today i received a reply from WFEA which is great as not many take the time to reply 

Hi David,

Thanks for the email this morning regarding reception of WFEA in Scotland.

Please use this email as QSL of station received. I am very interested in your receiving software. Do you ever monitor the amateur bands?

Below is a link that gives the history of WFEA. I have attached a picture of the famous Blaw Knox tower which is one of only a few remaining diamond towers like it. The tower was erected in 1932. Others in the USA are WSM and WLW.

http://www.manfrommars.com/wfea30s.html

73 es cul,

Pete, K1PJS

 

what a difference a day makes and i have just had a quick listen to my MW recordings from 0200 - 0500 and there was hardly a transatlantic signal worth a mention. going back to yesterday i had a nice surprise with a sporadic e opening on OIRT B1 B2 with Ukraine logged on OIRT UR 1 Ukrainsky radio Lviv and Lithuania on B1 R2 and Poland and Russia on B2 which i didn't record as i stopped to watch football and when i returned conditions had dropped. i first noticed the opening as i was tweaking some settings in DScaler and noticed some ham qrm on R1 and i switched on the PMSDR and saw the video carriers start to roll in and some ham activity on 6 and 4 meters and hopefully a good sign for the season ahead.

some booming signals this morning and a couple of personal firsts which can be seen on the following links WARL 1320  WFAE 1370 and it shows the MW band still has some life to it. i have still some files to go through but i am just getting back to my normal self after catching a bug and will get to them and hopefully more to follow

while the MW band was garbage this morning i had a nice surprise with a short Aurora Es opening on band 2 and i actually started to record meteor pings as my MW files were deleted early and i noticed on the 50 MHz cluster that there was some Aurora brewing and i had the OY beacon on 50 MHz coming in via AU and after a couple of recorded meteor pings on 87.7 presumed Sweden 87.7 ms pings i had a tune around and i heard some weak classical music on 87.6 which got a wee bit stronger but with allot of deep fades and with Paul Logan ( realdx ) and  youtube user qrzysztofPL suggestions i am pretty sure its Radio Impuls from Brno Kojal which can be heard on the following link 87.6 via Au Es

it goes to show it certainly pays to keep an eye the radio clusters etc on the Internet and also to watch what indicators are coming in on your own setup as when i saw the OY beacon coming in on the pmsdr/winradf waterfall on 50 MHz i knew there was a slight chance of something coming in. Radio Impuls is very regular on sporadic e here in Scotland but at this time of the year and the past couple of poor Es seasons i have had i will take anything that comes along.

nothing much to report over the weekend on the MW band. i did receive a couple of ss stations on 1230 1300 1590 on sat/sun which were posted on realdx but no luck in finding out who they were. the Lyrids meteor shower was a washout as well and i set up some overnight recordings with DScaler recording r1 video and audio from 87.7 MHz but no video at all and only a couple of very short pings on b2.

New! PMSDR tunable preselector

Martin has the new board ready and all info can be found on the following link pmsdr   and its great to see the updates/addons are still coming regular for the pmsdr not like some other sdr radios i could mention.

19 april 2012

sorry seems to be the hardest word .....

my last post has stirred up a bit of a hornets nest and the main point of it was to show look before you leap and don't jump in with stupid comments on Internet forums when you are wrong and i wouldn't have posted anything if jurgen had held up his arms and said ok i made a mistake sorry but no sign of one yet. i have now left the skywaves mw group on yahoo and its a pity as it was a good forum to post logs conditions etc.

radio conditions

nothing really much to report since my last post and its at the time of the year when the mw band is winding down and its a few weeks until the sporadic e seasons starts so i have spent the time cleaning out the shack and its amazing the amount of shit that gathers up from one season to another lol and i can actually see some space on my radio table now.

13 april 2012

school yard attitudes

recently i rejoined the skywaves mw yahoo group which i posted a few logs and yesterday i posted a video link of radio deporte on 1590 in which Henrik k from the real dx group helped me find out who it was and as i always do in the description of the video i give credit/thanks to all who help me. soon after i posted the link i got the following message from jurgen bartels

David,
you should also mention the DXers who helped you identifying your log.
It is unfair just to suggest you did it all on your own while others did your
work.

