Another KONG-HQ Visit (And Some Nice Daytimer Openings Recently)

From the amount of snow on the ground, this could very well be early May.

The Friday drive from Vadsø was in bright sunshine, at least until sunset 45 minutes before arrival, and with temperatures just below freezing most of the way. Around 90% of the road was bare - the remaining 10% was pure ice! Studless tyres required some careful driving.

Both OJS and I had some hard drive trouble, now hopefully fixed for the remainder of this season. March 4 and 5 saw some interesting daytimer openings, mostly towards Ohio at around 23:30Z. Noted here were:

• WVCX-KY 1160 (no sign of Chicago)
• WTLC-IN 1310
• WMAN-OH 1400
• WBNS-OH 1460 (no sign of Des Moines)
• WBCO-OH 1540 (no sign of KXEL. That's 500 watts day power)
• WQCD-OH 1550 (neck-on-neck with Windsor)
• WXGT-OH 1580 (no sign of CKDO) 

Not much of a winter...

Tomorrow Saturday I will be heading towards my old home town Berlevåg for a cordial visit before returning to Vadsø. Here's the evening view towards east. It makes me wonder what kind of DX the coming night has in store for us. Maybe another daytimer opening?

The bright star is Arcturus, a red giant sitting about 37 light years away. Its size? Massive—25 times the radius of our Sun!.

WavViewDX - Probably The Most Versatile Playback Software Today

 So, this is it - the brainchild of German DX-er Reinhard Weiß:

Waterfall from12 hours of continuous recording + some more (zoomed beyond time and frequency edges for clarity)

I hadn't heard about WavViewDX (hereafter WVDX) until late January. It turns out it's fairly new. Reinhard mentioned to me that it started off solely as a viewer in late 2021. Plans to include a player began a year later. Work on an integrated import/analyser commenced in the summer of 2024, and development has been rapid since then. After 12 years of using Jaguar, I'm very much into the "What you see is what you hear" concept. We older individuals tend to prefer linear TV and radio, and it seems the same applies to DX-ing: Linear (live) DX. However, with IQ recordings, we can pick and choose! DX on demand! All we need are the tools to select our DX. Tools like Jaguar, WVDX, Carrier Sleuth, the enhanced SDR Console Navigator, and possibly others are very helpful if we want to review long runs of IQ recordings.

WVDX can import a wide variety of IQ files: Perseus, Jaguar (Perseus), SDR#, SDRconnect, SDR Console, Winradio RXW, Winradio DDC, Linrad single channel, Linrad dual channel for phasing, and my old favourite, SpectraVue! More are likely to be added. The available step sizes (as of today) are 10 kHz, 9+10 kHz or 5 kHz. 

The MWList Logbook and Databases are incorporated, and logging to MWList is straightforward.

WVDX is available for Linux and Windows down to Win7.

Jaguar users will be familiar with the waterfall shown above. Of course, you can also make a detailed spectrum view for every frequency. Below is one from 1320 yesterday:

5 hours + on 1320 (uncalibrated) and the MWList integration with Logbook

A detailed spectrum is done for one frequency at a time. If you’re using an external HDD and a slow CPU like I do, it can take a long time. You can compromise on details to speed it up. A fast CPU and an internal SSD will be way quicker than the 22 minutes I used for a 3-hour spectrum with 0.1 Hz resolution, 30 minutes time resolution and 10 Hz width. Here are your options:

If you opt for the rightmost values above, you're probably in for a long wait if you're not using a fast CPU and SSDs.

Luckily, the data gets saved for later and reloads quickly. Jaguar, on the other hand, processes spectra in the background (livescan) while recording, so that's a bonus.

Now, Jaguar (and Perseus) files are single files. Software like SDR Console and SDRconnect can use RF64 files, which can be massive. Here's an example from SDRconnect of a 90+ minute, 46-GB recording:

Recorded with RSPdx-R2 and SDRconnect

Navigating in time and frequency in the waterfall and spectrum is dead easy—just point and click, and it responds instantly. Might be a bit tricky to get the exact time, though. Traditional tuning is done with the right (upwards) and left keyboard arrows. Beware that only 5, 9 or 10 kHz step sizes are available. There is a Manual Tuning option in the More menu as well, where you can insert a frequency of your choice. There are loads of keyboard shortcuts available too. The spacebar starts and stops playback. Modes are selected with A for AM, S for SAM, F for FSAM, L for LSB, and U for USB. Just to name a few.

