KONG24 - Day Four

Very quiet geomagnetic conditions...however not much to be heard although signal levels were high. The MW spectrum shows some interesting anomalies, as conditions appear to vanish and reappear for no obvious reason:

Overnight monitoring of the MW band on the 310 beverage. Sun symbol illustrates local sunrise and sunset times. Sunset times for North American cities indicated to the right

There were little or no changes in geomagnetic conditions which should have triggered these changes. But then maybe we don't have access to every relevant solar data.

Nothing spectacular overnight - I noted WUNR-MA 1600 which is by no means an unusual guest here, and  many other dominants. Then conditions disappeared, but reappeared at around 10:00Z with a surprise logging of KELY Ely NV 1230.

Sadly enough, Arnstein Bue had to leave us this morning to attend matters at work.

We usually enjoy a very stable and quite fast internet connection here, however this norning it was all but gone. Only a very slow capacity remained. It turned out that they are setting up a new broadcast tower in Kongsfjord, and moving equipment from the old tower, including our 3G connection which is now more like a 0.3G connection. Hopefully things will be ok by tomorrow afternoon.

Quite a bit of snow fell during the night, and the wet sleet/snow induced a lot of noise on the beverages - to the extent that the band was covered in noise at times.

 

 

Here's the picture of the day, taken at around 7:30 am during a lull in the snow showers. Weather later improved with sunny spells but the showers continued throughout the day and the forecast is more snow.

 

+1 Celsius was the maximum temperature today.

KONG24 - Day Three

Very quiet geomagnetic conditions overnight, which is good for DX. Well not always... here's the spectrum from last night and today:

Overnight monitoring of the MW band on the 310 beverage. Sun symbol illustrates local sunrise and sunset times. Sunset times for North American cities indicated to the right

Very good signal levels well into the morning, but when conditions are exceptionally quiet, short beverages like the 310 tend to have a large capture area - so large that there are "too many" stations on a frequency and only the strongest and dominant ones are audible for any length of time. We also had some problems with weather-induced noise.

Good signals from some South American stations like Tropical-1040, Caracol-1100 and Santa Fe-1070 and many of the usual eastern and mid-west stations. On the 340 beverage reception was more confined to the western time zones with KACH-ID 1340, KLIZ-WA 1400 etc. heard.

The 50 beverage brought very nice signal levels from Radio Kiribati 1440, otherwise it wasn't too exciting.

Between snow showers, OJ and I decided to do a 6k terrain run to the Kongsfjord lighthouse, and of course, half-way we were caught by a hefty hail shower. That's me below. 

Another memorable day dinner-wise. For starters we had King Crab on toast with a mix of mayonnese and red chili. The main course was rack of lamb on a bed of vegetables. Dessert was our "usual" cheese selection, manchego, roquefort papillon, chevre, gruyere, sovrano and a vacherol. For entertainment we had Arnstein's MP3 playlist plus some Youtube videos, including the epic Foo Fighters/Led Zeppelin "Rock 'n Roll" and Pearl Jam/Neil Young "Rockin' in the free world".

Picture of the day: Taken during a light snow shower. Still on the positive side of freezing though. By a few decimals.

Solar forecast this evening says Polar K-index up to 5, and that's a lot! But maybe we will experience some interesting conditions during the night? Time will tell.

KONG24 - Day Two

A lot better! We're not really there yet, but a dramatic improvement from yesterday as this 310 beverage spectrum shows. The 340 beverage kept the signals going for even another couple of hours.

Overnight monitoring of the MW band on the 310 beverage. Sun symbol illustrates local sunset and sunrise times. Sunset times for North American cities indicated to the right

Some of the catches were CJMS Saint Constant QC 1040 (new for me), WJON St. Cloud MN 1230, KWKW Los Angeles CA 1330, KCOW Alliance NE 1400 and KPMC Los Angeles CA 1540.

The 10:00 UTC full hour brought local IDs from a number of Japanese NHK-1 stations, including a 100-watt relay from Atsumi on 1584 and JOJP Tsuruoka 1368, 1 kW. Not much from the Pacific, although we did hear Radio Kiribati 1440 and we had a semi-decent X-band opening to Australia at 14:00.

Weather is quite nice with calm winds and +2 Celsius. We had occasional sleet-induced noise on the antennas this morning, and this may continue on Monday as the weather forecast warns for fresh breeze with sleet and snow showers.

