[HCDX] TA and LA LW & MW logs

[aurel chiochiu <acq@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Warm greetings to all of you !

Just received yesturday the tunable AM Shielded Magnetic loop for mediumwave for Australia...

I must admit that I have mixed feelings with it dependeing on the receiver I use... Using the Sanyo MCD-S830 barefoot with the PK MW Loop close to it, it works wonderful, not only in the 800-1000 kHz area, but also in the X-band. There was a huge difference between getting the pirates on 1710 kHz with readable audio and getting them pretty much with a threshold unlistenable signal... Using the Sangean DURING THE DAYTIME, I get overload on every frequency even with the RF gain control in a lower position and sometimes even if the antenna is very far from the Sangean... We are buzy right now, but I won't be surprised for Xmas to obtain a communication receivers such as the Kenwood 2000.

DX-wise, some foreign stuff hanging on during this off-season period, enough to stimulate my appetite for what could be heard during the real DX season, as you can see below...:

Trans-Atlantic DX

171 MOROCCO   Medi 1, Nador JUN 7 0330 UTC - Arabic woman announcer with an eclectic range of Arabic selections, ranging from Algerian raï to Egyptian plaintive male vocals... Nx at 0400 UTC followed by music that included some Western stuff and alternating French & Arabic short newscasts... They seem to have dropped the FF/AA friedly request program they had on Saturday night / early Sunday morning ! Heard on subsequent evenings, always with long and clear fair peaks while the // outlet on SW 9575 was always extremely poor and noisy with deep rapid fadings ! (Chiochiu-QC)

183 GERMANY   Europe 1, Felsberg JUN 12 0235 UTC - playing a French rock tune, then the follow-up French talkshow regarding woman's sexual health. Fairly strong signal with some static scratches that made following program content more challenging ! SINPO 35342. (Chiochiu-QC)

Pan-American DX

670 CUBA   CMBA, Radio Rebelde, Arroyo Arrenas JUN 13 0340 - Man talking in Spanish with a serious and mature voice... That's all I could tell about it as despite the fair strength, it was destroyed by local-like IBOC hash coming out of WFAN-660. SIO 311 really ! (Chiochiu-QC)

710 CUBA   CMW, Radio Rebelde, La Julia et al JUN 13 0530 UTC - Adult Contemporary vocal followed by Rebelde's canned instrumental ID. Good, over/under WOR with very slight splatter from next-adjacent CINF 690 that is using slightly thinner modulation than recently. After getting CMAF-910 for the second time the last night, I was tempted to try for this one, as it is often stronger than magepest WOR and also because I wanted to test the CINF-690 overmodulation issue that has triggered my ability to DX the upper 600s and the lower 700s over the last couple of months ! (Chiochiu-QC)

900 CUBA   CMKP, Radio Progreso, Cacocúm JUN 13 0547 - End of an oldie, then man in Spanish talking with an empathy toward the Cubans that got sick recently then introduced a radiodrama regarding an illness. Was hard to choose the best side of the channel - on the high side of 900 there was a computer high-pitched growl and on the lower side a fair amount of weak albeit fairly bothersome IBOC coming from WCBS-880... Inaudible withtout the PK Shielded Magnetic mediumwave green power loop, fair with some QRM when using it ! (Chiochiu-QC)

910 CUBA   CMAF, Radio Cadena Agaramonte, Camagüey JUN 13 0434 - woman talking in Spanish and mentioning "Radio Cadena Agramonte" rising above WLAT. Briefly poor ! +JUN 13 0520 - rising above a strong WLAT and a weak WABI with a fair signal for a few seconds, playing Cuban cha-cha-cha music (flute based oldfashionned tropical music). A total surprise for the month of June ! Used to get them on a semi-regular basis, but not lately ! (Chiochiu-QC)

Domestic DX

910 WABI Bangor, ME JUN 13 0110 EDT / JUN 13 0510 UTC - American talkshow with a male host occasionally on top of strong WLAT and occasional Cuba. Assumed this station as WZAN-970 was in with a blockbuster signal ! (BC-QC)

