VISITING AN OLD FRIEND AND SOME NEW FREQUENCIES

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 Wendy for wonderful hospitality.

During the past week, the high frequencies have still been holding up extremely well. Solar flux numbers remain high and without any severe solar storms. During this part of the trip, I packed away the Kenwood TS2000 transceiver. Instead, I have been using the Sangean ATS909 receiver (the original version and now quite old) with some success. This is the receiver I left out in the rain after gardening a few months back. As indicated by the loggings below, it doesn't seem to have suffered any ill effects from the water dousing!! Well done, Sangean!! When using the 909, I always attach a long wire to the whip, which improves the reception about 10-fold. 

Here's just a quick update of some reception noted on October 29 at Nambucca Heads, including a few new frequencies:

25mb:
11680   DPRKorea. KCBS - Kanggye. Came up out of the mud at 2110 for a few minutes then submerged again by 2120. Usual vigorous Korean propaganda, prosecuting the case for "whatever", fair to poor.

11775   FRANCE. R. Algerienne - Issoudun. NF for this Arabic service at 2040 to s/off 2100, fair signal.

11860   UNIDENTIFIED. Believed to be VOA - Moepeng Hill (Botswana) in their B14 NF for the Hausa service 2030-2100 on weekdays only, very weak.

11875   OMAN. BBC - A'Seela. Arabic to EAf at 2010 to s/off 2100, NF and fair.

11980   AUSTRIA. AWR - Moosbrunn. French to WAf  at 2030, then into English at 2100, NF ex 15155, fair signal.

11995   NORTH MARIANA IS. RFA - Tinian. Seems to be a NF for the Korean service at 2105, good level with only light jamming.

19mb:
15235   GUAM. KTWR - Agana. Mandarin to EAs at 1045, fair signal.

15275   MADAGASCAR. DW - Talata Volonondry. Now showing as scheduled for this relay site, replacing Kigali for the Swahili service to EAf as noted 1050, poor signal.

15275   RWANDA. AWR - Kigali. Yoruba service to Nigeria at s/on 2030, NF ex 11755, fair signal.

15285   SINGAPORE. BBC - Kranji. English to As at 1052, now one hour earlier. Poor signal on Oct 29 but should improve in the southern hemisphere over coming months.

15325   GUAM. KSDA-AWR - Agat. the Mandarin service at s/off 1058, NF to EAs but a poor signal.

15420   PHILIPPINES. R. Free Sarawak - Palauig. Iban programming at 1103, fair.

15670   THAILAND. VOA - Ban Dung. Weak signal with the Manadrin service under the CNR 1 jammer at 1105, NF.

16mb:
17630   THAILAND. R. Thailand - Ban Dung. Thai service to ME at 1015, NF ex 17770, fair signal.

17690   CHINA. CRI - Jinhua. English to Oceania 1020, NF ex 13790, very strong.

17720   THAILAND. BBC - Nakhon Sawan. Pashto service to SAs/Afghanistan at 1030, NF.

17760   THAILAND. BBC - Nahkon Sawan. English to As now one hour earlier and noted 1035 with good signal.

17800   RWANDA. AWR - Kigali. French to CAf 2000-2030, NF and good signal.

17810   CHINA. CNR 1 Jammer now here at 1040 following RFA - Lampertheim's Tibetan service NF. Only the jammer heard.

13mb
21580   KUWAIT. R. Kuwait. Filipino service s/on 1000 with fair strength but with deep fades.

21670   SAUDI ARABIA. BSKSA - Riyadh. Booming signal with news in the Indonesian service at 1005. Best signal in a long time.

That's it for now. I'm back on the road again today. Who knows where I'll end up!

73 and have a great weekend everyone.

Rob Wagner VK3BVW

P.S.   LATIN AMERICAN SURVEY 2014 
Thank you to all those who have responded with kind words about the release of the latest LA survey a few days ago. There have been hundreds of downloads over the past few weeks. Listeners in the northern hemisphere may find this little document useful as you approach your winter DX season. If you haven't got your copy yet, the link and some information about the survey is on a recent blog post at http://medxr.blogspot.com.au/2014/10/latin-american-survey-2014-available.html

Rob