28 february 2010

i was chatting to ken the other day about radio memories and i was telling him the various equipment i had been using over they years and i was telling him that in the early 90"s i had a old Bakelite radio called the bush dac 10 which it had "British wireless for the blind fund" stamped on it and this radio was released in the early 50"s and covered the LW and MW bands.



i wasn't interested in MW dx in those days and was mostly dxing on the 11/45 meter bands etc but i had a yaesu frg 7 for SW listening and the Bush was sitting gathering dust so i advertised it in the practical wireless magazine which i got a reply from a guy in port Glasgow if i remember who said he had a couple of big heavy "BOAT ANCHOR" radios he would like to exchange for the bush.

the day arrived when the knock came at my door and he said he would need a hand bringing the radios in he wasn't kidding i nearly done my back in taking them into my house. one was and old humberland i think and one was a massive thing that needed the two of us to carry it which was a vhf tx/rx from a ship which i later got converted to 2 meters. my shack was in a walk in cupboard and those two radios were too big for my shack so again they were advertised in the practical wireless magazine.

a deal was done for the vhf one which i was glad as i nearly had to reinforce the floor of my shack as it was too heavy and the next day i got a phone call from someone who would like to see the humberland who turned up an hour later. alot of wheeling and dealing went on and alot of head scratching and a few "oh i dont know if i could do that" went on and i got to the stage where i just wanted to get rid of that heavy beast ( the radio and the guy lol ) so i told him if you can take it away now you can have it for free and he wasnt long saying yes to that deal LOL!

when i told ken about this it actually turned out to be him who got the humberland and he still has it to this day and he hasn't changed one bit when it comes to radio equipment as he always says free is the best price lol. it just shows you who you met in the past and forget and then end up as "dx buddy"s" as guy atkins calls us lol.

getting nostalgic again and maybe i am thinking back with rose tinted glasses but the propagation always "seemed" better back then as you could turn you radio on and the skip would be rolling in and still be there when you went to bed and in the early 90"s i was just starting vhf TV dx and in the morning you would get test cards from Russia Sweden or Spain and the propagation seemed to last all day and then at night again you would get the test cards again not like today when you get the crap programing 24 hours a day with no test cards.

as i said maybe i am thinking back with rose tinted glasses or it was the peak of the sunspot cycle but if you all think back it always "seem"s" better back then to what it is now and with the way things are going vhf TV dx is a dying hobby and it will get to the stage where you will ask yourself with the stations that are left is it worth having all that aluminum in the air for a station that you will be lucky to get 3 or 4 times in a season. thankfully at this moment there will be plenty on for a few years yet to keep me interested anyway but with that dirty word DIGITAL even the likes of band 2 and even MW might not be safe.

the digital age is here the public wasn't even asked if you wanted it or not it was either go digital or do without and to me its all about money but where does it end at the moment you have your free digital channels then you have your subscription packages and also for more cash you can get a high definition box and yet again for more cash you can pay for some high definition channels but like what they did with the analog tv whats to stop them saying ok we are going high definition only so buy the box pay us cash for HD or do without do you think that's way out well think about it did you have a choice with digital ... answers on a post card to the British goverment c/o off-com via their Swiss bank account.

27 february 2010 cont

below is a short video of one of the towers of ORF Austria coming down on Wednesday the 24 feb 2010 i will see if i can get footage of the other one
The blasting countdown needed to be delayed due to an incident caused by a resident, who was asked to leave his house temporarily as a precautionary measure. He decided to lock himself in the house and chained himself to a radiator connected to a central heating system. The case had to be resolved by a police operation, that took about 30 min.

