Let's Hear From Our Listener In Norway...

Said Ingrid Just on ABC Wide Bay Queensland after giving temperatures up in the 40 Celsius range. So I was happy to report a coolish zero Celsius... The reception reports from Norway have been quite enthusiastically received down there, and yesterday Ingrid, who runs the afternoon show in Wide Bay, asked if I could be on her program.

I thought she would ask how on earth I could hear Local Radio Queensland on MW, but that was obviously a very natural thing as she chose to focus on temperatures (who'd blame her), winter darkness in the Arctic and what we eat at Christmas. She's the journalist so she surely knows best what her listeners want.

Anyway it was great fun to be on her program and I hope I didn't scare off too many of her listeners.

Verifications, Nov 28

We had an excellent half-hour on 570 on October 9 (KONG14) with five stations from ON to WA ID'ing. Three of them were new for me, and two verifications arrived this afternoon:

WNAX Yankton SD 570, email from GM Les Tuttle
WKBN Youngstown OH 570, email from Asst. CE Michael Heim.

WKBN shares tower facilities with WNIO 1390, and Mr. Heim informed me that I was one of two DX-ers (overseas, assumingly) who had heard both stations. Last year, Heim confirmed a 1390 reception from 2004.

Verifications

Long day at work followed by an hour on the threadmill - but when I got home at 20:30 local the Email Inbox was full of surprises:

KVOX Moorhead MN 1280, email from KVOX-FM's Music Director Hopalong Cassidy
KBKR Baker City OR 1490, email from Program Director Evan Yeoman
WLAA Winter Garden FL 1680, email from Steve January
KOWB Laramie WY 1290, email from Cliff Mikkelson

Oregon verie no 30.

2BL Sydney, NSW 702 Verification

Heard September 14 with a "702" Identification after news and weather, before resuming the Overnights program from ABC with Trevor Chappell. Actually it was Trevor who confirmed my report.

These "local" IDs are merely localisation IDs that are inserted and does not mean that the program itself is local. A bit like US and Canadian stations doing ID inserts in syndicated or centrally produced programs.

WMKT Charlevoix MI 1270 Verification

After a long wait, I got WMKT verified today. Heard back in 2004 but somehow my reports didn't end up at the right person. Very friendly email from PD Greg Marshall today though, for my 15th Michigan verie. Not too easy to hear because of WXYT's strong signal.

KPQ Wenatchee WA 560 Verification

Email from Operations Director Debi Campestrini this afternoon for my 40th Washington state verification. KPQ is heard from time to time when conditions to the west coast are good, and KMON-MT not too dominating.

Queensland Verifications

Following a report on the Queensland locals in Townsville 630 (4QN, October 17) and Pialba 855 (4QB, October 8) I received email replies from Martin Powley at ABC Capricornia and Ross Peddlesden at ABC Wide Bay.

As for 855, the KONG crews have been uncertain about which station we heard since Eidsvold (4QO) is also listed there with 10kW. But Pialba (listed as Maryborough some places) is both directional towards us and coastal so it is the most likely one while Eidsvold is inland and non-directional. Also, Ross meant that Eidsvold had lower power. Maybe - the coverage map on ABC's excellent home pages is not conclusive since they do not list power. Eidsvold seems to cover a large area though.

Over the next couple of weeks programs will be transferred from Pialba to a new transmitter at a new site at Dundowran, near Hervey Bay. Possibly this is the change to FM that is indicated in The Pacific-Asian Log.

Update Nov 26:
Ross Peddlesten confirmed in an email today that the new transmitter at Dundowran will not be FM, but another AM transmitter, due toAustralian legislation which requires coverage to all citizens if possible - not all locals can receive an FM signal.

QSLs

Not much to brag about really... only a couple of verifications have arrived. A few days ago Thunder AM, Daegu Korea 1080. They were heard once during KONG14 and also during KONG15 the week after. My first logging of Thunder AM; they were fading up and down with the North Korean and a South Korean jammer for about 30 minutes before they disappeared.

Then last night KERI Wasco CA 1180 friendly email from Jessica at Sales. KERI was heard once during KONG15, in fact during a Coronal Hole disturbance with very few signals audible, but KERI was very strong! My first logging of KERI.

Another Coronal Hole, CH248 has just made its appearance and will probably complicate the coming weekend's DX. We will see.

Montana DX Test; QSL

A couple of days ago I received an email verie from KZNS Salt Lake City UT 1280. Thanks very much Tuomo Ahonen for submitting the email address.

