KONG52 Final Season Preps - Day Three

 Another magnificent day in the Arctic!

Last evening, the 19 and 20z full hours brought a few interesting logs. A handful of Aussies, a few from the Philippines (like DXUM Davao City 819 and DXKS Suriago City 1080) and some of the former NHK-1 (now NHK-AM) stations, plus RFC Radio Fukushima on 1395. The most surprising catch however was AFN The Eagle 1512 kHz from Pohang, South Korea. 500 watts listed.

Overnight, the new, ultra light 310 beverage proved its value with an unusual low noise level and a nice peak before and at the 02z slot. Nothing out of the ordinary, though.

The most important task today was checking status at our alt-Loran site, 30 km away. Everything seemed to be in good order, the antenna reel and fibreglass support rods were untouched since last October. On the way we drove into Berlevåg for some supplemental shopping, at what is claimed to be the world's northernmost SPAR store (for most non-Europeans: SPAR is one of the largest food chains in Europe). That's me (left) and OJ posing in the face-in-the-hole board...

No further comments please...

 Back at the KONG HQ we had a beer or two outside in the excellent weather before finishing the antenna works with improved grounding and termination on the "far" side of the dual 340 beverage. 

A beer or two. Ole (left) and OJ. Dead calm.

Dinner! No KONG without salmon. This time with Carbonara. With proper Pancetta. We fried the salmon in the Pancetta fat for some extra flavour and it worked out very well. Another bottle of Kim Crawford white wine was a perfect match. Later on I strolled outside at twilight to try to catch the evening mood. I didn't quite succeed, but this one worked out reasonably well.

Earlier in the afternoon OJ had been out walking, and took this beautiful picture of the 50-degrees beverage. 

Weather: The day started cloudy, but by 14:00-15:00 local the sky was clear. 13-14 Celsius and not the slightest breeze until evening. It looks like Sunday is going to be a bit milder still. 

Evening conditions are good, with strong signals from Japan. Some with signal levels exceeding -50 dBm. At 20z we noted AFN The Eagle again, confirmed offset is 1511.9862. A few of the low-power (100 watts) NHK-AM stations also surfaced at that time, such as Kumamoto 1341 and 1503, Yamagata 1584 and maybe Akita (two outlets) on 1017.

Tomorrow Sunday is departure day so we will only stay to around lunch time. We will see if the few hours are worth a blogpost.