  blog post, a number of people were declaring that VOR WILL  return on October 1, based on nothing more than a bunch of registrations in the HFCC list. We do need to be careful about what appears in that list. As helpful as it is, it is really only a guide to a broadcaster's intentions of how they plan to use the shortwave spectrum. And of course, not all shortwave broadcasters use HFCC anyway.  BUT....keep listening, because something might appear.....maybe!! Don't hold your breath. JAMMING OF BBC THAILAND On October 1, at the height of the peaceful Hong Kong protests, I noted BBC - Nakhon Sawan on 12010 kHz with heavy jamming of the English serv...

LATIN AMERICAN DX SURVEY 2014 Available for Download I have just finished compiling the 2014 survey of Latin American broadcasters. This list represents only those stations that were monitored here at Mount Evelyn, Victoria, Australia and is not intended as a complete list of all stations operating in South America. It covers domestic stations as well as two international broadcasters between March and September this year.  Also included is an article by Daniel Camporini called "Remembering Julian Anderson"  on this well-known South American DXer who passed away recently. DXers and shortwave listeners living in the northern hemisphere are now approaching your winter season, so this little survey may be of interest and perhaps some use to you. This free survey is a 13-page PDF document, approx 1.6 mb, and can be downloaded at: LATIN AMERICAN SURVEY 2014 I hope you find this resource helpful. It was certainly fun putting it all together! Any feedback is always appre...