KONG51 Day Seven - Proton Rule - End in Sight?

Enhanced proton levels don't go away just like that, but the intensity does seem to wane off a bit so we're hoping for better propagation in the coming days.

This morning at around 05Z the polar signal path opened up a bit and we could at least see some signals, although the noise level was high and readability poor. Despite that, many more of the most usual stations we heard yesterday were audible. Progress! Sort of...

So, in the afternoon propagation to Asia got better and at 14:45 at NHK-2 network close down we got a nice selection of IDs including two not previously logged on this DX-pediton, JOKB Okayama-1386 and JORB Kochi-1152. Very strong signal from the most common Aussie here, ABC Capricornia QLD-1548. Newcastle NSW-1512 was also audible.

The NHK-1 network local ID at 20:00 was uneventful although we heard a few. A tell-tale sign of disturbed northerly paths is that the usual super-dominant on 1485, NRK Svalbard, is subdued in favour of Spain's SER Santander.

Unrelated to long-distance DX I let two SDRs record the MW band overnight from the 50-degrees beverage. Its backlobe points to western Europe. I used the usual Perseus/Jaguar combo on one PC, and an RSPdxR2/SDR Console combo on another. While hearing is a subjective matter, and the RSPdxR2 had less amplification than the Perseus, I think it's reasonably safe to say that for audio near the noise floor Jaguar does have the edge vs. Console. And that's the kind of audio we're chasing.

And then it's time for this DX-Pedition's second signature dish: Reindeer tenderloins. Local product from animals that may have grazed around these antennas. 60 seconds each side in a hot pan, then cautiously baked a few minutes at 100 degrees Celsius. Served with a paste of root vegetables - carrots, parsnips, potatoes, swede/rutabaga, seleriac. A brown, quite fat and tasteful sauce to follow. A good red wine from Rhône completed the course.

For dessert another local variety and tradition often used in major celebrations - fresh cloudberries in whipped cream. Grappa and Disaronno with the dessert.

Quite nice weather today. Windy overnight, but calm, cloudy and mostly dry today with up to 4 Celsius. Snow gone! In the evening light rain and calm and a bit warmer with 5 Celsius.

KONG51 Day Six. We Didn't Need This!

 Woke up to a frosty (-4 Celsius), clear and calm morning - and another good DX day. Or so we thought.

Icy windscreen, and view to the east

Because, what's this??? The sun is calm, K-indices are down, and then we're having a proton event? It doesn't make sense. But there we are, trans-polar paths are very poor. Proton events are the worst the sun can throw at us. The only properly working signal path now is to the south.

Bad, bad news

We did hear a few seconds or minutes of audible signals between 22:00 and 22:30 yesterday from usual dominants like WLAC-TN 1510, WLQV-MI 1500, WWKB-NY 1520, WCKY-OH 1530 and CBEF-ON 1550, and indeed also from a few North Dakota and Manitoba stations. But few other stations made it through the "proton barrier".

During our drive to replace battery and SSD at the alt-Loran site, we also encountered this autumn's first snowfall at the coast. Not that the white stuff will hang around for much more than a day or two. The photo at the bottom shows the alt-Loran site today with its Zarges case which we saved from that rising pond yesterday, in tarpaulin camo.

First snow

alt-Loran

So, today's catch from North America apart from those mentioned above were KNOX-ND 1310 (and likely KWTL-ND 1370), CJRB-MB 1220, CHSM-MB 1250. And I found TWR Africa, Benin, 1476.

Another task we had scheduled for any windless day was repairing the connection between the feedline and antenna for one of my two FM antennas. Today was that windless day. We needed to lower the mast with the FM antennas and after a bit of work (and likely a bit of luck) we managed to get the non-working antenna up and running again. They are directed towards northwest (Iceland, Greenland, will I ever hear Canada?) and east (will I ever hear China?). The one-hop European scene is mostly done on my part, so an antenna pointing south towards another Es towards western Russia, the Baltic etc. isn't very interesting. Polar FM DX-ing is in some ways fundamentally different from DX in southern latitudes.

