WNAM Neenah-Menasha WI 1280 Leaves the MW Band - With a DX-Test

 WNAM signed on 1280 kHz in May 1947. After keeping their frequency and call letters for more than 78 years, they will sign off at local midnight on December 31st. And they finish their job with a proper DX Test, in cooperation with the Courtesy Program Committee (CPC) of the NRC and IRCA. The DX test ran on the nights to December 30th and 31st, CST.

The first Norwegian to hear WNAM was Geir Stokkeland, in November 1985. At the time Geir was at work on Bjørnøya (Bear Island), one of Norway's Arctic islands. I believe he had a Yaesu FRG-8800 at the time. Below is the friendly response from the station's Chief Engineer (published with permission):

I don't remember when I heard WNAM for the first time, nor when I received their QSL. Probably after June 1992 when they were allowed 5 kW nights.  During the late 1990s and onwards we had put some serious DX equipment at the KONG-HQ, and WNAM turned out to become a very frequent guest on 1280, together with Denver and Hamilton (CHAM). Many other stations were also heard. In later years, WWTC Minneapolis became the most dominant station due to transmitter and antenna upgrades. However, WNAM have been heard regularly up here for decades, including many times this season. Their 5-kW transmitter  antenna array points to the northeast, so most of their power come "our way" - because their main market is located in that direction.

DX tests are set up in a variety of ways, depending of course on station management's preferences. The WNAM test was a novelty for me, as it actually intercepted regular programming. It was set up to run from minute 3 to  minute 5 after the top of the hour, from local midnight until 5.05 am - corresponding to 06:03 to 11:05 UTC. For two nights!

Neenah-Menasha to Kongsfjord, 6300 km.

My beverage antennas and Perseus+Jaguar combo are doing continuous IQ recordings, so I didn't have to do much more than pay attention, and check back recordings if necessary. Propagation is always a factor here - the band could be dead, especially in periods with high solar activity like now. It's always nice to take part in the few DX tests we have, and I have in fact logged a few stations I would never have heard if it wasn't for the sweep tones and morse code IDs that penetrated the noise.

So, what did I get out of the DX test? I had positive IDs from WNAM both on the 28th and 29th, and with ionospheric conditions not too bad, I was hoping for the best.

December 30th was dismal. Lots of weather induced noise due to heavy snow showers coming in from the Arctic Ocean - at speed! And a very dominant WWTC. I did hear snippets of sweeps and morse for a few seconds on the 06 and 07 UTC slots. But really not conclusive.

However on December 31st, WWTC was much weaker, and the noise-free periods between showers were longer. So, on the 06 slot I got very good reception with voice-ID, sweeps, morse IDs, more sweeps, an announcement and finally a WNAM jingle. Reception on the following four hours didn't match the quality of the first one, but were still conclusive. The test at 11 UTC was unproductive.

Thanks very much to the CPC for arranging this DX test. Everything seemed to go according to plan. Job well done!

WNAM will air a special 3-hour broadcast on December 31st from 9:00 pm to midnight CST, corresponding to 03:00 to 06:00 UTC on January 1st. I will keep an eye (or an ear) on that one as well.

Pre-Christmas Check At The KONG-HQ

 A quick detour to the KONG-HQ today, on the way to Berlevåg where I will stay most of the xmas days. A failing Intel NUC PC necessitated the stop, but I also suspected something had happened to the dual, staggered 340 beverage since the signal levels seemed to be lower than anticipated, given the propagation levels.

I was right. One of the two wires was in a sorry state. A lone reindeer is the likely culprit, I saw its tracks all around my house and along the beverage antennas. These animals should have migrated inland a long time ago.

A sagging beverage

Luckily, the eastern wire of the 340 phased beverages was fine, so I removed the phasing unit and connected the good antenna to the feedline. Signal levels on the higher end of the MW band increased a few dB as a result.

The other antennas were (at least so far) not damaged by the forsaken reindeer who hadn't listened to his mom.

After finishing the feedline switch, I took this image facing southwest before moving inside to warm up cold fingers. A little under two hours after local noon.

Polar Night Light

It looks cold, but the forecast for the coming days 4-5 days is anything but. Gale force winds, lots of rain, 4-5 degrees Celsius. The roads will be a mess. My jogs will be a mess. But we will have company with awesome people and enjoy excellent meals, so why worry.

Merry Xmas, or Christmas, or Yuletide, or just another ordinary week, to all. Or as we say in Norway: 

ArcticDX Makeover (And Some Sunny Stuff)

I suddenly realised that I had kept the same layout (and background image) on my blog for the better part of 15 years. Time to change!

Apart from the photo which of course changes the colour scheme altogether, changes are subtle. A bit more transparency perhaps, hopefully without interfering too much with the blog text. 

The photo was taken eight days ago, and the road, named FV890, is a vital commercial route for fish export to the European markets. It connects two communities with the rest of Norway's road infrastructure. It is exposed to weather from all directions, from October through April. Road closures and convoy driving are regular occurences, and even when the road is open this 50-km mountain crossing may pose a challenge for those not accustomed to snow drifts, blowing snow, reduced or no visibility, icy surfaces and strong sidewind.