If you're into offsets, WVDX offers a choice of one or two calibration frequencies. We use a Bodnar mini-GPS that transmits on 1705 kHz, and after enabling auto-calibration in Jaguar, the resulting IQ files are spot on in WVDX. The Perseus SDR is known to drift quite a bit if ambient temperatures change, and the temperature in my radio room at the KONG HQ has varied between 3 and 12 degrees Celsius the past few days, with huge variations in the Perseus frequency response.

Since it's still early in development, there will be a few functions and GUI solutions that could be improved. After a "buggy" period, the current version 1367 seems pretty stable. All in all, I'd say it's a brilliant alternative for those who want to "DX on demand," almost regardless of their hardware choices.

And there is even a user manual! And a web page!

First Visit to the KONG-HQ in 2025!

So, guess what? This is my first trip to KONG-HQ since late November! Even during my Christmas holiday in nearby Berlevåg, I didn't manage to swing by. "Good weather" and "Weekend" just couldn't get their act together until today.

Not that I really needed to. Despite some wild weather, there haven't been any power outages, so our PCs and Perseus have been chugging along just fine. While I was there, I swapped out two of Ole's hard drives and hooked up a Sonoff plug to one of my desktop PCs.

The 170-km drive to Kongsfjord was pretty chill, with mild snow showers and calm winds tagging along. I was bracing myself for a trek through deep snow from the parking lot to the house, but nope! The wind had blown all the loose snow away, so I ended up walking on a nice, crunchy snow crust from the latest thaw (there's been a few), barely leaving any footprints

Very little snow left as I walked towards the KONG-HQ

A well-known motif for my readers. The sea lyme grass isn't even close to being covered by the snow.

Yikes! The plastic shovel I grabbed from my car was no match for this crust. And the steel shovel? Buried... under the crust! Took me a while to dig it out...

+1 Celsius today. January's cold spells have been few and far between. Oh, and the sun officially made its comeback a week ago. "Officially" because the plains to the south keep it out of sight. But hey, it's nice to have lighter days. Any day now, it'll show up.

And while I'm at it - it might be a while until my next post - I hit up a thrift shop in Vadsø last Thursday and found this gem! Well, actually two!! This is the David Andersen Type 551 portable radio. With the lid on, it looks just like another suitcase. Made in 1954, it sold for NOK 427, which in today's money is half the price of an iPhone 15 Pro Max! No clue if they work 70 years after - probably not - but I'm still tempted. By the way, the thrift shop is called Det Hvite Hus, which, of course, translates to that funny farm in DC.

The David Andersen portable radios. Looks like they have been takes well care of.  Interesting to note that even the NDB section was marked (Radio-navigasjon, I suppose I don't have to translate that).

More as it happens (but it may be spring by then).

KONG49 - Day Nine

At the time of writing, we are less than 24 hours from departure, and today is forecasted to be the windiest day of the DX-pedition. Time will tell. It will calm down a bit in the early evening.

Yesterday, Saturday, was relatively calm, so given the high proton levels that made hearing anything impossible, we opted to dismantle the LoranD installation while daylight remained. The tasks included 1) severing the wire at both the far end grounding and the near end transformer, 2) gathering over 50 fiberglass rods, 3) disconnecting battery power, which turned off the PC, GPS, and modem, 4) removing the 4G modem antenna along with its substantial support, 5) winding in over 1000 meters of antenna wire, 6) securing the antenna reel and fiberglass rods in tarpaulin for next year's use, and 7) transporting the Zarges case, battery, and 4G antenna to the car. Having honed this procedure over several years at the Mount Loran site, we completed the task in a mere 37 minutes.

"See you next year!"

