Paul, 

Great photos! And very interesting as this shows a tremendous difference in FM saturation between your location and what we experience here in parts of the US. I moved from Connecticut to Kentucky last Spring and in both locations we find FM signals on just about every frequency on the dial. In fact one of the big challenges to home hobby FM broadcasting is finding a frequency clear enough to use. The only frequencies which don't have signals on them are adjacent to strong locals but even those frequencies often show sings of weak out of town signals. On a selective radio you can tune the band and hear something on each frequency, one after the other.

This is partly due to the proliferation of low power FM translators....FM allocations allocated to the owners of AM only stations to help them compete financially by having an FM voice...our FM band is completely crowded in many locations. Here selectivity rules on FM, and its lucky that modern DSP radios usually et you separate each frequency.

Jay

Mike,

Thanks for the info!

While searching for the groups.io IRCA group, I discovered some interesting statistics regarding members on groups.io: the IRCA group has 341 members, the MW DXer User Group has 140 members, and the Ultralight Radio DXing Enthusiasts has . . . drumroll, please . . . 1405 members (if the numbers reported by groups.io is correct).

My CCrane 2E has arrived, and it is bigger and heavier than I expected, but still I am enjoying it. If anyone here is interested in my impressions and user experience with the 2E, let me know.

In the meantime, I am really looking forward to Gary's upcoming shoot-out of Ultralights.

Cheers, Jock

Thanks Gary, it was a bit of a shock to hear this station at such a strong signal level. 

I am working on a list of the most likely NZ stations to target. I did have a few nights planned away next month on the east coast but this has been pushed out until the middle of the year.

Paul

On Fri, Feb 12, 2021 at 11:37 AM Gary DeBock via groups.io <D1028Gary=aol.com@groups.io> wrote:

Nice logging, Paul!

Your peak time for tracking down Kiwi signals should be around your local sunset, especially if you can manage to try this on an eastern Tasmanian ocean beach. You'll probably find quite a few New Zealand signals hitting S9 peaks at those locations, and possibly 558-Fiji (now that 7BU has bailed). 1017-Tonga might also win the horse race with Sydney's 2KY. 

Gary DeBock (in Puyallup, WA, USA)

--

Paul

First, recognize that I am the new guy here, so I have no standing in terms of experience. Second, please recognize that I am not trying to alter or change the Ultralight DX group. One of the very cool things about this group is that its members seem to be focused on squeezing the very last erg of performance out of their radios.

Having said that, as I poke around the MW DX world, there doesn't seem to be a group that is focused on optimizing the tools and techniques of portable radios in general for MW DX. If such a group exists, would you point me in the right direction?

If such a group does not exist, is it possible that there is room for heavyweight and mediumweight classes of portables here?

Cheers, Jock

Jorge, según yo, tienes razón en todo lo que dices...

I have been thinking for some time that it might be time for our uldx  clan to  widen its parameters.
Alongside a  uldx-defined tiny receiver,  a   (much larger, heavy, unaffordable-for-many)  FSL 
kinda queries the notion of "ultralight".

The Americas still have many AM broadcasters; in Europe few are left,  and more are closing down.

What think ye, brethren?

Michael UK

On 14/02/2021 18:17, Jorge Garzón via groups.io wrote:

Hi,

I wanted to propose something that could give us, in my opinion, new ways for the hobby and maybe the group. I finished my 'Ross DX Challenge' with more than 400 stations heard (but 378 identified), >posted here: https://iberiadx.wordpress.com/the-ultralight-dx-challenge-2020/ < but as I used my DEGEN DE1103 which is about 28 squared inches, 'technically' I do not deserve it. I did not have an ULR at the time being, and after that I got a couple of them and I am testing with them. Additionally we have been promoting the ULR DXing and the first FSL anteena is on the way, as you probably know.

Here in Europe we are not as used in North America or in Oz to listen to the radio with small pocket radios and most of the people has small portables but slightly bigger in size than ULRs. 

I told Gary that probably we could stamp on the award the portable model used, so we could repeat the Challenge in the future with another model. Here in Europe we use portable receivers as big as 30 squared inches and in fact the Challenge remain the same, as the limiting factors are the noise, the power stations and of course the propagation. So, trying to promote the hobby... Would have any problem to extend the portable size to 30 sq. inches? Or maybe we may add a new category to allow bigger portables up to 30 sq. inches, for instance?

On the other side I would like to help by translating the new coming 'ULR' list document into Spanish to spread their use and help to promote this outstanding side of DXing.

73 y saludos.

Jorge