The highlight of my 2-night DXpedition over the
weekend in Grayland, Washington was certainly the logging of Radio Farda,
1575 kHz in the UAE. This was during grayline conditions last night (Nov. 2 UTC
date), less than an hour past local sunset and just before Al-Dhabbaya, UAE
sunrise. It's a distance of 7,538 mi. / 12,131 km., per the Google
Earth "Distance Tool" from the R. Farda antenna array
to Grayland Beach State Park!
To my knowledge, R. Farda has not been heard before
on the West Coast of North America with a receiver of any type, communications
receiver OR a cheap portable.
I had R. Farda the previous night on my Perseus
SDRs before 0200, but didn't realize what I was hearing. I first thought it was
an early fade-in of an Asian, but of course 0130-0155 UTC is *far* too early! I
never expected to hear a TA on a *barefoot* ultralight portable from
Grayland, much less on my Perseus receivers and Wellbrook Phased Array antenna.
When I realized that it might have been R. Farda after all, I was more prepared
the next evening.
Sure enough, a het was first heard and seen on
1575 with the Perseus spectrum display at 0130, and audio faded up with
dance / techno music at 0140. Five minutes later between music selections, I
heard an Arabic language announcer with mentions of "Arabiyya". The best
reception (poor-fair level at best) was around 0150 with a pounding, bass-heavy
dance / techno tune and Arabic vocals.
Would it be possible to hear anything at all on a
barefoot SRF-39FP? I had pre-tuned the Sony between a Spanish station on 1570
and 1 kw. KBAL, Lebanon, Oregon on 1280. The radio was ready to go, already
rotated for best null of 1280, and waiting for me on the railing of the outside
porch. When Farda seemed like it wouldn't get any stronger, I dashed outside the
yurt (cabin) in Grayland and slapped on the headphones...woo-hoo!! There was the
dance / techno music, in parallel to what I was hearing on Perseus! The
signal (only moderately weaker than on Perseus) lasted only 15-20 seconds
on the small Sony before it was gone into oblivion on both
radios.
Here's a short MP3 of how this TA station sounded
on the Perseus SDR:
As luck would have it, my Wellbrook Phased Array
(prototype) antenna was oriented approximately correct for grayline
reception of Radio Farda--to the Northwest at 300 degrees. Hmm...perhaps
this wasn't technically a "trans-Atlantic" reception, as the grayline took
the signal north-northeast over Russia, Siberia, across Alaska, and down along
the British Columbia coastline.
The only other possible TA noted during this
DXpedition was 1008 kHz, heard both nights with dance and electronica music
before 0200 UTC, but not found on the Sony ultralight. 1008 may be a
reactivated GrootNieuwsradio, Holland, or possibly a Spanish SER
station.
This Grayland DXpedition was highly productive
overall; I'll be sharing full details early this week.
Guy Atkins
Puyallup, WA USA