We checked some of the LoranD recordings from previous days, and noted KTNN-AZ 660, KDFD-CO 760, KATQ-MT 1070, KBRX-NE 1350 from Oct 23, and KLIN-NE 1400 from Oct 22. All relogs. Bjarne did a quick check of the back lobe of the 340 beverage from Oct 26 and noted a few of the Dutch low-power stations.

Dinner time! For starters, the traditional Västerbotten pie, a Swedish course served with sour cream, roe (in this case, whitefish roe since the original Kalix roe is next to impossible to find) and finely chopped red onion. 

Main course: A traditional Norwegian course which is surely eaten in any country where there are sheep: "Fårikål", or Får i kål. Directly translated to English: Sheep in Cabbage. We chose meat from a lamb's thigh, with generous amounts of chopped cabbage, cooked for 2-3 hours. We added garlic and some herbs for additional flavour. The trick for the ultimum fårikål eating experience is to let it cool down for a few hours after cooking, then re-heat it.

And for dessert: Home-made Crème Brûlée.

We had red wine for the starter and main course, and enjoyed some Amaretto and Grappa with the dessert.

Fårikål first few minutes of cooking. Cabbage covering the meat

Not much to do this Sunday except check the few recordings that have decent signal levels, maybe go outside a bit for a real windy experience, and start to prepare our Monday morning departure. But! We will have a magnificent last-day dinner tonight! More on that later. Maybe much later.

Weather: Much the same as previous days; partly cloudy, windy, between 4 and 6 degrees Celsius. Next week will be colder. But then we're not here!

Sunday morning update!

I went outside to try to capture the waves in the bay near the house. A 2D image makes it much less impressive than really seeing it, but there you are. Trying to stand upright was the hardest challenge.

KONG49 - Day Eight: Radio Silence!

The old Thomas Dolby song from 1982 comes to mind when reviewing the Yaslogs from our antennas. There are completely dead bands at both the KONG and Smøla HQs and at the LoranD site. The X-flare from early yesterday has certainly made an impact, with proton levels on the rise. This could potentially be the worst KONG expedition in terms of logging new stations since KONG9 in 2003.

But the sky was ablaze today, half an hour after the 15:30 sunset!

And here is how it looked from Ole's and OJ's car near Berlevåg at the same time:

Still very mild weather, up to 9 degrees Celsius today but with strong winds, up to 20 m/s or 70 km/h. The wind will increase further until around noon on Saturday, a bit of rain and a bit cooler.

So! Dinner: Fried cod loins with leftover carbonara and a bit extra bacon and ginger roots. Kim Crawford white wine was served with the cod. For dessert: Fresh cloudberries with cream and sugar (and a bit of Grappa). Excellent stuff! So to end this rather meaningless post, here is an aurora photo from tonight.

KONG49 - Day Seven - Hiking & Brunching With Friends

 So! Very poor conditions from North America overnight. In the afternoon we picked up last night's LoranD recordings, but they were disappointing as well. Proper crappy signals from Asia today.  Slept a little late morning  after last night's magnificent dinner party with our Finnish friends Mika, Jim and Pia. But hey! I was in bed at 02:00!

We met again just before 10 local this morning for a 2-hour hike out to the Veines Lighthouse with diversions to the bird-watching shelter and WW2 Nazi fortifications. Below are some impressions from the hike:

Path

From left: Jim Solatie, OJ Sagdahl, Ole Forr, Mika Mäkelainen, me. Photo by Pia.

Jim's selfie, including Pia (to the right)

We were quite hungry upon return to the KONG-HQ, so we had a proper brunch with sourdough bread, king crab leftovers, cheeses, hams, salami, home made raspberry jam, milk, tea and coffee. Later on, the Finnish party left for their own AIH-HQ in Aihkiniemi - a four-hour drive.

A few more photos from yesterday's dinner might be in order:

Out of the oven (200 degrees Celsius)

Ready to serve!

With Carbonara and white wine!

Tastes delicious!

We had another trip to the swimming pool and sauna today. And after that, guess what? Dinner!

Reindeer tender loins marinated in oil and balsamico creme with spices, garlic, red chili and fresh juniper berries. A root veggies paste (with lots of real butter), a sauce with fried mushrooms and red wine, and of course the traditional lingonberry jam. (Some of us use lingonberry jam with everything meatish). And.....wow. Thanks to Magne at Raggo Rein for this suberb meat.