27 february 2010

SHEIGRA the MW dx mecca ???

i have been hearing for many a year now that Sheigra in the NW of Scotland is the mecca of MW dxing but i have been going through some of the dxpedition logs and this might ruffle a few feathers but apart from the Alaskans, most of the stations that have been logged at Sheigra have been received by ie ken Baird and Paul Crankshaw and dare i say it myself on what we would call an average to good day and i have always said that location is the key and take Paul for example he is 20 or so miles away from myself and ken and has a sea path and even at that distance he gets some superb dx that we don't hear (i wish he would put up a 55.250 TV loop for TA dx)

the Sheigra dxers will say they were dxing with aor nrd etc receivers and not with the wideband recording sdr"s we have today but what would their logs have been like if they had taken a perseus with them and recorded the full mw band and not single channels but most of the logs i have seen were in the pre perseus days.

taking nothing away from the guys who went to Sheigra but i have also seen better logs from Martin Hall in Clashmore so in my opinion i wouldn't say Sheigra was THE place to go and personally i would want to go as far north west as i could go for MW dx and the opposite for VHF TV dx i would want to go as far south east of the UK for EU middle east Africa etc or the south west coast of Ireland for transatlantic dx.

PMSDR
i have managed to get the PMSDR which was sent this morning and i am sure the weekend will drag in now and i am the worst person in the world for waiting for stuff and on the day its supposed to come i am looking at the clock and tapping my feet and i even have Ken on postman lookout duties LOL! which when he sees him coming he roars on the radio.

it might be a wee bit too late in the season for some serious MW dx tests but you never know but the real reason i wanted this receiver is for the monitoring of whole band 1 TV frequencies and looking at 190 kHz or so of 50/70 MHz and even the OIRT band at the same time .... results when it comes ... is it not Tuesday yet LOL!

25 february 2010 cont

DK1MAX max has recently finished his new ch E3/A2 yagi and along with his 50 mhz yagi on e2 and the hauppauge wintv usb2 television and his PMSDR receiver he should do well at his location and i really look forward to his results in the coming season.


NEW E3 YAGI


6 EL 50 Mhz & E2

25 february 2010

i have been going through some TV dx disks from 2006 and found a couple of interesting ones they are not what i would call really far dx but at my old qth ch R1 was destroyed by baby alarms but on the odd occasion some would get through like the first clip RTR Russia which came up to quite good levels.



next was Sweden on ch e2 the baby alarms were so strong on 49 MHz ch e2 was destroyed as well but again Sweden made it through and you can actually hear a baby on the clip around the 21 second mark



the antenna in use was a home made 4 element for ch R1 and in those days i more or less had single yagis for each channel with the space i had available oh how i wish it was like that here as apart from a few months last season ch E2 and R1 are baby alarm free.



i also found a good picture from DR1 Denmark on E3 and i managed to get some teletext from it there is not much to see from the teletext grab but DR1 and the page number can be seen as teletext is very hard to get via sporadic e

24 february 2010

not alot to report i am still enjoying the great audio from the old racal receiver but no real dx heard also i am looking at the TEP reports from the guys in Portugal and Australia with some envy on 50 MHz and band 1 TV and there are reports as well of Brazilian PMR from 35 MHz up received in Portugal no chance here as i am far too north for TEP.

i awoke this morning to a Christmas scene again and it was all white and is quite heavy as i type.

Judica-Cordiglia brothers

i thoroughly recommend watching this documentary of the two Judica-Cordiglia brothers from Italy and the receptions they picked up from space etc is amazing and a very interesting documentary. it was funny that NASA tried to hide the frequencies but in one instance the two brothers calculated the frequency of one of the transmitions from a photograph of a antenna and with the help from their father who was a doctor from the length of the cheek bone from someone standing next to the antenna they calculated what size the antenna was and roughly what frequency it was on. also at one stage the KGB was after them. the copy i have is in Italian but it had English subtitles and has some great footage of the receivers and antennas etc and has some disturbing audio from a cosmonauts last breath etc and its quite funny in parts when NASA kept saying no one could pick up their transmitions. the documentary is called PIRATES IN SPACE or SPACE HACKERS and well worth a watch.


the full movie can be seen on the link below
http://www.ch73.net/player.php?id=347&table=1&ln=nl

21 february 2010

john Märsylä from the Netherlands sent me a 20mb PMSDR file recorded on the MW band and its NOT a dx recording it was just to give an example of how its working and sounding and to me it looks perfectly suited for MW dx and i am sure i will get some transatlantic recordings from john as conditions allow. more important to me john will also be sending me a recording of the whole of R1 on vhf TV which i will put on here. the mw recording from the PMSDR is on my youtube page and as i said its not a dx recording its just to show it working and how it sounds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvRL61l-CMY


i was up around 07.00 this morning and put on the old RACAL receiver and heard a few of the regulars coming in but as i was listening to one station i kept wondering what was happening up and down the band and having used the Perseus for two seasons now it certainly destroys what the purists call real dxing LOL! one thing to note though the audio from the RACAL is stunning and is great to hear transatlantic signals coming in on it.