Dinner today was a three-course event. For starters we had baked mushrooms filled with garlic, olive oil and bacon. Of course we needed a good wine for this, and the TreRose Rosso di Montepulciano 2012 did not let us down.

The main course is the signature dish of the KONG expeditions, namely the KING Crab. Baked on a salt bed and served with proper pasta carbonara, it's a royal meal. We chose a white wine for this seafood, and the Fernway Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand was an excellent choice.

After a long pause we managed to squeeze in some dessert, almond pudding with red (artificial) raspberry sauce. A little rum and aquavit rounded off the evening.

Geomagnetic conditions appear to be good, so we have hopes for the coming night!

Below a picture from Sunday morning.

KONG 24 - Day One

Right! Then came Saturday, and the 24th DX-pedition on the top of the world has begun. It's becoming a habit. First, names and equipment:

Arnstein Bue: Two Perseus SDR
Bjarne Mjelde: Two Perseus SDR, one NetSDR
OJ Sagdahl: Two Perseus SDR
TJ Bråtveit: Two Winradio G33DDC (Excalibur Pro), one G31DDC (Excalibur)

A number of PCs, displays, and around 60 TB worth of hard drives is necessary to make things go round. Each of us controls at least two PCs, either by remote desk top or LogMeIn Pro. For internet access we have three 3G subscriptions, average speeds are 17 mbps down, 4 mbps up.

A quick description of our antennas (including, literally speaking, an aerial photo) is found here.

Arnstein, OJ and TJ arrived by rental car from Kirkenes airport around 2 pm local. Since all antennas and equipment were already up and running, we could all start listening right away. Conditions were exceptionally poor though, with the Japanese super dominant STV Sapporo 1440 barely audible. Later on we did hear traces from 4QD Emerald, AUS on 1548. The spectrum from the previous night on the 310 beverage shows the sorry state with barely audible signals at around 04:30 UTC.

Overnight monitoring of the MW band on the 310 beverage. Sun symbol illustrates local sunset and sunrise times. Sunset times for North American cities indicated to the right.

The first dinner on KONG24 had a local main ingredient, namely reindeer meat. This, together with carrots, potatoes, celeriac, onion, leek, swede and red chili was woked and then cooked into a stew with cream and sour cream. Two Langhe Nebbiolo accompanied our main course. For dessert we had the traditional chocolate pudding with custard, and we tasted a couple other wines as well, such as the Allesverloren 2011 and a little surprise for us, the German Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir) from Weingut Mohr-Gutting.

At the time of writing this at 01:00 UTC, conditions seem to be on a slow ascent. Geomagnetic data is mostly positive and I hear stations, albeit weak, on most frequency on the upper half of the band.

After an exceptionally mild autumn temperatures are now more Octoberish, -2 Celsius last night and around +2 during the day. Absolutely dead calm which is by no way Octoberish. The photo below was taken from my house at sunrise Saturday.

More as it happens!

September 2014 Verifications

WLEC Sandusky OH 1450
WQOM Natick MA 1060 (USA excl. Hawaii # 800)
CJAD Montreal QC 800
CJRS Montreal QC 1650 (rcvd in March; overlooked)
KLUP Terrel Hills TX 930
WXTG Hampton VA 1490
KLIO Wichita KS 1070
KLFD Litchfield MN 1410
KDAK Carrington ND 1600
WQBA Miami FL 1140
KQQZ DeSoto KS 1190
KDDR Oakes ND 1220
KREW Plainview TX 1400
KRZI Waco TX 1660
WBGZ Alton IL 1570
KDCO Golden CO 1550 (Thanks OJS!)
KEDA San Antonio TX 1540
KFJB Marshalltown IA 1230
KWHW Hutchinson KS 1450 (Thanks OJS!)
KQSP Shakopee MN 1530
WMDR Augusta ME 1340

Terrible Weather...And A Log From Last Season

Weather's been terrible this autumn, storm following storm - on the sun, that is. Only two new stations heard so far in September. However things seem to be about to improve as solar activity has decreased quite a bit.

I decided it was time to compile my loggings from the previous season. If you find interest in looking at seven pages of pleasure, clik the link on Arctic Radio Logs to the left, or, if you don't want to move your mouse, click here.

September weather on this tiny spot of Mother Earth has been excellent with temperatures 3-4 Celsius above normal and very little rain. It's cooling off now with snow forecasted on higher altitudes (which in this part of the country equals 200 masl)

Arctic DX Summit - Day Four (Departure Day)

This morning finally a glimpse of trans-atlantic stations, faint and distorted signals from Brazil and probably Peru 1570. Proton levels still very high, so this was a bit surprising.

