WHEN THE LIGHTS GO OUT, THE RADIO GOES ON

October 17, 2016

Melbourne weather: Wild wind storms leave 40,000 homes without power with rain, hail and thunder on the way (The Age Newspaper)
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WHEN THE LIGHTS GO OUT, THE RADIO GOES ON!

Here's a very quick report........

The past week has been very busy at Mount Evelyn with many non-radio related distractions. And now I've started a short (by my standards!) road trip to Newcastle and Port Stephens, north of Sydney, which will see me absent from home for the next ten days.

Unfortunately, I've got rather behind in my posting to MEDXR. On Sunday October 9, my state of Victoria was subjected to significant storms with rain and destructive winds. In my region of the state, an area known as the Yarra Ranges and Yarra Valley, many residents were without power for days, and some homes for nearly a week, as large trees fell across power lines and onto houses. Indeed, one death occurred about 20 minutes from Mount Evelyn when a huge tree crushed the house.

Fortunately for me, the power to my home was only off for only 14 hours. But in that time, I made good use of the sealed lead acid battery I always have charged and ready to go in situations such as this. The result was some good DX signals coming into Mount Evelyn for the time the mains power was interrupted. However, although manmade RF noise levels were virtually non-existent, shortwave propagation conditions were only fair on that day. In addition, the local storms brought with them much lightening static and crashes that made listening quite tedious.

However, I did manage to hear a few notable signals, as listed below:

DATE: October 9, 2016 TIME: 0700 - 1030 UTC

3310 BOLIVIA. R. Mosoj Chaski - Cochabamba. At 1020 with a fair signal and a long talk in Spanish (perhaps Sunday preaching?).

4869.88 INDONESIA. RRI - Wamena. Indonesian pop songs at 0850, rarely a strong signal and certainly not on this occasion but reception was made possible by a local power outage, weak signal at first, but improved to a fair a level when rechecked at 1000.

4875.1 BRAZIL. R. Difusora Roraima - Boa Vista RR. Noted at 0955 with a weak to fair signal and Brazilian pops.

4885 BRAZIL. R. Clube do Pará - Belém PA. Tentative log here at 0900 with continuous music and occasional anncts. We used to hear the resident Brazilian quite regularly (R. Difusora Acreana), but not heard here in some time now. So I suspect it is Pará on this occasion….but that's just a guess. Very weak signal.

5035 BRAZIL. R. Aparecida - Aparecida SP. Not a strong signal but readable at times, relaxed programming at 1010 with mainly music programming. No sign of R. Educação
Rural, which in the past has been a few Hertz higher.

6010.1 COLOMBIA. La Voz de tu Conciencia - Lomalinda, Puerto Lleras. Music programming and occasional talks, first noted at 0715 and still going past 0815, fair signal.

6040.7 BRAZIL. R. RB2 - Curitiba PR. Many excited canned and studio anncts between music selections at 0810, fair signal.

6059.75 BRAZIL Super R. Deus é Amor - Curitiba PR. A weak signal and possibly poor audio quality (hard to tell) at 0820, has to be this on this off-frequency channel.

6070 CANADA. CFRX - Toronto. Normally heard here in midwinter (May-Aug), so it was great to hear CFRX with in October with a fair signal at 0830, discussion program and long strings of adverts. Lots of atmospheric static made listening difficult at times.

6120 BRAZIL. Super R. Deus é Amor - São Paulo SP. Tentative log here but believed go be this station at 0838 with long talks and occasional music interludes, sounded like Portuguese, but a weak signal through the atmospheric crashes. Not regularly heard here these days.

There were many other stations heard as well, of course. But these ones above represent good DX at this time of the day and for this time of year at Mount Evelyn.

So, now it's time to get back on the road again. I have the Tecsun PL-680 and a reel of wire. At the end of this coming week, as I'm driving back home, I hope to have the occasional opportunity to do some listening in the bush or by the sea.

73 and good DX to you all,

Rob Wagner VK3BVW