i thought i had heard everything in my 42 years but was chatting to ken on the radio this morning and he told me he was in CHURCH!!! first thing this morning i had to give my self a slap to see if i was still sleeping and check if my wife had spiked my morning coffee lol! it was a big scandal when he actually swapped radios with me one time but that beats it all LOL! maybe ken was praying for good MW conditions to come back but a more likely story is the old priest has been replaced by a blonde bimbo lol

20 february 2010 cont

70 MHz news

Yesterday, February 19, 2010 The Post and Telecoms Administration in Iceland granted a temporary experimental access to the 4 meter band in Iceland. The permit is valid until December

Frequency span: 70.000-70.200 MHz. Access is granted on secondary basis. Maximum bandwidth is 16 kHz and power limit is 100 W.
The access is valid until 31.12.2010

20 february 2010

well i think that's it for me this season on MW and will give ken back his Perseus who i thank very much again for a loan of the receiver for the full MW season and to be honest if it wasn't for the Perseus i wouldn't be doing MW dx as i just couldn't go back to listening to one frequency at a time i will listen now and again on the radios i have if i am up in time.

i didn't record this morning as when i was setting up my hot-keys last night i heard the BZZZZZZZZZ again coming from one of my neighbors house and it was still there at 08.00 utc but as of yet nothing has been posted on the MW dx cluster so hopefully i didn't miss anything exciting.

another gone from band 1

just seen the news that HRT 1 Croatia will be leaving band 1

Psunj, HRT-1, channel E4 20th July 2010
Labistica, HRT-1, channel E4 17th August 2010

sad to see this one going but there is still plenty on band 1 to keep the interest going but when the day comes that all band 1 has gone it seems i will have to dust of the microphone and start talking on 50 MHz JEEZ Ur 5/9 goodbye i look forward to that LOL!

i was watching a good discussion on the KST 50 MHz the other day about TV going off and how they were good propagation indicators and apart from the beacons it will be hard to judge what propagation is coming in and the best answer that came was instead of chatting on a chat page ops will have to actually make a dx call now and again and if everybody is sitting listening and chatting on the web and not calling how will you know if the band is open.

there has been alot of cry's for joy that some TV stations have went qrt but personally i think they will be missed just purely for propagation indicators but as i said above there is still some there to keep the interest going for a few years ie Africa , middle east, Russia, far east, Caribbean, central & south America so its not all doom and gloom.

18 february 2010

i think i am at the scraping the bottom of the barrel time on MW... again this morning nothing much around apart from a tentative YVMD Radio Venezuela Mara Ritmo Maracaibo on 900 kHz at 07.00 utc which you can listen below. the band really has been poor since the west coast conditions stopped and the sun getting lively hasn't helped either.


tentative YVMD

ken had a problem with his north American beverage which he fixed yesterday but he was telling me this morning he forgot to put it in his Perseus and he had his west beverage in overnight but it might not be all that bad for him as he also had the same station on 900 kHz which if it turns out to be YVMD it will be a personal first for him and for me as well.

15 february 2010

i have been chatting with john Märsylä from the Netherlands on the subject of his new PMSDR receiver and his reports are VERY encouraging on such a small priced receiver. he was telling me that on the MW band its just as sensitive as the aor 7030 but below 700 kHz a preselector is needed.

at the moment it costs just over 260 euros and has recording capability's of up to 190 kHz of bandwidth not alot compared to the Perseus sdr but a massive price difference and if the PMSDR is as sensitive as the aor 7030 you couldn't complain.

i wont go into too much technical details as most of what i have seen on specs on a receiver looks like Chinese to me but the PMSDR covers 0 - 86 MHz all mode and can do pretty much the same as the Perseus apart from the wide-band recordings.