Tenderloins before frying.

Tenderloin with sauce, roots paste and lingonberries, ready to eat.

After the dinner we enjoyed some Grappa.

Weather today was 3-5 degrees Celsius, a chilly breeze and mostly cloudy but dry. It looks like tomorrow will be warmer (a bit of rain overnight), but very windy in the evening.

KONG49 Day Six

 So, here we are again, after an eventful day!

First off: Morning photo at 05:30 local. Unless I'm totally mistaken, that is Orion's Belt  a bit to the left. Someone else might want to name the rest of the stars.  Nothing wrong with the streetlights though.

Later on: Sunny! Chilly and a bit breezy at 2-4 degrees Celsius, so I opted for a wool shirt under the jacket when I did my run earlier today. Ole and OJ hiked to the lighthouse again, and sent this QSL:

The daily (almost) lighthouse photo from OJ

Overnight conditions on the 340 beverage were ok but not outstanding. Signals faded in around Midnight UTC. Interesting peaks at 04:00 and 05:00, signal levels then slowly detoriareted. Illustrative of the dominant stations overnight is this 6-hour waterfall from 1430 kHz starting 00:30 UTC, where KAMP Aurora CO and KMES Ogden UT had very strong signals all night.

KAMP-CO and KMES-UT, still audible at 11:00 UTC

After a quick scan of the LoranD recordings, nothing more of interest was found. except maybe WHB-MO 810. From the 50 degrees beverage we noted HLAF MBC Kagneung 1287 dominating over JOHR at 10:00 UTC.

So, in the evening we had our special guest stars for dinner! Mika, Jim and Pia joined us for a King Crab dinner, starting with goose liver paté on roasted sourdough bread, with chili jam and balsamico crema. The crab was served with carbonara, and white wines kindly submitted by our guests. For dessert we had a cheese selection followed by chocolate mousse. And besides chatting about DX-ing and many other subjects, we enjoyed Grappa and Port wine. Below is a photo of the dinner party (Photo/selfie: Mika):

From left: Mika, Bjarne, OJ, Jim, Pia, Ole

We  have agreed to meet again tomorrow for a hike to the lighhouse and a brunch at the KONG HQ.

KONG49 - Day Five

Conditions are definitely improving. Nothing interesting from Asia so far, but overnight there were spots with interesting stations from North America. Some of the less common stations noted on the 340 beverage:

1150 KSAL-KS (no sign of WHBY), 1260 KTRC-NM, 1310 KGLB-MN, 1450 KGIW-CO

Judging from the LoranD overnight Yaslog, we should see some interesting catches from there as well!

Around noon, I went for another run on the 890, covering 11.5 km, while OJ and Ole took a hike to the lighthouse.

890 continues another 30 km to Berlevåg from where I turned back.

OJ's capture of the Veines Lighthouse

In the afternoon, seeking a shower and sauna due to the Arctic Lodge's temporary closure, we headed to the swimming pool in Berlevåg, which offered all these facilities.

Dinner! Ole introduced us to locally produced sausages from his home area, with key ingredients like beef, lamb meat and wild garlic. Accompanied by root vegetable paste and salad. Like yesterday, we enjoyed a Côte du Rhône red wine with the meat. Dessert is temporarily postponed.

Weather remained relatively warm at 8-9 degrees Celsius, with cloudy skies and intermittent light rain, accompanied by stronger winds. However, it wasn't enough to keep us indoors. The forecast for tomorrow predicts cooler temperatures, with a high of 6 degrees Celsius, but it is expected to be sunny!

And tomorrow, we will have guests! In fact, three very special guest stars! And we will serve a very special dinner! 

Stay tuned for details!

 

 

KONG49 - Day Four

 Another beautiful day in the Arctic! Sunny and clear skies, a light breeze early in the day, then calm. Maximum temperature above 10 degrees Celsius.