1710 RSI - Radio Soleil International Boston, MA JUN 13 0230 EDT / JUN 13 0630 UTC+ - playing kompas music with occasional overmodulated male kreyol DJ voiceover. Good peaks, deep fadings and I had to tune on the high side of 1710 kHz to avoid a computer growl that was heard around 1705 kHz. Mainly threshold audio using the Sanyo MCD-S830, but the PK AM loop brought this one nicely ! NEW ! First pirate in years ! Mixing with an unID Spanish station that had romantic music and seemingly religious SS talk that was hard to follow in heavy co-channel and man-made QRM, almost certainly a pirate as well, as the only legal stations on this channel are Traveller Information Service outlets (TIS stations) ! (BC-QC)  


Additional comments: I guess I'm somewhere between a hard-core and a casual DXer. While Cuba-910 was undoubtedly a more difficult catche, hearing the megapest but extremely enjoyable WLAT-910 was definitively a piece of cake ! They played dark-edged upbeat Spanish tropical and pop hits I didn't know existed - it has opened up my mind back to tropical hits after my mind switched to mainly Arabic music (mainly due to my obsession with Medi Un 171 kHz // 9575 kHz). I will post a short MP3 clip on LatinMWDX regarding an unID Spanish tropical tecnomerengue-rap hit I enjoyed over the airwaves of WLAT-910 too see if some of you Latin music gourous could help... By the way, if you would like to share logs and MP3 IDs of Caribbean or Latin American stations, please, feel yourself obligated to join the Yahoo! group LatinMWDX ! It is a very small community, there are maybe two DXers contributing on a regular basis... While the last season was a misery toward LAm with excellent TA condx, I feel toward the middle of 2009-2010 we are going to have some auroral activity as nothing could go on forever endlessly, so you never know when you might start hearing stations south of the border (as most of the LatinMWDX members are in the USA) !

As far as the DX goes, I couldn't believe my ears when I had two apparent pirates fighting for dominance on 1710 kHz the last night. I was so excited as I haven't DXed a pirate in ages, since I wen to bed at 3 and a half this morning and fell asleep after 4AM with the sun starting to rise... Hence, I didn't eat my breakfast yet ! Part of it was because the birthday party was scheduled for Thursday instead of Friday - the schedule of it was changed very quickly which is why I was so active the last night... Since my analog Sanyo MCD-S830 tunes up to around 1730 or 1740 kHz, maybe it could be possible to hear some MW harmonics like 2X860H = 1720 !!! I know Radio Clarín from the Dominican Republic used to be on 1720 kHz more than 10 years ago, according to Iowa veteran SW DX and harmonic hunter Don Moore !

Back to more basic stuff... Montreal had an unbelievable amount of rain and the ground conductivity seem to have improve therefore... The weak semi-local WDEV on 550 was quite poor, not it is slightly STRONGER with a somewhat fair signal. So is WICY-1490 with a definitively fair and listenable signal in Malone on the other side of the mediumwave band ! However, local computer-like noises right on 640 prevent me from trying to hear the very threshold daytime groundwave of WNNZ-640, as this one is the furthest groundwave signal I ever got ! I wonder what are your daytime groundwave DX records on LW or MW ! If you have sometime you can share them with me !

As far as WDEV-550 it is quite weak day and night and the departure of hard-to-null stronger semi-local CHLN-550 gives real hope in hearing Algeria-549 the next season if the conditions are good enough and the solar activity still low. I had a tentative on Algeria-549, but I barely had the PK LW loop and I was so excited about it that I almost gave up on mediumwave DX and didn't had the patience to stay with it... One of my dreams is hearing foreign stuff on broadcast bands not used in North America, because they seem more mysterious, more unique to me ! Algeria-549 runs the same stuff as on LW 153 and I'm about to ask my mom for my birthday to purchase a LW loop on the fixed frequency of 153 kHz where my favorite raï music station is and where there is a real hope of hearing Romanian domestic radio under the Algeria/Germany/Norway stronger broadcasters... By the way, is NRK-153 still on the air ? Well...


This report is brought to you by Bogdan Alexandru Chiochiu DXing using either the Sangean ACS 818CST or the Grundig G5 along with the PK's Shielded Magnetic longwave loop, the Sanyo MCD-S830 in the vecinity of the PK's AM band green power Shielded Magnetic mediumwave loop combo or the Sangean ACS 818CST in the vecinity of the PK AM green power loop !

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