Dinner! We have two signature dishes on the KONG DXpedition, and King Crab (KONGekrabbe in Norwegian) is one. The other is scehduled for tomorrow. But first things first, it was prepared in a - for us - traditional way. Crab legs baked on a bed of sea salt in a Dutch oven - actually the same pot as today's bread was baked - including dried seaweed, spices and slices of lemon. Served with Pasta Carbonara and a Kim Crawford white wine from a favourite radio target for us - New Zealand.

A few words on weather to round up this blogpost: Throughout the day light precepitation as sleet or rain, just above zero so to make things extra wet. It seems that tomorrow will be more of the same.

KONG51 - Day Five

 What a nice view from my bedroom window when I woke up this morning!

Following yesterday evening's excellent opening towards Japan, I thought I'd share audio from two regular catches here, JOAR 1053 kHz and JOSF 1332 kHz, both located in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, between Tokyo and Osaka. Their signals were HUGE yesterday. Enjoy one-minute MP3 recordings with IDs by clicking the links above. Remember, these 50-kW stations are almost 7000 km away.

A few noteworthy logs from today: KOKL-OK 1240, KNND-NV 1400, KVDW-AR 1530, KHIT-NV 1450 (amazingly common), a few from Hawaii also noted like KKEA-1420 and KHKA-1500. Tonga-1017 and Majuro-1098 also excellent signals before the Asians arrived on the band. As mentioned in yesterday's blog post, yesterday evening brought daytime-powered WHGT-MD 1590, and also WBSM-MA 1420 and KVDW-AR 1530, mentioned above.

Another great day for Japan's NHK-2 network today. More 100-watt stations identified among massive Chinese power houses, the 1359 kHz Wajima relay of JOJB Kanazawa (1386), and the 100-watt 1539 kHz Masuda relay of JOTB Matsue (1593). What are Japanese radio engineers made of. Again, these signals travel almost 7000 km. At 20:00 an NHK-1 opening revealed a couple of 100-watt relays from the south of Japan. Whatever we hear the rest of the evening will be told tomorrow.

Alas, the alt-Loran recordings were a disappointment. When we got there today we discovered that the beverage to feedline  transformer was literally under water, and parts of the Zarges aluminium case with the equipment was too - luckily the water hadn't reached the PC and the Perseus yet. We got everything on "dry land" and it will hopefully perform better the rest of the week.

After not having had a proper wash since Thursday, it was refreshing to go to the municipal centre Berlevåg afterwards and have a swim, a sauna and a shower. All for the equivalent of 10 USD.

Windy but sunny today, just above freezing. There were some icy patches on the road to Berlevåg, so we didn't rush it. Looks like it's going below zero overnight, and more as today tomorrow.

Dinner! One of Norway's national courses is "Fårikål" or "Får i kål", which translates to "Sheep in cabbage". I guess the recipe is self-explanatory except we use lamb meat. Cooked for 3 hours with fresh rosemay (obviously not part of the Norwegian tradition), served with potatoes and often carrots. Basically a lamb stew. Amazing. The Norwegian farmer knows his/her business. Served with the Côtes du Rhône mentioned two days ago. For dessert we had an apple pie I made today which you can see below:

Apple pie, turbine style

Served with whipped cream and a Tokaij dessert wine.

And that's all for today. -1 Celsius outside, warm and cozy inside. Clear skies and traces of aurora in the eastern sky.

KONG51 - Day Four

Just above zero Celsius overnight, in the morning we had nice weather but a bit windy. Ionospheric weather had improved a lot since yesterday. Unfortunately, European signals had too, so there was a bit of interference especially near Romanian frequencies. Mostly easterly oriented signals overnight, and the 310 beverage was much more effective than the longer 340 beverage. Stations noted at the KONG HQ were KGBC-TX 1540 (often visible on the waterfall but most often not heard properly due to KXEL's massive signal), WWBG-NC 1470, KHEI-TX 1250 (new for me), and XEEST-DF 1440 (also new).

Overnight waterfall on the 310 beverage. Red is good.

Interestingly enough, the 1000-metre beverage at alt-Loran didn't match the 270-metre beverage at the KONG HQ this time. We will see tomorrow how it fares, usually they don't always hear the same but the alt-Loran beverage is often better.

In the afternoon two friendly radio amateurs, LA9VFA Olav and LA8AW Odd Egil came to pay a visit  after completing antenna works at Olav's QTH in Tana, 125 km away.

