Arctic Norway MW Bandscan

My Kongsfjord PC has been offline for the better part of a month due to a failing modem/router. I finally got a replacement, and finally the adverse weather we have had the past few weeks calmed for a few hours allowing me to drive to Kongsfjord and set it up.

While testing the remote control, I did a 30-second Perseus recording of the MW band at 1900 UTC. This is a time of the day when little interesting (from my point of view) is heard, but others might find interest in hearing signals from Eastern Europe and the Middle East (and even India). A few Western European stations also audible. I used the backlobe of my 310-degree North America beverage. Lots of Russian and Romanian stations, Iran mostly everywhere. KBRW-680 and KNOM-780 audible but not strong (they improved later on). NRK Svalbard 1485 very weak; this is usually a super dominant when conditions are right.

I suspect that the beverage is not in a very good state. The general signal level when I checked North America this morning was rather on the low side. It's been too dark, too windy and too snowy to even think about checking, not to say repairing it.

The Perseus file can be downloaded from Guy Atkins' blog under "Perseus SDR WAV Files". It's about 250 MB and covers 1600 kHz from 1859:46 to 1900:19 UTC.

Sorry about not having been very active on the DX scene lately. I have chosen to put my focus elsewhere for some time.

Arctic Lights Around Winter Solstice

Here on 71 North, it is dark almost 24h around Winter Solstice; only around noon do we see some twilight. But sometimes light itself is spectacular, such as today when iridescent clouds coloured the southern sky. These clouds are typical for the polar areas and are formed 20-30 km up where the temperature is down to -80 Celsius.With light like this, who cares if it's dark the rest of the day?

QS1R Selectivity, Audio Quality

Selecting the appropriate bandwidth is a two-step process. Clicking "FILT" or the bandwidth label (in the case of the picture: "4K") opens a new window from which you can select one of 16 preset bandwidths. Each can be tailor-made to your own liking. I was somewhat surprised to see that in AM mode, "4K" bandwidth is not 4 kHz, but 8! As long as you know, it's ok. Making a passband shift effect is easy enough; just adjust the slider on the bandwidth line. The bandwidth setting will reset to default if you press one of the bandwidth buttons on the bottom. Less elegant than the Perseus, but perfectly acceptable. I have no tools to measure the ultimate rejection of these bandwidths, so a comparison between the QS1R and the Perseus had to be made with ears only. I could not detect any difference between the two SDRs.

As we know, audio quality relies on a well designed AGC function. The QS1R GUI offers Long, Slow, Med, Fast AGC, or you can choose to turn it off. The settings can be adjusted the same way bandwidth can - at least in theory. The current GUI has the AGC options greyed out but the problem has been acknowledged by Cathy the GUI designer so I expect the option to be available soon. At present, even the "Long" AGC setting has a too short release time to cope with rapid fading. In such instances, "pumping" effects will be heard.

But audio quality and audio recovery is nonetheless superb. In situations with heavy interference, the weaker signal often appears more readable on the QS1R than on the Perseus. The difference is subtle, and the average listener may not detect it at all, but in some cases it could be the difference between hearing an ID or not. Audio recovery appears to be more "open" than the Perseus, making it easier to separate between several stations on the frequency.

CKAT North Bay ON 600 Verification

Another most wanted station arrived with the superb conditions I experienced on Sept 27 and 28, and with a very good signal too. Brief email today confirmed my reception. At the same time, relatively rare CKGL had a monster signal on 570, so Ontario stations were really getting out those days.

QS1R Extremely First Impressions

Got my QS1R today. Although I have heard of others having trouble installing it to a PC with Perseus, I decided to give it a try. Absolutely no problems at all! CPU load on my dual core 8400 processor is around 15% Perseus, 6-9% QS1R server and around 15-20% for the QS1R GUI (SDRMAX II).

What a wonderful new toy. Phil, I hope you have the recording function up and going soon.

More as I explore the QS1R, and compare it to the Perseus.

WGR Buffalo NY 550 Verification

September 27 and 28 proved to be excellent dates for eastern North America and also Central and northern South America DX. WGR is a most wanted station and they surfaced on one half-hour with excellent signal and an ID to match. Next target on 550: WKRC.

WKAR 870 Press Release

Picking up WKAR's daytime signal was indeed one of the highlights of the KONG18 DX-pedition. Interesting to note then, that the reception caused similar enthusiasm on the studio end of the signal path! Here is a press release from Michigan State University.

Needless to say, we have received both email and letter confirmations.

Recent Verifications

WEBC Duluth MN 560 has been heard a few times here, but without getting any reports from me. Quite good signal on September 27 triggered me to send off an email though, with a swift and friendly response in return.

WHP Harrisburg PA 580 Verification

Recent Verifications

WSOO Sault St. Marie MI 1230 was heard during my lunch break on Nov 21, and with a very good signal. Apparently there was a short spot opening just then.  Unfortunately conditions went back to "normal" a minute before the full hour.

WCTS Maplewood MN 1030 is another KONG18 catch; good signal at the time. I've heard it a couple of times before, but never got a positive ID until now.