DAYTIME DXING BY THE SEA




DAYTIME DXING BY THE SEA

I'm currently holidaying on the beautiful Mornington Peninsula, about 100 km south east of Mount Evelyn. This region has some of Melbourne's closest and best beaches, including fabulous surf beaches. It is a very busy holiday destination in the summer. However, in mid winter it's much quieter - which is just the way I like it!! The weather today was bright sunshine, not a cloud in the sky, but the temperature was around 11˚C.

 I stopped for lunch at a quick check of the shortwave bands around midday and a point on the Peninsula known as Cape Schanck, with its white and red lighthouse and rugged coastline. 

 The receiver is the old but ever-reliable Sangean ATS909 and 6 meters of random wire antenna. Parts of the 31 meter band suffered from some local low level electrical interference but generally the reception was quite good. There was no propagation on the 41 and 49 meter bands (not even from the powerhouse NHK on 5910 at 0300!!). 

 Here's a list of stations noted during my lunchtime:

 31 METER BAND - 0230 TO 0330 UTC - JULY 20, 2015

 9425   MOLDOVA. BBC - Kichinev. S/on 0230 in Farsi to ME and SAs. Weak signal.

 9440   OMAN. BBC - Al Seela. S/on 0300 in English for CAs and ME, good signal.

 9500   OMAN. R. Sultanate of Oman - Thumrayt. On past the scheduled 0200 s/off with Arabic talks. ID at 0228 then an Arabic pop song at 0229, fair level with the signal improving past 0300.

 9515   TURKEY. VoTurkey - Emirler. English news to NAm at 0307, good signal.

 9520   ROMANIA. RRI - Galbeni. Spanish to SAm with a magazine programme at 0235, fair.

 9530   GERMANY. AWR - Nauen. EAf service in Tigrinya at 0311, good signal.

 9545   SOLOMON ISLANDS. SIBC - Honiara. Deep fades at 0242 with either heavily accented English or Bislama programming and occasional music selections, a poor signal made for difficult listening.

 9550   IRAN. VOIRI - Kamalabad. Spanish to SAm at 0239, good signal.

 9570   ALBANIA.   CRI - Cerrik. Mandarin to ENAm at 0245, good signal.

 9660   VATICAN. Vatican R. - SM Galeria. English to EAf at 0318, fair signal.

 9690   AUSTRIA. AWR - Moosbrunn. Punjabi service to Pakistan at 0248, nice signal for 1248 pm local time here.

 9700   IRAN. VOIRI - Kamalabad. Pashto to SAs at 0250, weak signal.

 9730   ROMANIA. RRI - Tignaesti. Booming signal at 0251 with folk music selections in the Spanish service to CAm. Later changes to English at 0300.

 9750   IRAN. VOIRI - Sirjan. S/on 0250 with the Armenian Service, anthem and ID. Fair signal.

 9770   IRAN. VOIRI - Kamalabad. Arabic to NAf at 0252, good signal.

 9790   CUBA. CRI - Quivican. English to WNAm at 0320, fair to poor signal.

 9840   IRAN. VOIRI - Kamalabad. S/on 0320 with the usual theme music, chimes, then into Arabic to ME. Good signal.

 9860   AUSTRALIA. NBC/PNG - Brandon. English with general studio programming at 0323 with personal development talk then a local pop song. Good signal but with occasional deep fades.

 9955   USA. WRMI - Okeechobee FL. Scratchy old signal, weak and fluttery at 0335 with someone reading out lists of frequencies, possibly the Wave Scan program but too hard to tell for sure.

 73 and good DX to you all!

 Rob VK3BVW



 Subscribe!!

Comments

  1. AnonymousJuly 20, 2015 at 10:01 PM

    Nice catches there Rob. I live near the beach here in Darwin and can get to a RFI free location within about 10 minutes walk. You can catch some great dx there. KNLS Alaska the other afternoon was sounding like a local on my PL660 off the whip antenna. 73 and happy dxing. Phil

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Rob WagnerJuly 22, 2015 at 8:59 AM

      Fabulous, Phil. Yes, KNLS seems to be putting out great signals these days. I've been to many parts of Australia, but not Darwin. Must get there one day….and I'll bring a radio, too!! ;-) Cheers, mate.

      Rob

      Delete

Post a Comment

Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. If your comment isn’t visible right away, it has been received and will be published shortly.

Popular posts from this blog

RETRO RECEIVER REVIEW # 21 - The Kenwood R-5000

Image
RETRO RECEIVER REVIEW #21 (You can click on all photos in this article for a close-up view) KENWOOD R-5000 Performance and Innovation by ROB WAGNER VK3BVW This extended blog post first appeared as a feature article in the February 2024 issue of The Spectrum Monitor magazine. Further details on this excellent publication are available at www.thespectrummonitor.com I have always wanted to own a Kenwood R-5000 receiver. Perhaps I was dazzled by the mystique that appeared to surround this rig. Somehow, it had always been on top of my bucket list of pre-loved rigs that I wanted sitting on the desk of the radio shack.  Finally, one showed up at a local Sunday morning Hamfest, and I happened to have just enough dollars in my pocket to make a purchase. It appeared to have lived a hard life. The case looked knocked around and was pretty dirty inside and out. So, while I would have liked to have owned a unit in better condition, the price was right, and I decided to take it on as a l...
Read more

REVIEW: WELLBROOK ALA1530S+ LOOP ANTENNA

Image
PRODUCT REVIEW: WELLBROOK ALA1530S+ LOOP ANTENNA by Michael Stevenson (Guest Contributor) This is a review and my opinion of the Wellbrook ALA1530S+ P–1 Active receiving Antenna. For further information, details and specifications then please visit: www.wellbrook.uk.com Background I have been a keen shortwave listener since 1970 and have had many receivers and antenna types during this time. Currently I have two wire antennas, a PAR Electronics EF-SWL 15 meter with impedance matching transformer, made in the US; and a home made 17 meter wire with balun. I also have a dedicated multi-stake ground or earthing system to compliment my receiver and antennas. I live in suburbia Port Macquarie, New South Wales on the east coast of Australia. Even though all our electricity wiring is under ground in our housing estate, I live in an environment where there are all types of man-made noises coming from modern electronic and electrical equipment used by my neighbours The wire a...
Read more

RETRO RECEIVER REVIEW #20 - The SONY ICF-5900W

Image
RETRO RECEIVER REVIEW #20 SONY ICF-5900W by CRAIG SEAGER VK2HBT This time around, I thought we might direct our attention to one of the many portable receivers of yesteryear, and it is perhaps appropriate that we choose a manufacturer that continued to produce quality equipment featuring shortwave coverage until long after. I’m sure our Japanese friends will concur with the submission that Japan is a land of short-lived, but enthusiastically embraced fads.  Whether it be karaoke, yo-yos with brains, electronics pets or Pokémon, each craze sweeps the country in such a way that captures the attention of the rest of the world and is usually associated with some pretty smart home-grown technology.   In the mid to late 1970s, shortwave listening (or “BCL”) was the flavour of the month, with teenagers (and some older folk!) compiling large QSL collections and forming SWL and DX clubs all over the country.  Nowadays, you’d be fairly hard-pressed to find any external broadcas...
Read more