Later in the afternoon we had high hopes for the NHK-2 sign/off at 14:45 UTC. 1602 kHz had superb signal levels and we easily identified the 1-kW Naze repeater of  JOHC Kagosihima. Alas, not much more was heard. Little did we know what was in store for us... at 20:00 NHK-1 and private stations literally filled the band at the time of ID! At 20:55 the NHK-2 stations did likewise. Several new stations on my part, and believe me, I have a few.

Weather was mostly dry today, but as I mentioned, windy and quite cool with 2 degrees maximum temperature. The forecast for tomorrow Tuesday is much the same.

Not many photos were taken today. Here's one of two - the water level at the alt-Loran starting point is increasing. We had to move the box with the equipment out of harms way and may have to take further preventive efforts tomorrow.

Alt-Loran beverage starting point

Ah...I almost forgot about dinner! We went for Mediterranean fish ragout; chopped potatoes and carrots, onions, herbs, olive oil, chopped tomatoes and lots of haddock loins. Calles Riesling was the selected wine. For dessert: Icecream with cherry, and Disaronno.

So, does the excellent conditions to Japan indicate similar conditions to North America the coming night? Not necessarily! I have been disappointed more than once. We'll see how it went - tomorrow! But so far it's promising, as WHGT-MD 1590 was logged with excellent strength at 22:00 with their 15-kW daytime facility, 24 minutes before their sunset.

KONG51 - Day Three

 We awoke to a wet Sunday morning with temps just above freezing. But only a gentle breeze outside! I had set a dough of bread on Saturday afternoon, and it had a good night's rise. Another two hours of shaping and resting followed before a two-hour final proofing started at 08:30. At noon, the bread was done. 

And this is it.

Propagation-wise - no rise there. Very poor conditions overnight, consistent with propagation forecasts so only the usual dominants were heard. Maybe the best catch (thorough check not done yet) was KGIW-CO 1450, heard both on the 340 beverage and at alt-Loran.

After our usual Cappucino and Caffé Latte routine, I went out for quick walk and took these photos.

Sun and sun dog

Sebulonbukta - The Sebulon Bay. Kongsfjord in the distant, centre of photo.

The KONG HQ

DX Starts Here! (pt. I) - start of the 340-deg beverage.

DX Starts Here! (pt. II) - start of the 310-deg beverage.

KONG HQ and the hamlet Veines (left). 310-deg starting point visible.

The hamlet Veines

Facing NW - Antenna support belonging to the 310- and 340-deg beverages.

Just after 12 we drove to the alt-Loran site to collect the SSD with last nights recordings, replace the battery and set down a new grounding rod with termination at the far end. We didn't have to, since after a bit of searching in the "swampy" area we did in fact find the old grounding rod - albeit without the terminiation. That fixed, we drove back to the KONG HQ in sleet showers.

Dinner! Ole the farmer brought with him some products from his area, such as Umami (huh?), Jalapeño & Cheddar, and Bratwürst sausages. Served with a paste of almond potatoes and carrots, Heinz ketchup and Idun mustard. Maybe we should have had beer with this, but being who we are we chose red wine, a Bellerouche Côtes du Rhône 2023.

Sausages...from left, Bratwürst, Jalapeño & Cheddar and Umami, which unexpectedly won the first price!  

More importantly, these products are local (to Ole, not me). In dire times like these, locally produced alternatives should always be preferred, even when more expensive.

Weather: Calm, some sleet and rain showers in the afternoon but otherwise dry. Just above freezing, peaking at 3 Celsius. Tomorrow's forecast is sunny but windy, up to 4 Celsius but cold overnight.

So, with this image of the western horizon at 17:20 local, it's time to finish off another report from the Arctic.

KONG51 - Day Two

Windy and rainy morning at the KONG HQ, 2 Celsius. I woke up at 05 local (03:00 UTC) and noted that trans-polar signal levels had increased steadily since 22:00. Even as late as 15:00 today there were a few signals on the band. The first ID-ed NA station (of interest) of the DX-pedition was WLRS New Albany IN 1570 at 01:00, but around 22:30 we lost several stations that powered down from their day power before we could catch any ID. Some of the other stations noted in my logbook were KPRZ-CA 1210, KORT-ID 1230 (audible for several hours!), WMMB-FL 1240, KMBY-CA 1240, KXRO-WA 1320 and WRHC-FL 1550.

