Mount Evelyn DX Report: FREE DOWNLOAD! - DOMESTIC BROADCASTING SURVEY

Domestic Band Survey - Cover 23rd Edition

FREE DOWNLOAD!

Domestic Broadcasting Survey:

23rd Edition

One of the best DX lists going around is the annual Domestic Broadcasting Survey (DBS), compiled by legendary Danish DXer, Anker Petersen. The latest and 23rd edition is now available to download at http://www.dswci.org. This unique publication is divided into three parts:

Part 1: The Tropical Bands Survey covers all active domestic broadcasting stations on 2300 - 5700 kHz, including clandestine broadcasters. Of course, these days, this section of DBS is much smaller than it was 30 years ago when the tropical bands were full of African and Latin American stations. But there is still plenty of action down in that part of the shortwave spectrum, especially from Asian broadcasters.

Part 2: Domestic stations on international shortwave bands above 5700 kHz broadcasting to a domestic audience. A21 schedules are included where available. Again, this section is primarily dominated by Asian broadcasters, and of particular interest are the more obscure or lesser-known Chinese outlets. And there are listings for a small number of East African and South American stations. DRM and pirate broadcasts are not included.

Part 3: Deleted frequencies between 2 and 30 MHz which have not been reported heard during the past five years but may reappear in the future.

An excerpt from the main domestic listing of stations in part of the 60mb

The Domestic Band Survey is the only publication that seriously looks at the tropical bands while also providing analysis of domestic broadcasters still operating in the International bands. The list is made up of actual monitored reports by DXers around the world. For me, this is what makes the survey such an invaluable resource. It is not just some government or broadcasting authority’s view of what should be on frequency, but accurate loggings by people who constantly scan the bands for this information.

Added to this is the coded listing of activity for each station by regular, irregular, sporadic or likely inactive, which helps confirm to which station you are probably listening. In many listings, it even includes accurate quotations of station identifications likely to be heard by listeners.

A list of the abbreviations used in each listing that help to compress much of the detailed analysis.

The survey is jammed-packed with helpful information on languages, transmission times, the broadcaster’s network, parallel frequencies, announcements, locations, transmitter power and a host of other tips.

I also find interesting the list of stations deleted from previous editions of DBS. It is a handy feature of the DBS, for occasionally, stations can suddenly be reactivated without warning. If you keep past copies of the Survey for reference purposes, the study of these can reveal when the station was last heard and its previous operating schedule. This is handy information for that all-important logging of a reactivated broadcaster.

An excerpt from the list of recently deleted broadcasters, very handy in case of re-activations.

Overall, the DBS is a convenient and free reference tool that should be in the radio shack of every enthusiastic DX listener.

And, while you are there downloading the DBS at http://www.dswci.org, also check out the latest tropical bands activity by downloading the Tropical Bands Monitor, which is updated each month. Another handy resource!

73 and good DX to you all,

Rob Wagner VK3BVW