Sunday, January 28, 2007

This Weekend's DX: New Station 1560, KRSN 1490 Test

I had planned to take Friday off and spend the entire weekend in my DX shack in Kongsfjord; however weather took a turn for the worse Thursday when heavy wind and snow created a whiteout. All roads were blocked as well so I had to delay the departure. Friday wasn't as bad but they had just managed to get the roads opened when on Saturday another whiteout set in... finally on Saturday evening the weather had cleared enough for me to drive. I hear from other locations in Northern Scandinavia that I hardly missed any interesting DX. At the time of writing: Clear sky, -8C but a fresh breeze that makes it feel a lot colder.

I had two goals for the weekend: The new KVAN Burbank WA 1560 station, and the KRSN Los Alamos NM 1490 DX test. KVAN is only 1.6 kW nights but the nighttime lobe is directed towards me, and it had already been heard in Sweden and Finland so I thought I should have a good chance of hearing it. I did... Sunday at 0623, just minutes after I got on the frequency, I heard a clear "Oldies 92.1" ID. KKAA Aberdeen SD was rather dominant though. It is going to be a regular catch at least up north.

No sign of KRSN though, on any of the three full hours. Conditions had a northerly and easterly dominance (typically CKEC-NS dominating 1320 and WDDY-NY dominating 1460, to give a few examples), so the prospects for hearing a NM station that morning weren't good.

Update at 1200 UTC: But I did see the sun for the first time since November on my drive home! The Polar Night is over.

5 comments:

Gert Nilsson said...

Always nice to read your blogg. I was one of the guys in Sweden that heard KVAN Jan 26. I also heard them on the 28th. My interferring station was KNZR with C2C, KKAA just for a couple of minutes with Open Forum. I have searched for address but can't find it on Yellw Pages. Do you have some contact information?

Anonymous said...

Hi, this is KRSN.

I have a radio show "Crusin to the Tunes", from 1:00pm to 3:00pm, Monday thru Friday, and my name is Julia.
This area sometimes is hit with high winds.
I don't know what could be a "DX".

Why would you be trying to hear KRSN of all the stations in the world?

Bjarne Mjelde said...

Hi Julia, how good to hear from you!
"DX" is about hearing AM stations far away. Why I tried for KRSN was because they were running a "DX Test" especially prepared for us DX-ers with morse code and tones to make it easier to hear through all the other stations. See http://www.dxtests.info/2006/11/krsn-1490khz-los-alamos-nm-dx-test_08.html for details.

Mike Westfall said...

Googling KRSN and ran across your blog.

So sorry you didn't hear KRSN for the 2007 DX test. I guess you also didn't hear the 2012 DX test either.

I may try to organize another DX test in Jan or Feb 2014.

--
Mike Westfall
Reception Report and QSL dude for KRSN

Bjarne Mjelde said...

That would be cool, Mike. It seems to be a strong relation between DX tests and solar activity...hence many tests not heard. NM is rarely heard so KRSN would be a great catch! Feel free to contact me on Bjarne.mjelde at gmail.com.