Monday is departure day, and all antennas, receivers and PCs are up and running. Yesterday's dinner was cantaloupe with ham and a light touch of fresh oregano for starters. The main course was reindeer steak with potato pate (with carrots & garlic) and a mushroom sauce. Chocolate pudding with vanilla custard for dessert. A new red wine was introduced to Kongsfjord this time, the South African Allesverloren. Everything was definitely not lost with this one as it turned out to be a very nice wine indeed. We also enjoyed the good old Miss Harry from Australia, for some strange reason still not available in Norway.

Partly cloudy and some sun today, 7 Celsius this morning.

We'll meet again, as the old song says, for the KONG24 DX-pedition starting October 11.

Below some pictures from the past few days.

Arctic DX Summit 2014 - Day Three

Not much happened on Saturday, except quite a few problems with Windows network settings for a couple of the guys. The proton levels continued to be much too high for any DX, but this morning it seems to finally having started a slow descent back to normal.

We were out for a stroll in the afterooon, and actually spotted a minke whale, a rare sight this close to shore. It was elusive enough to avoid our cameras, however I caught a lot less elusive OJ while he was waiting for the whale to resurface.

Yesterday's dinner was a nice treat: For starters bruschetta with ham, tomatoes, garlic and fresh basil. The main course was fried salmon slices on a bed of woked vegetables and boiled/fried (!) tagliatelle. Very nice indeed. Strawberry jelly with real custard (not vanillin) for dessert. Wines: Chianti Classico for the bruschetta, Kim Crawford for the main course.

I engaged the 340 beverage for a couple of full hours this night, hoping for Africa on its back lobe. With the exception of the superpowered Jil FM 531 from Algeria, there was practically nothing. Sunrise at 02:37, so at 03:00 the band was empty as you can see from the spectrum below. 657 is the semi-local Radio Rossii, Murmansk.

Sunday morning weather is breezy, a little rain and 8 Celsius.

The Kongsfjord Radio Show

By popular demand (aka Allan Helm), here is a more detailed description of our equipment.

On the latest count, there are six Perseus SDRs, one NetSDR, one Winradio G31DDC and two Winradio G33DDCs. There are around 20 hard drives (mostly Seagate and Western Digital) from 2 to 4 TB each.

The boxes on top of the Perseus in the picture are preamps. The boxes below are antenna switches.

Photo: OJS

We also have three Telenor 3G internet modems with typically 17 MBPS down and 3 MBPS up for remote operation. 3G is a vast improvement over the previous 450 MHz ICE internet connection. All internal network connections are cabled, no wifi.

The PCs are everything from large desktop to small desktop to micro desktop (Intel NUC) and laptops. They range from very new processors to at least two years old. OS is mostly W7-64 but also W8.1-64. Mostly the hard drives are connected through USB 3 ports.

We want to avoid cheap, noisy, switching PSUs, so all the hard drives are powered by amateur-grade linear PSUs (mostly Diamond). Everything save the PCs are using 12VDC. The Perseus and NetSDR are powered by USB 3 from a PC or (mostly) separate linear 5V supplies. The original PSUs are not used.

Arctic DX Summit 2014 - Day Two

Saturday! Protons! Caffè Latte! Cappuccino! Pop-Quiz on NRK!

Yesterday we erected the dual 340 beverage, although far-end ground termination is not yet in place. We also set up all the gear for this winter's DX; below is Arnstein's and OJ's SDRs and hard drives.

The 1974 Tandberg Huldra 11 (US version is TR 2025) has been reduced to being an SDR support.

Yesterday's dinner started off with  fried bits of salmon and butter sauce, with fried ham, accidentally reduced to mostly carbon.

The main course was chicken fillets, marinated in Provence-type spices, butter sauce (OJ made a lot) and mashed potatoes. Assorted cheese for dessert.

We tested a few new wines and one old: The latter, Calle's Riesling went well with the salmon while a bottle of La Vieille Ferme 2013 was considered appropriate for the chicken. A Trerose 2012 kept it company. A Gigondas 2011 tasted well with the cheese (or the other way around). A Ron Zacapa rum, supplied by TJ, rounded off the dinner.

Weather is quite OK, 9 Celsius, light winds but occasional rain.