Today was Big Sky DX Test day with the prospect of hearing six Montana stations; KANA 580, KKGR 680, KERR 750, KLCY 930, KGVO 1290 and KEIN 1310. All frequencies were monitored, and I followed the test from the mwdx channel on StarChat.net together with many of my US and Canadian colleagues.

At the start of the test period at 0700 UTC signal levels were very good, but spread from Ontario to Oregon. At 0709 I heard KERR Polson 750 after KXL had faded down. Another ID was heard at 0724. Alas, after 0730 signal levels got much weaker. There are indications that 930 and 1290 were not testing.

After going through recordings, and applying bandpass filtering to get the 1000 Hz CW tone as audible as possible, I also found an extremely weak KKGR East Helena 680 kHz. Thanks to Ole Forr, LA6EIA, who took care of translating the morse. As for 1310 it was dominated by WDTW-MI, CIWW-ON and partly CHLW-AB. A couple of times did I hear Nostalgia-type music, hinting at KEIN, but never did I hear an ID. I do hear them at irregular intervals otherwise, but it would have been nice to hear KEIN in this test as well.

Eton E1 - What's Up With Its Stability?

Several commentators (i.e. Guy Atkins and me...) have noticed the 50-150 Hz (mostly 50) frequency error which is noticeable and annoying when doing ECSS tuning. As Guy found it, there is a trimpot in the rear which allows for easy adjustment. Still, I found during the KONG DX-peditions, which went for like four weeks, that I needed to readjust two or three times even though the radio was never switched off during that period.

I went back to Kongsfjord last night after a two-week break to DX a bit. I don't usually heat the house when not in use, and November is usually quite cold at these latitudes, so the temperature in the living room was only 2C. I switched the E1 on and allowed it to warm up for an hour while I used all available heating sources to warm up the room. After an hour, the temperature was a more pleasant 18C and I started testing the E1. It was 180 Hz off!!! During the next two hours it came down to 130 Hz off, at which point I adjusted the trim pot. Some hours later I had to readjust it the other way but only 30-40 Hz.

Really! I mean, are all E1's like that? If you use AM or AMS the problem isn't there of course, but accuracy is critical for ECSS tuning. Of course I don't expect to find a TCXO in it, but can't it get any better? I would appreciate comments from E1 users who use ECSS frequently.

This is posted both in my blog and the E1 Yahoo Reflector.

A Good Night For QSLs

When I woke up this morning:

WDFN Detroit MI 1130, email from Rona Danziger. I heard this briefly in 1975 but they didn't reply to my report at the time. After I heard the four powerhouses on 1130 (NY, WI, MN, BC) I lost interest in the frequency. This autumn though, I decided to get WDFN. And I did in September.

ABC Radio Southeast, Naracoorte SA 1161, email from Alan Richardson. Heard in September with ABC SA Overnight. I've been hunting this for several years. My third South Australia in-band QSL.

WCED DuBois PA 1420 Verification

Yesterday evening, while checking an unattended recording on 1420 on Oct 7 I found this on top a few minutes, doing a promo with several references to 1420wced.com. Possibly the first logging of WCED in Scandinavia, also heard three days later by Tuomo Ahonen in Parkalompolo (Northern Sweden). I received a friendly email from PD Gary Stormer this evening, confirming my reception.

At the same time I also recorded IDs from KTOE-MN, WOC-IA and KITI-WA, but surprisingly enough not channel dominant WHK-OH!

Back Home, QSLs

Scheduled to be home late Sunday evening - got home Tuesday morning. First, flight cancellations due to bad weather in Reykjavik, then no available aircraft, another night at a hotel, then on Monday flight delays, delays, delays, finally early evening we arrived in Oslo, too late for the corresponding flight we had booked. So, another night in Tromsø, then finally at 6 am local we were going home.

Iceland was nice though, although we didn't see much more than Reykjavik and the towns on the southwestern peninsula. Got a glimpse of what I believe was the transmitter mast for Thunder AM, 1530. I'll be back. The restaurants in Reykjavik are outstanding; their seafood is second to none.

QSLs: Not much, since I've been so busy I am still on October 7 with regards to checking recordings from the KONGs. Still, these have found their way into my inbox:

KORL Honolulu HI 1180
WOKY Milwaukee WI 920
KENT Parowan UT 1400
WSDR Sterling IL 1240
KWKY Des Moines IA 1150