the selling point for me on this receiver and when i am finished wheeling and dealing with some radio gear i have i hope to have one before the sporadic e season starts is that i would be able to monitor whole VHF TV channels at once and if you are not aware ie on chE2 which is 48.250 this channel is split up ie 48.239/249/259 etc and where as on my icom pcr 1000 i am only able to monitor say 48.249 with the PMSDR i would be able to watch all of them at the same time as the picture below shows john watching all of ch R1



so gone would be the days of sitting on 49.739 and missing something coming in on 49.759 etc. john will get a more detailed review of the PMSDR on his blog when he gets time.
http://www.johnmarsyla.nl/

12 february 2010 cont

i was chatting to Hugh in Portugal on skype and he was telling me he got Kenya today on e2 48.249.96 approx and its great to know its still on and if the Es gods are with me and TVE goes off at the end of march but been hearing this for years we might get a chance with this one

12 february 2010

well what can i say ... not alot really the band was really poor this morning and so bad i didn't even record the so called dawn peak as there was nothing worth recording. i hate when conditions get like this when the only stations received are common ones and it does get really boring.

John Märsylä from the Netherlands has received his PMSDR and i look forward to his review on the receiver on MW and more important to me anyway how its working on band 1 vhf TV video tones. i use the icom pcr 1000 for video tones which is good but you are watching one frequency at a time ie 48.249 but with the PMSDR you can watch ie 48.239/249/259 all at once.

i have been reading on kens web about the perseus software updates etc and with it timing out etc and all the bugs and me personally if i buy a 700 quid receiver i would want the software to actually work with no bugs and no timeouts and what would happen if the perseus guys said time to move on to the next project you would be left with a nice black box to sit your coffee on lol!. i wont go into it on here as you can read all about it on kens website
http://www.ayrshirehistory.eu/tadx/index.html

that's it for today ... MW is bad ... 3 months to go for the TV dx season ... what to do ... take up knitting LOL! i wonder if they are any knitting groups with the controversial wide stitch knitting needles that allow wide cardigans to be made not like the analog older needles LOL!

10 february 2010

nothing to report as i haven't been recording as i lost my father in law and dxing has been the last thing on my mind however i did record this morning but i think a big flare has hit the earth at some point and the band was very poor here and nothing as yet has been reported on the skype MW dx cluster.

also my biggest sympathy's to the family of John Bryant who has sadly gone RIP

6 february 2010

nothing of real interest on the band this morning but on 1230 at 08.00 it shows you how unpredictable the MW band is .. as you know i use a flag antenna ken who is less than 100 meters from me is using a beverage and Paul in troon which is 20 miles away is using a flag antenna and we all got different things on 1230 at the same time

ken 1230 wgkv grand rapids 0800
paul 1230 WSBB New Smyrna Beach FL 0800
myself unid latin mustic through toth

it just goes to show even at short distances different stations come in and you cant predict what will come in.

5 february 2010

i haven't been through all my recordings this morning yet but just thought i would add this one before i go through them all.

WBAL Baltimore on 1090 coming up at just the correct time at 04.00 utc

more to follow ......




WBAL Baltimore 1090

2 february 2010

there has been a discussion on the Australian FM and TV yahoo group about the Sony xdr receiver which i have discussed before on here so i wont go into it too much. most owners of the xdr claim its the best thing since sliced bread and nothing can touch it on b2 this might be the case in Australia where i think most of the time the stations that will be received will be in English but here in the UK and EU where there are alot of languages that i think the majority of dxers wont understand fast rds decoding is a MUST!.

in the tests done by myself and ken baird the rds resolving on the xdr wasn't as good as the standard Sony 920 we had doing a a/b test and ken has some recordings on his web site and if i remember the audio from the 920 was a bit better as well. for me in sporadic e fast rds is a must and i know some dxers listen to the program content of the dx station but me personally i couldn't care less what they are on about as in sporadic e with all the fading etc i want the rds resolved quickly, station recorded and move on to the next frequency.

the following is what i would use and in what conditions
SONY XDR = tropo and getting close to local stations
SONY 920 & esslinger rds software = sporadic e & meteor scatter

not a thing to report on MW the past few days but Paul over in troon is still continuing to dig out some great dx the difference 20 miles and a sea path makes