The photo was taken at 11:51 CET  on December 6, when the sun's elevation was -4.3 degrees (civil twilight). The maximum elevation of the sun on this spot on Winter Solstice will be -4.1 degrees. So, this is as light as it gets when the sky is clear nowadays.

Back to radio stuff! Polar signal paths are open, but only the usual dominants are heard with any signal strength from North America as you can see from the image below (collected data from the 340-degrees beverage).

You can check the Yaslogs links for yourself on the right-hand sidebar (KONG-80 and Smøla-315 are currently not in use).

Running SDRs on ARM-Powered Windows PCs: What to Expect

Updated 13-DEC 06:40Z

All of the six PCs I use for my SDRs are Intel-based. And they are all, for practical reasons, desktop PCs. The PC I use when relaxing in my recliner was a Dell Latitude laptop which was recently replaced with a Microsoft Surface Laptop. Instead of an Intel CPU, the processor is a Snapdragon. This new (for Windows) ARM64 architecture is said to have some compatibility issues with older software and hardware. It's my first Surface for around 10 years.

2 x USB-C, 1 USB-A, 13.8". And such a wow-feeling compared to my old Latitude.

So what about SDRs and SDR software? They obviously were developed long before Snapdragon became a PC thing. So, I decided to do a test. After all, "Test" is my middle name.

What we do know at this stage is this: As per its user manual, ARM is not supported by the Perseus22. We also know that the Winradio G31DDC does support ARM, by their latest software update late 2024.

For SDRPlay, we know that Linux ARM64 and macOS ARM64 are supported. No details on Windows but after the test I was informed that the SDRPlay SDRs work with SDRUno.

The laptop I bought runs on Windows 11-Pro, 64-bit. The SDRs I'm testing are the legacy Perseus, Perseus22, Winradio G31DDC and SDRPlay RSPdx.

So, first off: SDRPlay: I downloaded the install file for SDRconnect, and this was what met me when I tried to proceed:

Not a good start! However, after downloading the v3.15 API, I did get the RSPdx to run with SDR Console and HDSDR. Since they aim to replace SDRuno with SDRconnect I assume (or actually expect) that a future SDRconnect version will play on this platform.

Winradio G31DDC, v1.73 which is ARM64-prepared according to release notes. And....does it work? Yes, and I was able to record an IQ file, and play it back. I then opened Definitions in SDR Console, added the G31DDC and it played beautifully. I also checked release notes for the G33DDC but despite a very recent software update there was no mention of ARM64 support.

Perseus22 - stated in the manual as incompatible with ARM64. And yes - during installation I was notified that the WestBridge driver which should be installed (and later replaced), was unaccessible. Theoretically one can build one. I don't feel tempted.

Perseus - Will a 17 year old SDR play game? "Unknown unit" - "Remove this unit". Right....

So. Out of four SDRs tested, only one, the Winradio G31DDC installed and worked with its native software.

For playback of IQ files, SDR Console, Jaguar, HDSDR and WavViewDX are all good choices. So, they needed to be tested. After all, it's not likely that I will be using this laptop for live DX-ing.

SDR Console: I installed v3.4 (a beta), which went well, and opened a Jaguar file for playback. No problems, and with API 3.15 it also runs the RSPdx

HDSDR is by far the oldest software in this test, especially if we count the Winrad years. Installs fine, loads fine, plays back Jaguar files fine! And, with API 3.15, it runs the RSPdx.

Jaguar: Starts and works without any problems, and plays back IQ files. All that I could ask for. Of course since Perseus driver installation failed it can only be used for playback.

WavViewDX: Returned an error message from the installer. However a direct download bypassed the problem and WVDX works well on this platform. Hopefully the installer issue is temporary.

So then. Definitely mixed results. Out of four SDRs, Perseus, Perseus22, SDRPlay RSPdx (likely all of the SDRPlay range if you use SDRconnect), failed to install. Only the Winradio, with recent software update to comply with ARM64, worked. SDRPlay devices (at least the one I tested) do work with HDSDR and SDR Console with API v3.15.

Out of four "playback" softwares, all candidates seem to work well, although WavViewDX has a small issue with the installer.

What can we learn from this? Don't buy a Windows PC running on Snapdragon for use with SDRs unless you have checked hardware compatibility.

Brief Pre-Xmas Visit To The KONG-HQ

Driving in darkness with a full moon and clear skies during winter is a magic experience! But cold - down to -20C inland so I wasn't tempted to stop to take pictures until I arrived at the KONG-HQ. I'm amazed at how these 'night mode' settings on my mobile phone seem to magically transform a dark night, albeit moonlit, into almost broad daylight.

The aurora to my southwest is a sign of troubled RF conditions. Indeed, after a couple of useable days in the beginning of December, reception on polar paths is now very poor.

Anyway, part of the reason I went was to collect SDRs of different makes for a compatibility test at home. More as it happens.