AIR GANGTOK - 4835 kHz - RARE RECEPTION

A view of Gangtok from nearby Ganesh Tok point

By Kailas98 (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

AIR - GANGTOK 4835 kHz

SOMETHING RARELY HEARD HERE AT MOUNT EVELYN!

Firstly, the ABC shortwave regionals were noted off-air at 1015 UTC last night, August 30. 4835 kHz ABC VL8A Alice Springs NT, 2325 kHz VL8T Tennant Creek NT, and 2485 kHz VL8K Katherine NT were all missing from the shortwave bands. Perhaps a planned maintenance outage for all three stations? Who knows!

BUT........the absence of Alice Springs on 4835 did reveal a rare visitor to Mount Evelyn, albeit not a very strong signal! Here's my log book notes on last night's reception:

4835 kHz  INDIA. AIR - Gangtok. 
Believed to be this station and noted while ABC VL8A Alice Springs NT was off the air. A very gradual fade-in from around 1130 UTC, but never got much above a scratchy weak signal. At 1214, a pleasant female vocal with flute accompaniment. Female announcements which could have been in the scheduled Nepali or another local language, but the signal was just too poor to tell accurately. Discussion style program at 1235. More regional influenced music at 1253. At 1302, the signal strength appeared to have collapsed. Not even the Yaesu FTDX3000's DNR, IF width and shift, narrow noise blanker nor the contour control could resuscitate the signal. But then suddenly it reappeared at 1312 with more talks and discussion. Gone again at 1317. On this occasion, the best antenna for this reception was my 7 mHz double bazooka. Very rarely heard here at Mount Evelyn and only ever when VL8A is off-air. Aug 30.

Gangtok is the largest town (pop. 100,000) and the capital of the Indian state of Sikkim. Located high in the Himalayan mountains, Sikkim is a land locked state, bordered by Nepal, Bhutan, the Chinese Autonomous Region and the Indian state of West Bengal. Almost 25% of the state is covered by the Khangchendzonga National Park. Gangtok sits at an elevation of 1,650 m (5,410 ft). A variety of different ethnicities live in Gangtok such as Nepali, Lepchas and Bhutia. (Wikipedia - edited)

Sometimes, from nothing comes something!

UPDATE:

Several other DXers also noted AIR Gangtok yesterday. Timm Breyel (Malaysia) and Ron Howard (USA) have both reported reception due to the VL8A absence on 4835 kHz. Here's Ron's notes:

SIKKIM. 4835, AIR Gangtok (presumed), 1357-1411, Aug 30. With ABC Alice Springs NT being off the air today, was a golden opportunity to check for this seldom reported station; 1357-1405 with announcer; 1405-1411 subcontinent music till announcer again at 1411; poor. Very pleased to catch this on a rare day of no ABC signal to block reception! (Ron, California)

And Timm's remarks in the WRTH Facebook group:

Yes, poor signal with a whiny transmitter and Indian music, logged at 13.40 till sign-off 16.00 UTC. (M. Breyel)

So.....if Alice Springs is still off the air in coming days, now could be your chance to catch Gangtok. Please let me know if you are successful! 

73 and good DX hunting everyone!

Rob Wagner VK3BVW



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