Sunrise...

Afterwards, signals zig-zagged in strength and provided little of interest. 

The main objective for Saturday was to get the alt-Loran beverage site up and running. Fiddling with small screwdrivers etc. in rain, gale-force winds and just above freezing is not our favourite pasttime, so we tried to wait out the weather until it was "as good as it gets" before driving off. Apart from a nasty rain shower we timed it pretty well, and began the return drive just after sunset. Not quite done yet, tomorrow we need to repair a faulty far-end grounding with its terminating resistor, but that should be an easy fix. The initial impression is that it's working very well already. We will see after we have collected the recordings tomorrow morning and compared them with the KONG beverages.

Kjølnes Lighthouse, near the alt-Loran site

Pacific stations were heard early today, Tonga-1017 with marine weather forecast around 10:30. Radio Majuro-1098 and Gold FM from Fiji on 990 were also very strong until China's sunset spoiled the Pacific party like so many times before.

One interesting catch was the looping announcement on AFN's stations in Japan on 1575 kHz at 11:00, that due to the government shutdown, the AFN radio channel had been temporarily suspended, followed by a long pilot tone. We tried to figure out if this was the case with AFN's Korean stations on 1440 as well, but interference from STV Sapporo was too strong. A check later on 1575 kHz at 16:00, AFN seemed to be back to normal (?) programming with ABC news followed by automated pop music with canned announcements - typical for overnight programming.

Dinner! Yes we admit, we love a good meal. And we are not fans of heat-and-eat meals. Today is salmon day. Sushi-grade salmon loins marinated in balsamico crema, olive oil, dried herbs, spices, garlic and ginger root. Baked in the oven for 8 minutes at 200 Celsius. Served with tagliatelle and pesto with parmesan cheese, and chopped bacon. Good shit, especially when served with Calles Riesling.

Salmon looking forward to some heat treatment

Dessert:The whipped cream was excellent. The Tokaji wine was delicious. The Apricot with Almonds cake - uhm...maybe we should have opted for something else. But the Disaronno was great!

We have already discussed the weather - a favourite point of conversation among Norwegians. To sum it all up: Windy and rainy early in the day, calmer and less rain in the afternoon and a maximum of 4 Celsius.  Now at almost bedtime, calm, mostly dry and 2 Celsius. The forecast for Sunday is calm winds, occasional light rain and 2 Celsius.

KONG51 - Day One

First day of KONG51 - and 50 years since the first MW DX-pedition to Kongsfjord, in late December 1975!

This time we're only two  - Bjarne and Ole Forr  - as OJ Sagdahl couldn't come this time. I picked up Ole at the bus stop in Varangerbotn after an 11-hour trip on his part, before proceeding by car to my KONG-HQ in rather wintery conditions, at least on higher altitudes. Just before we met this semi truck in a steep descent, it was seconds away from a reindeer massacre as a herd of 20-30 reindeer decided to cross the road in front of him. Worse yet: A few seconds further ahead and we could have been part of it. Close call!

Photo: Ole Forr

Anyway! We arrived safe at the KONG HQ at around 16:30 local (14:30 UTC). Not much more to do except make ourselves comfortable, and enjoy the first KONG51 dinner - home-made fish gratin with white wine from Calles Riesling. For dessert we enjoyed chocolate pudding and custard, and some Disaronno Amaretto.

Some aurora was observed in the evening. Not much, and we're happy with that, but here's an image from the eastern sky.

Conditions are so-so. The Japan opening at 20:00 UTC brought little of interest. We do note however that Canada is already audible on 1230 kHz and that is (maybe) a good sign.

CBC Churchill MB (left) and CBC Iqaluit NU visible

Weather at the KONG HQ: 2 degrees Celsius, light rain and moderate winds. Tomorrow's forecast: Same, same.

Tomorrow, we plan to erect a 1000-metre beverage antenna at the alt-Loran site 30 km away from here, complete with a PC, Perseus SDR, 5G mobile connection and a 12V battery. It may be cold, it may be wet.