And some DX! Yesterday evening at 21 UTC there was an opening towards Japan shortly after NHK-2 started another day of broadcasting. Noteworthy was the 1-kW Yonago relay station of JOLZ Tottori on 1521. Quite good signal levels on the 340 beverage at the KONG-HQ, and this afternoon we collected the IQ recordings from our on-ground beverage at Loran D. Weak signals, but low noise floor. Unfortunately occasional RFI from what we assume is a nearby substation.

Today, we elevated the beverage to an average of 120 cm, and made a grounding for the end point. It made an instant effect on the JIX index of Jaguar and a very noticeable increase in signal levels. It will be interesting to see what the coming night brings. This development in the X-Ray Flux levels may not be all that promising:

We do observe the effect of a slightly more northerly direction (up from 306 to 312 degrees). More westerly stations seem to be dominant. But we've only scanned one night. Even at the Smøla HQ, western stations dominated last night. So, things may change.

To describe the noise better, here is an audio clip from 920 on Loran D. The noise starts a few seconds after the full hour, and during a CFRY ID.

CFRY and noise

Early in the day I went out to catch a bit of the nice weather. Pictures below.

Later on, OJ went for his daily hike to the Veines lighthouse (photo below), while I did a 9.4-km jog (track log below below).

Veines Lighthouse (photo: OJ Sagdahl)

Bjarnes run track (source: Polar)

As mentioned earlier, we later drove to the Loran D site to elevate the wire, and make a proper termination at the far end. Pictured below is OJ walking down to the far end of the beverage.

So, dinner's next!  We had reindeer shanks in Barolo yesterday. Today we took the leftovers, added chopped root vegetables, garlic and leak, and transformed it into a meat soup, Barolo style. But first, for appetizers we had Salmon Tartare, made up from equal parts of fresh and smoked salmon. Kim Crawford was the natural white wine for the Tartare, and a Côte du Rhône red wine for the main course. We decided to postpone dessert, since there is only so much one can eat.

KONG49 - Day Three

Conditions are gradually getting better. We received signals from the North American west coast and Asia until late afternoon today, though they were not extraordinary.

Today marked Loran D day. We installed 1040 metres of beverage antenna, primarily laid out on the ground for testing purposes. Our objective is to compare tonight's signal levels with those at the KONG HQ. We expect, or hope, Loran D to be significantly better. Should the results be positive, we plan to raise the antenna wire tomorrow.

Now, at 22 local, we do hear signals on 1230 from CBC, likely Iqaluit.

Attached are a few photos from the starting point; unfortunately, we neglected to document the opposite end.

A shadowy selfie including Ole in his red jacket. The Zarges case holds a PC, Perseus, battery, modem, and more.

Another photo of the starting point - antenna going towards the photographer

During our equipment testing, we encountered significant noise, reminiscent of our experience at Mount Loran, yet more intense. Regrettably, we suspect a nearby substation is the culprit, which may complicate the resolution. We plan to conduct overnight Jaguar recordings to assess the impact on DX.

For dinner, we've savored lamb and calf shanks in Barolo, and now it's time for reindeer shanks in the same rich wine. But let's begin with the appetizers:

Garlic-rubbed toasted bread, topped with a hearty spread of hummus and golden-brown fried artichokes, garnished with fresh parsley.

Main Course: Eight reindeer shanks pan-fried and then slow-cooked with two bottles of Barolo for three and a half hours. A handful of tomatoes were also required, as evident here: 

Reindeer shanks in Barolo

As you can see, the final result is here. It's remarkable – distinct from lamb and calf, reindeer meat possesses a unique "wild" flavor. It may come as no surprise that we paired the starters and main course with Barolo red wine.

We often feature a selection of cheeses for dessert, and today is one of those days. On the plate, we have Gruyère, Parmesan, Morbier, Epoisses, Brie, Papillon Roquefort, and Chèvre Sott. Additionally, you'll find Ole serving a Niepoort 2019 port wine..

Today's weather update: It's windier and cooler than yesterday, with temperatures around 5-6 degrees Celsius. The skies are dry and mostly clear. Surprisingly, at 22:00, the temperature has risen to nearly 11 degrees! It seems we can expect another dry and fairly warm day tomorrow, though some rain may arrive in the afternoon.

And don't forget to check out my 50 years with 40 receivers blogpost!