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Re: Some more "Midnight sun loggings"

Hans Ostnell
 

Well, it's still an UNID. Got nothing that sound like an ID, but it might have been a RFI-relay, which in that case indicates Mayotte.

However, Mayotte was logged in Finnish Lapland (Aihkiniemi, some 200 km south of my location) in late November 2014.


73,

Hans
Re: Some more "Midnight sun loggings"

theod438@...
 

Holy smokes, Batman!   Mayotte/1458...

Gary, you've got some Serious Competition.

TD
Some more "Midnight sun loggings"

Hans Ostnell
 

Hi all!


Yet two more evenings in the "DX-caravan", out of town, at the Barents Seashore. Some quite interesting loggings this time; RTA Kabul on 1107 kHz and again Radio Free Africa in Mwanza, Tanzania, came up with a very nice signal, to mention a few. Also a very interesting french speaking station on 1458, that might have been Mayotte - but that still has to be determined.


I'm getting more and more impressed by the performance of my 12" x 7.5" FSL, made by Everett Sharp. No less than three loop-coils in parallell on MW, gives this antenna a still unbeaten sensitivity, feeding my supercharged PL-380 / Skywave CC with plenty of "ooomph"! It's beating the Wellbrook ALA-1530 / ICF-2010 combo hands down every time! Just amazing!


This week I will have my yearly vacation, and go on summer holidays in the southern parts of Scandinavia. I will bring my UL-receivers and my Quantum QX loop (the FSL is too heavy and too delicate to bring on such a trip). I will update the group with new loggings from time to time, and internet-access of course.


Well, the log from the last weekend:


17.07.2015 18:40:00 1575 Radio Farda, Al-Dhabaya UAE 35333 A-index: 8, K-index: 2.

19:40:00 1431 IRIB Radio Iran, Habibabad Iran 35333

19:47:00 1278 IRIB Khermanshah Iran 35333

20:06:00 1071 IRIB Radio Ma'aref, Qom Iran 35333 Religious programming

20:15:00 1035 IRIB Radio Yazd, Yazd Iran 35333

20:25:00 927 IRIB Radio Lorestan, Dorud Iran 35333

20:30:00 864 IRIB Qasr-e-Shirin Iran 35333 // Radio Khermanshah

20:45:00 774 IRIB Radio Markazi, Arak Iran 35333

20:50:00 738 WRN, Kurkino-Moscow Russia 25332 Russian programming at this time

21:10:00 1476 IRIB Radio Kordestan, Marivan Iran 35333

21:15:00 1467 IRIB Radio Qom, Qom Iran 35333

21:50:00 1530 VoA, Pinheira Sao Tomé 33333 QRM Radio Romania Actualitete

21:55:00 1566 All India Radio, Nagbur India 34333 Bollywood music. Good signal!

22:02:00 1458 Unid french speaking station. Mayotte??
23332 Fighting with Radio Romania Act.

22:30:00 1566 IRIB Radio Iran, Bandar Abbas Iran 33333 AIR Naghpur dominating

22:46:00 963 Cyprus BC, Nicosia Cyprus 34333 Non stop greek songs

23:21:00 1377 Radio Free Africa, Mwanza Tanzania 33333 Phone-in, vernacular. Good ID 23:39
18.07.2015 00:05:00 1341 BBC R5, Lisnagarvey, Northern ireland United Kingdom 35333 Overnight relay, no BBC R Ulster

00:10:00 1242 France info, Marseille France 34333

19:28:00 1107 RTA, Kabul Afghanistan 25332 Close down 19:30 with nat. Anth.

20:00:00 1098 CNR, Unknown location china 33333 Beijing timecheck on TOTH.

19:49:00 1053 Radio Mariya, St. Peterburg Russia 35333 Religious programming. Good ID 19:58

20:00:00 972 VOA, Dushanbe relay Tadzhikistan 35333 «This is VOA-News»

20:27:00 828 Radiogazeta Slovo, St. Peterburg Russia 25332 Rusian political talks

20:42:00 1530 VoA, Pinheira Sao Tomé 45333 Music Tome in Africa. Good!