KONG HQ - Only Days Away From The KONG51 DX-Pedition

So, we're approaching mid-October and it's becoming increasingly chilly. Still no white to be seen though, neither on the plateaus nor at sea level. By next weekend we may see maximum temperatures of 2-3 Celsius and rain, with possibly even colder conditions later on. This autumn has been anything but normal so far.

We do enjoy the good weather though, so much that on Saturday I decided to take a trip from home to check out things and bring some food supplies. Two of the beverages were a bit "saggy", so I tightened the ropes at the far end to add some height. On the photo below you will see two wires; the closest is one of the (dual) beverage antennas pointing 340 degrees to the western part of North America. A few metres away is the single-wired beverage running to the eastern/central part. I think it "lands" just east of Chicago. Further away around the bend are two of the supports for the other 340 wire.

Beverage Antennas

What also needed attention was the "alt-Loran" kit, comprising an Intel NUC PC, a Perseus SDR, 2-TB SSD, Bodnar Mini-GPS, 12V battery and a modem and external antenna for 4G/5G communication. The Jaguar software needed an update, so we're now ready to deploy a 1000-metre beverage antenna next Saturday. We are excited, because conditions are so much better than last autumn.

Hard-Core Remote DX-ing

Several uncommon stations were heard Saturday night and morning, like KSVC-UT 980, KRKS-CO 990, KJJC-UT 1230, KEIN-MT 1310, KLFD-MN 1410, KJCK-KS 1420, KFOO-CA 1440 and KOBO-CA 1450.

I had some hopes for Sunday morning's DX, but the rise in the Polar K-index and solar wind brought much less exciting DX and higher noise levels.

To end this post, two photos illustrating the contrasting weather. First, a pre-sunset photo of my neighbourhood on Saturday. Next, from a rainy Sunday morning's sunrise. We'll be back on Friday afternoon, October 17.

What A Great Start Of The Season!

Last year's start of the season wasn't dismal. It was awful. Yes, we were near or at solar maximum, but it sounded to us like the ionosphere had gone into meltdown. Conditions gradually improved a bit, but it was a lousy year for long-distance MW reception.

The contrast to this year couldn't be greater! And we're not that far away from solar maximum!

September has been a very good month for us, especially up north. Inspired by the conditions, I decided to try to lean in a bit more with my loggings approach. So, I set myself a goal: By the end of each month I will make, and publish, a preliminary log from the Smøla and KONG locations. They are my loggings only, my teammates are much more active, hear more and publish their loggings elsewhere.

Here is the September Log. Please note that I only log stations of personal interest. Stations heard day in and day out are omitted. Like hundreds of AM stations in North America, all high-powered stations, basically everything from China, and more.

Radio logs can be sorted in many ways. This log is sorted by frequency.

Let's see if I can keep up the pace until April! I'd be surprised if I do.

Last Sunday I  had to make a quick trip to Kongsfjord. Below is a photo from the starting point of the 310 beverage antenna. That snaky thing going towards my house is the 150-metre coax run.

The photo was taken at 15:23 local and the sun is already quite low, just a week after equinox. But hey! No snow!

KONG 50 - Preps For A New Season At The KONG HQ

Friday 12-SEP

The 50th KONG DX-pedition! Who would have known, back in January 1997, when we had our first KONG. My goodness, we've come a long way.

We were gathered late afternoon on Friday the 12th, when Ole and OJ arrived from Andøya after a stop-over in Kiruna, Sweden. I had been on-site since Thursday afternoon doing what I do best - preparing the dinner, baking a bread and doing some light-hearted antenna work. Some internet issues were partially solved.

This is a proper bread

So...dinner: The traditional fish soup, comprising fish (aha!), chopped carrots, potatoes, seleriac and leek, and of course a red chili for a bit of bite. For dessert we had chocolate pudding with custard - a rather common choice for us. Calles Riesling with the soup, Grappa with the dessert.

Bjarne (left), Ole and OJ. The roses on the table is a definite first in our KONG meetings. Was it in honour of the anniversary?
 

View to the west after sunset

Quite a windy day, gusting at 20 m/s  but only a light breeze in the evening. The temperature maxed out at 20 degrees Celsius, itself almost unheard of in mid-September at this latitude. The minimum temperature was 14!

