Mount Evelyn DX Report

THE IONOSPHERE, SHORTWAVE RADIO  AND PROPAGATION YouTube Video Several weeks back, a post in Thomas Witherspoon's  SWLing.com blog  alerted readers to a YouTube series on aspects of radio including SDRs, RADAR, radio astronomy etc, from the MIT Student Cable channel. One of these videos especially captured my interest, concerning shortwave radio wave propagation.   The lecture is delivered by Dr Philip J. Erickson, W1PJE, assistant director and head of the Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences group at Haystack Observatory, operated by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Dr Erickson offered an interesting presentation which he titled "Radio Wave Propagation and Dynamics in Near Earth Space: Interactions with the Complex Natural World" . (Note that the title of the lecture and the title listed on the YouTube video are different!). From the YT video channel: Since the late 1950s, MIT Haystack, located in Westford, MA, ha...

DX QUICK TIPS January 20, 2019 Some interesting DX signals have reached Mount Evelyn this week. 👍 3325   INDONESIA. RRI - Palangkaraya, Kalimantan Tengah. Voice of Indonesia's Mandarin service at 1135 with talks and contemporary jazz ballads. A very quick ID in English (!) as "Voice of Indonesia" at 1143. A fair signal and no sign of NBC Bougainville this night, although NBC was there last night at this time. Jan 13. 👍👍 4765.06   TAJIKISTAN. Tajik Radio 1 - Yangi Yul. Distinctly Central Asian sounding music programming with Tajik anncts at 1930. The music reflects this country's position on the border with Afghanistan and close to Pakistan, Jammu and Kashmir. The Tajik language is a dialect of Persian (closely related to Dari). Interestingly, many Tajiks also speak Russian - a throwback to the eras of domination by the Russian Empire in the 1870s+ and later the Soviets, where it was known as the Tajik Soviet Socialists Republic (Tajik SSR). A surpris...

How NOT to Get a QSL Card! I have just seen what has to be one of the worst examples of a reception report sent to a shortwave broadcast station in recent times! I have concealed the identities of both the station and the listener concerned.  See if you can make anything of this..........! So let's go through the problems with this reception report. 1)  The first sentence doesn't address anyone in particular. It is just a " hello " and an outline of the deal the writer wants to secure. A signal report in exchange for a QSL card. Talk about getting straight to the point! 2)  Radio:  " Grundig Eton Micro Satellit 750" . What is this listener referring to by including the word "micro"? 3)  The time is expressed for the eastern USA time zone rather than in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The station is NOT a US broadcaster, so the person attempting to answer this listener's letter has to calculate time zones in order ...

QSLs - Real PAPER QSLs! In " the old days ", the final courtesy in a Ham radio contact (QSO) was to exchange QSL cards confirming the transmissions between two operators. However, these days many amateur radio operators are not interested in the traditional paper QSL cards, preferring to do it electronically, via the ARRL's Logbook of the World (LoTW) or via the eQSL organisation. The electronic method of exchange is far quicker (virtually instantaneous), far easier to track, and works with most computerised logbook applications.  This is quite understandable! Over the decades, I have collected thousands of QSLs through ham radio, along with shortwave, mediumwave broadcasters, and utility station verifications. I don't really need any more!  BUT....it is always great to occasionally receive some QSLs in the mail....real paper cards! On FT8 mode I have been interested in gathering a small collection of paper cards. Here are a few that have graced m...