21:25:00 1242 IRIB Radio Iran, Zanjan Iran 35333 A-index: 5, K-index: 1

21:25:00 1251 IRIB Radio Iran, Kiashahr Iran 35333

21:30:00 1134 Radio Kuwait, Sulabiyah Kuwait 45333 Talks about situation in Baghdad. Good

21:57:00 657 Kol Yisrael Reshet Bet, Tel Aviv Israel 35333 Commercials and ID TOTH

22:00:00 558 IRIB Radio Farhang, Geslagh Iran 45333 Very good signal at this time!








73's de Hans / LA2MOA

Vardo island - Komagvær

Arctic Norway

12" x 7.5" FSL

PL-380, Skywave CC - both supercharged
Re: Sangean ATS-405

policow6@...
 

Perfect analogy. After we own many radios we don't really NEED more...we just WANT them.


Jay
Re: Sangean ATS-405

Paul S. in CT
 

I think you under estimate this radio classing it with Tecsun's. The extra $20 over a PL-310/380/505/605 is indeed worth it. Its just not an UL. Though this set may be first in line to a new wave of sets with better capabilities at price/smaller size. The feature set is different than say an E5/G5/DE1103 (and the 405 is a little smaller and lighter) not having ssb/sync. Lets say one can take a Tecsun DSP and tweak its performance without breaking open the radio. In fact, the 405 tweaks a few things a Tecsun DSP cannot. So while not a UL the 405 may actually be a heads-up for things to come in ultralight-land.

Paul S. in CT FN31nl
Re: Sangean ATS-405

Michael <michael.setaazul@...>
 

Eureka! - We only need to keep our radios inside handbags...

Michael

----- Original Message ----- From: farmerik

I tell my wife, radios are like flowers or shoes, you can never have enough!
She rolls her eyes though. - FARMERIK
Re: Sangean ATS-405

Rik
 

I tell my wife, radios are like flowers or shoes, you can never have enough! She rolls her eyes though. - FARMERIK
Re: Sangean ATS-405

pu3hag - h. garcia <pu3hag.l@...>
 

A friend of mine had a good explanation on his always increasing radio collection:

See, all these radios... they are like  football team players: this is the goalkeeper, these are the defenders, then we have the midfielders... and don't forget the forwards which are over there.

On Jul 18, 2015 18:22, "'Michael' michael.setaazul@... [ultralightdx]" <ultralightdx@...> wrote:

 


----- Original Message ----- Re: Sangean ATS-405

Well, Michael, no single radio "does it all." That's why we all need to own multiple receivers ;-)

Keith Beesley
Seattle WA USA
-------------------------------
Very true, Keith.
I have tried explaining this to the XYL, but she doesn't buy it :-)

Michael

Re: Sangean ATS-405

Michael <michael.setaazul@...>
 

----- Original Message ----- Re: Sangean ATS-405

Well, Michael, no single radio "does it all." That's why we all need to own multiple receivers ;-)

Keith Beesley
Seattle WA USA
-------------------------------
Very true, Keith.
I have tried explaining this to the XYL, but she doesn't buy it :-)

Michael
Re: Sangean ATS-405

keith beesley
 

Well, Michael, no single radio "does it all." That's why we all need to own multiple receivers ;-)

Keith Beesley
Seattle WA USA
Re: Sangean ATS-405

Michael <michael.setaazul@...>
 

No doubt the ever short-sighted bean-counters have had their chop.
In Europe, LW is still alive. Additionally, SSB would make this
improved receiver attractable to many more - and sales would
make even the bean counters purr.

"Fortunately" A*zon is not tempting us in Europe, so we
shall patiently await the next sub-optimal radio. Sad that
I just don't have the time or the lab to develop it :-)

Sigh...

Michael

----- Original Message -----

...the ATS-405 is intriguing in many ways.

Sangean ATS-405 AM/FM/SW Radio Sangean has upgraded its ATS-404 with the
new ATS-405 portable radio and I was excited to find that this new model offe...

View on radiojayallen.com Preview by Yahoo

Jay
Re: Sangean ATS-405

policow6@...
 

Paul,


I agree with your comments...the ATS-405 is intriguing in many ways.


Sangean ATS-405 AM/FM/SW Radio


Jay
Re: Possible New Radio Bag

Alex P
 

he looks like he is pregnant
Re: Using a long wire aerial with the PL-360

Paul Blundell
 

Thanks John for the information.