Saturday 13-SEP

Followed by a view to the northeast before sunrise!

Weak signal levels from North America overnight on the 310-degrees beverage antenna, with only the common stations at readable levels. Smøla HQ recordings were a bit more exciting for me, with WALG Albany GA heard on 1590. The day before, the rather common WAUB Auburn NY dominated that frequency.

My ISP was here on Friday and set up a new fibre box from Zyxel which for most of their customers will double as a router. I had ordered they put it in bridge mode because I have a well working RUTX10 router from Teltonika "inside" of the fibre box. But they didn't do that, did they? It became very obvious that they hadn't, so that had to be fixed. So, we configured the Zyxel for bridge mode, reset, and everything was fine. But when I tried to log on to the RUTX10, I ended up at the Zyxel device! With the Zyxel down I was able to access the RUTX10, only to find out that it was set in bridge mode! But why??? Anyway, I decided to not pursue the matter any further, and let the RUTX10 be connected to the Zyxel. Why? The case is that I have lots of Sonoff devices here that need to speak to Wifi. They can not connect if the wifi password requires special characters. The Zyxel router however does not accept a wifi password without special characters. Go figure.

Most of the rest of the day was spent outside erecting, repairing and configuring the 50-degrees and 340-degrees beverages. The 50-degrees is complete, (or so we thought, see Sunday) the dual, staggered 340 wires are up but some final adjustments, such as grounding and weatherproofing will be done Sunday.

After a windy and cloudy start, the wind calmed and the clouds disappeared so with temperatures close to 20 Celsius we could work in shirt-sleeves.

Dinner! Fried and oven baked pork tenderloins, fried and baked small potatoes, with a salad of broccoli, chopped celery stalks, red grapes, sweet cherry tomatoes, finely chopped red onion and a dressing made of red wine vinegar, olive oil and a little touch of sugar. Chocolate pudding again for dessert. An old friend of ours, a 2023 Belleruche Côtes‑du‑Rhône red wine joined us for the main course, and one of the most exclusive brands of grappa, Grappa di Brunello, kept us company for the dessert. 

Dinner!

Late afternoon I also set another dough of bread, It will need 12-14 hours to rise, so that's a story for...

Sunday, 14-SEP

Up at 06:30, I just managed to save the dough before it collapsed! Then followed two hours with light massage between 30-minute rests, and a two-hour final proofing before going into the oven. Good result.

The 310 and 340 beverages delivered very well overnight! Their directivity properties were proved (again), as 1450 kHz gave us WMFJ Daytona Beach FL on the 310, and KFIZ Fond-du-Lac WI on the 340.

The 50 beverage however appeared to be in a bad state. The miserable reception required some fault finding, and finally some adjustments late in the afternoon lowered the noise floor by a whopping 15dB or more. Result! 

The morning was crisp, calm and chilly, a welcome change from previous days. During the day the temperature rose to around 16 Celsius, in the evening around 12. The coming week will see gradually lower temperatures, and some rain. Since September is known to be a rainy, cold and windy month, we're extremely satisfied with this weekend's weather.

View from the HQ. Goosanders resting in the bay before heading towards southerly winter locations.
 

And then, the last dinner this time: Baked cod loins on a bed of pre-baked root vegetables along with red onion, bits of bacon and cherry tomatoes. The cod was baked with Sriracha salsa from Wildfire, an excellent spicy touch to the excellent fish. Served with rice. The selected wine was Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand.

Salsa Cod

For dessert we had the rest of the chocolate pudding, along with some Grappa. Later on we checked the MW band on the 50 degrees beverage. The band was awash with Japanese stations and a few Australians as well.

This will be the last post from us until it's time for the KONG51 log, starting the third week of October. Ole and OJ will drive south at 06:00 tomorrow and will visit DX-ers in Sweden along the way. For me it's a 2.5 hour drive back to work.

Receivers and antennas

Antennas: 

50-degrees, 520 metres. Directed towards northern parts of Asia and the Pacific. Western Europe on the backlobe.

310 degrees, 275 metres. Directed towards eastern North America.

340 degrees: 2 x 340 metres, staggered. Directed towards western North America.

Receivers: 9 Perseus SDRs (3 each). Preamps and splitters. Software is Jaguar Pro, version 10 or earlier.