You've got the help of http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RealDX/
so better tell who helped you

now if jurgen had taken the time to read the video description he would have clearly seen that i gave the credit/thanks to henrik which you can see here r deporte  or is that not good enough and if i post to every message board etc do i have to say thanks every time even when it says it on the video ????? . now i don't know if jurgen is going through some kind of mid life crisis or ??? but he also recently got stuck into Mike Fallon over a meteor reception he got which he then stated it was impossible to receive meteor scatter over 2000 km which he was proved wrong.

going back to giving credit/thanks personally if the help comes from the great guys on real dx and i say thanks on the group and then i give all credit on the video description on youtube or on here do i constantly need to give thanks/credit to every message board.... Internet group.... guy walking his dog in the street .... when all credit is given on the description of the video ??????? what do you guys think

11 april 2012

another personal first this morning with  CMNL RADIO BAYAMO cuba on 1620 at around 0501 this morning which i am very happy to get as you will see on the video Rebelde was not too bad and nothing much gets past it but Radio Bayamo peaked at just the right time and thanks to Mauricio Molano for the info " yes!, giving its historic call sign CMKX " . you can see the video on the following link  Radio Bayamo cuba 1620  hopefully more to follow ....

4 april 2012

i was trying to get in contact with WGAD just to tell them their signal was making it across the pond to Scotland but they didn't have an email ad on their website so i had to do a little detective work and first i went to the gadsden times news paper then the city of Gadsden website which i sent them a mail to ask if it was possible to get in contact with the station to let them know and after checking my emails this morning i received the following

Thank you, David, for contacting me through the City of Gadsden!  I’m surprised that our signal reached you.  However,  I remember working with another local station here back in the early 90’s, WAAX-AM on 570 kHz, at that time they had a CQ card from Paris!  You’re right, it is RARE!  GREAT WORK!  

This email is to officially notify you that the recording which you posted to YouTube is, in fact, the programming content of WGAD-AM-1350, Gadsden, Alabama.

I have attached a copy of our official logo for your collection.  I am also blind copying this email, along with your original message, to many media outlets in the state.  They may want to compose a human interest story on this rare event that you have reported.

Thank you again David and all the best to you and yours!

Warmest regards,

 

its great they took the time to get back to me as in my previous posts you will see that most stations i send reception reports don't bother to answer or put something like " yes thats us " and nothing else so a BIG thanks to J HOLLAND at WGAD Gadsden

nothing much to report from the last few days on the mw band but i notice once again the usual east coast big guns like 1010 WINS 1130 WBBR etc are back to  normal which the past week or so they have been well down

1 april 2012

what a morning on the MW band with 3 personal firsts so far and its NOT a April fools joke lol . with big thanks to Valter Comuzzi and Paul Crankshaw i have received the following so far from around 0530

1350 HCVR2 Teleradio 13-50 Guayaquil
1530  R Universitario Catolica, Azorgues
1560 HJXZ Santa Maria de la Paz, Medellin

it was so frustrating as the peak is still around 0530 and i can hear plenty of audio but bottom of the hour is so frustrating to get ids ie i had a YL on 1470 from 0530 which Vater told me she was talking about religion with no id mentioned and Andrew Brade commented " It sounds like it's tuned away from the carrier frequency. Radio Huellas from Colombia broadcasts religion on 1470.07 approximately " but with no id heard as yet ( i have still some recordings to listen to ) it will go in the unid folder. recordings of my personal firsts can be heard on the following link 3 personal firsts  a better recording of  R Universitario Catolica, Azorgues can be heard here 1560

comments from Valter  1350 ....

Hi David,

you have EQA :  At 15" "Teleradio 13-50 AM Digital" 

maybe there is a second station at the beginning of the clip, it looks like a sung jingle and then I hear "onda deportiva" probably  the name of a program.

Valter

1560  EQA again "Onda Cañaris, Radio Universitaria Católica de Azogues. Valter