Sunrise DXing in the Sunshine State, after a few days off while
conditions improved. A second look at my Cuba Centurian log showed a
dupe, so I only had 95 . If you look at WRTH, you'll see Cuba sometimes
sticks several stations of the same or different networks on the same
frequency. I'm sure they did this just to make things interesting for
DXers! The networks with some stronger stations make it easier to switch
back and forth looking for parallel broadcasts. When there are three
different networks on the same frequency the tuning buttons take a
beating. You can't log 100 Cubans without running into this problem.
Having more than one extra-sensitive radio would be a big help, except
that's even more buttons to push. Pre-dawn today I actually tried to
tune the PL-380 by mashing the buttons on my PDA's external keyboard,
which hosed one line of my log spreadsheet. Arrrggghh.

1030Z 550 CMBA PR Cuba R Rebelde 1050Z 1190
CMGL SS Cuba R Sancti Spiritus //1200 1210 1113Z
1060 CML IJ Cuba R Victoria ann not // 1020 R26
1130Z 1120 WBNW Concord MA Bus news, wx
The provinces are Pinar del Rio, Sancti Spiritus and Isle de la
Juventud. As there are often two stations of the same network on the
same frequency, I sort them by province. Listen for echoes.

You can see the logic needed (before 6 a.m., no less) to sort out a
couple of them. The R Rebelde on 550 was a cinch, as it paralleled the
high-power Rebelde on 600 kHz, and in the background, Hugo Chavez was
gas-bagging on YVKE in Caracas. I had a hit list of Cubans this morning
and tried them all, but most of them were silent. Now I'm digging down
to the 1-kW stations, most of which will be under stronger U.S.
stations. I thought Operation Bay of Sigs would be fairly easy. Most
nights you'd swear there were a thousand Cuban stations on the band. I
started from scratch on January 25 when John Bryant announced the
Centurian, figuring it would take a couple of weeks at most. Might get
it done in two months.

The Cubans were nice, but WBNW was the highlight. Just on a whim I
decided to see what might show up in KMOX's null. There was a weather
report (temp 27°!) and a BOH ID, for ULR #380.

73,

Jim, KR1S
http://qrp.kearman.com/ <http://qrp.kearman.com/>