KONG22 - Some Pictures

Sunny, calm and clear skies on Thursday morning - but quite cold as well, -2 Celsius. Here are a few pictures when I was out for an hour's walk.

Beverage crossing (as opposed to deer crossing...)

Ebb tide

Ice

Island in the sun

Looking north

From left: Ole Forr, OJ Sagdahl, TJ Bråtveit

The HQ

Beach

KONG22 - Thursday Morning

If 5:28 is to be considered "morning"... Geomagnetic activity has been quite low the last 24 hours, which should give us fair conditions towards North America, Asia and the Pacific. Instead, conditions have been very much on the dull side all Wednesday. For the first time on KONG22, there was no trace of Marshall Islands and Kiribati, and Japan was mostly absent. Plenty of time to check recordings, email, facebook, or whatever else needed a check.

I had plenty of time to send off a reception report for the 1512 kHz Koriyama relay of JOFD NHK-2 Fukushima, and received a friendly and very detailed email response this morning.

So, how was dinner Wednesday? To make it simple (conditions seem to be picking up), here's what OJ wrote on the KONG22 weblog:

For dinner we started off with pan-fried fresh dates, wrapped in bacon. Very nice combination of salt and sweet. Main course was rack of lamb with herbs, garlic and Dijon mustard served with Bjarne's herb-mashed potatoes. With this we had a Chateauneuf-de-Pape from Clos des Brusquiéres 2006. For dessert we had another sweet & salt combo - half-baked chocolate-amaretto-espresso cake with smoked Maldon sea salt flakes on top served with Mas Amiel. Yummm!

KONG22 - Wednesday Morning

Yesterday morning, the ionosphere finally settled enough or us to receive more than a handful of stations from North America. The best period was around 0500 UTC with many signals from the western part of the continent such as KELA-1470 and KBZY-1490.

Pacific later in the morning and noon was rather disappointing, with only Marshall Islands and Kiribati surfacing. It wasn't until early afternoon we had decent signals from Japan. At that time of the day, the inferference from China is usually severe.

Yesterday was another king crab day, this time with focaccia and Siberian chive olive oil, and chocolate-lime soufflé for dessert.

Weather's been quite nice the past two days, partly couldy and mostly dry. Temperatures in the 3-6 degrees Celsius range.

Conditions this night/morning were reasonably good. Right now around local sunrise (7.30 am) the signals usually take a dip before getting stronger again later in the morning. Hoping to hear some early Pacific/Asia today.

KONG22 - Tuesday Morning

Ahhh.... finally fair conditions towards North America!

KONG22 - Monday Evening

Still very disturbed conditions, but one or two stations did manage to get through, such as KWYO 1410 which OJ Sagdahl heard last night. Very weak conditions throughout the morning, but Marshall Islands and Kiribiti were audible.  Early in the afternoon we experienced very nice condtions to Japan with a nice ID from  JOFD Fukushima relay station in Koriyama on 1512. Thanks Takashi Kuroda for confirming the JOFD identification.

Some Australian stations were heard in early evening.

Dinner today was burned figs with parma ham , followed by woked salmon as main course. Cheese, chocolate pudding and vanilla custard for dessert. Wines: Chardonnay Les Graviers 2010 with the main course, and Luxardo Amaretto with the dessert.

Windy and rainy today, 5 degrees Celsius.

The solar conditions appear to be a little more quiet now.

KONG22 - Monday Morning

Quiet night - at least on the TOH recordings I made. Now at around 06:30 local there are a few signals from North America. We'll have to wait and see what it evolves to.KMIK-AZ 1580 seems to be having transmitter or antenna trouble as it is suddenly one of the most common stations here.

Cloudy but mostly dry, light breeze and 4 degrees Celsius in the morning. The forecast for the afternoon is less promising.

KONG22 - Sunday Afternoon

Most of the day was extremely uneventful, with only a few and weak signals from Alaska and Hawaii, plus Marshall Islands-1089 and Kiribati-1440. Towards the afternoon, things started to improve with better audio from Asia. Excellent signals from Japan from  13:00 onwards, and more than 20 stations from India were logged at 15:30 on the backlobe of the 310 beverage. Maybe there is hope for the coming night.

Today's dinner was quite traditional, first Salmon Sashimi with Sake (to celebrate the excellent Japan signals), followed by King Crab Carbonara. Assorted cheese (with my favourite Papillon Roquefort) for dessert.

Weather's been quite ok with decreasing winds, mostly dry in the afternoon (so I could enjoy a nice jog to the lighthouse), and around 5 degrees Celsius.

KONG22 - Sunday Morning

OK, so we didn't hear much yesterday, but we did find out about the 1610 TIS, as it turned out to be WQLE259 in Prudhoe Bay, AK. 10 watts according to the FCC. Being somewhat (or totally) ignorant that it had been heard in Aihikiemi last year, we posted a query to the RealDX reflector and eventually found out what it was. It's only 10 watts, and was heard yesterday at all three on-going Arctic DX-peditions (Kongsfjord, Aihkiniemi and Parkalompolo).

Also noted from recordings was 40-watt CBC Tuktoyaktuk alone on 1150.

Conditions towards Asia later that day was uninspiring. More inspiring was social activities like having reindeer stew for dinner. Reindeer stew is thin reindeer shavings, red chili and mashed potatoes, accompanied by a bottle of 2006 Weinert Carrascal red wine. For dessert we had chocolate pudding with vanilla custard, a small glass of Grappa Amoroso and a small glass of Amaretto.

The geomagnetic conditions are awful with a C-flare early in the night, but some signals manage to sneak over the North Pole. Our expectations for today are modest: Keep the proton level down!

KONG22 - Saturday Morning

Ole Forr arrived yesterday evening, and after a very uneventful night we woke up to some Alaska, Hawaii and west coast stations. Conditions are brittle though - going very much up & down with the changing ionosphere. Stations are popping up from the noise with nice levels for a few seconds, then they dive into the noise again. The most stable station this morning appears to be KZDG San Francisco CA 1550 with its Indian format. Other stations noted are KLAM Cordova AK 1450 with very nice levels, and KXXJ Juneau AK 1330.

OJ Sagdahl and TJ Bråtveit are scheduled to land at Berlevåg airport at 13:17 local.

UPDATE: KMIK Tempe AZ 1580 somewhat surprising log at 07:00 and 40-watt CBKD weak under KKAA an hour later. Also at 07:00 a readable TIS station on 1610 which will be uploaded for expert scrutiny (thanks PAX crew for the tip). At the moment Marshall Isl-1098 is heard with a weak signal.

Pre-KONG22 Report

Arrived at Kongsfjord at 12:15 local, in gale force winds, blowing rain and +5 Celsius. A bit later I drove to Berlevåg to collect 10 kgs of king crab. On the return to Kongsfjord I took the pictures below. The waves were huge!  Ole Forr is scheduled to arrive late this evening or early night, after a 2000+ km drive! The rest of the gang will be picked up at BVG airport tomorrow.

UPDATE: The 15:00 UTC full hour brought mostly south-east Asian stations, including a few from the Philippines with nice signals.