From: kugellager@... [ultralightdx]
Sent: ‎18/‎07/‎2015 1:37 AM
To: ultralightdx@...
Subject: [ultralightdx] Re: Using a long wire aerial with the PL-360

 

Hi Paul,

I have my PL-380 set up with a 3.5 mm phono plug which I can plug in any antenna I want to experiment with.  I wrapped 6 turns of magnet wire around the stock radio ferrite bar antenna and ran the two ends to the phono plug. Place the 6 turns close to the windings on stock ferrite for strongest signal.

I use this radio as my travel radio so I have it set up to use various simple wire antennas.

At home in the Denver area there are a lot of nearby strong MW stations that can start to overload the radio when I use it with my phaser which has a 10 dB amplification on it. When I use it by itself there are very little issues when I use it with my 25-35 ft vertical antennas.

I use various antenna setups when I take my yearly family trip to Walloon Lake in Michigan.  This year, the antenna I used was a 100 ft version of my non-resonant dipole and had no overloading issues.  Walloon lake is very RF quiet and has only four of MW BCB stations within about 20 km and everything after that is over 55 km away and fairly low power.  I was able to pick up quite a few more daytimers from Wisconsin and Chicago than I had previous years.

Last year I used a 50 ft version of the non-resonant dipole which you can see detailed here under "Portable DX Antenna For Ultralight Radio - Horizontal Configuration" The only difference between this year (100 ft) and last year was the wire length.

Radio & Dx'ing Videos - YouTube

 



So you can use a decent sized wire if the conditions are quiet.  Experimentation is always fun.

John
];')
Sangean ATS-405

Paul S. in CT
 

Howdy all

Recently my G5 went belly-up, and went looking for a replacement. Though not an UL, I did find the new Sangean ATS-405. Its a nice RX with DSP. One of the things that caught my eye was the new controls offered. On this set the Soft-Mute can be turned off, the AGC can have its gain set to 30db, 50db or auto, and there is the usual RF gain as Local/DX. Just got it yesterday, and am still noodling around with it. No ssb or sync, but is a large step up from say a PL-310/380 in terms of sensitivity on AM/SW. At this time of day E. Coast, R. Australia and RNZI comes in quite well on 17840 and 15720 respective.

Hopefully the new controls here can get into an UL radio or two in the near future. The Soft Mute defeat, and AGC controls do a good job.

One new station to report is WRCR 1700 from Ramapo, NY on both day and night power 10kW/1kW. Evidently recently activated. Minor league baseball game commercials and "1700 WRCR Ramapo (NY)". Later on popular music from 80's.

Paul S. in CT FN31nl
Re: Using a long wire aerial with the PL-360

kugellagers
 

Hi Paul,

I have my PL-380 set up with a 3.5 mm phono plug which I can plug in any antenna I want to experiment with.  I wrapped 6 turns of magnet wire around the stock radio ferrite bar antenna and ran the two ends to the phono plug. Place the 6 turns close to the windings on stock ferrite for strongest signal.

I use this radio as my travel radio so I have it set up to use various simple wire antennas.

At home in the Denver area there are a lot of nearby strong MW stations that can start to overload the radio when I use it with my phaser which has a 10 dB amplification on it. When I use it by itself there are very little issues when I use it with my 25-35 ft vertical antennas.

I use various antenna setups when I take my yearly family trip to Walloon Lake in Michigan.  This year, the antenna I used was a 100 ft version of my non-resonant dipole and had no overloading issues.  Walloon lake is very RF quiet and has only four of MW BCB stations within about 20 km and everything after that is over 55 km away and fairly low power.  I was able to pick up quite a few more daytimers from Wisconsin and Chicago than I had previous years.

Last year I used a 50 ft version of the non-resonant dipole which you can see detailed here under "Portable DX Antenna For Ultralight Radio - Horizontal Configuration" The only difference between this year (100 ft) and last year was the wire length.

Radio & Dx'ing Videos - YouTube

 



So you can use a decent sized wire if the conditions are quiet.  Experimentation is always fun.

John
];')
Re: 531-More FM (2 kW) in Alexandra, NZ Received atRockwork 4

Paul Blundell
 

Well done Gary :)

From: D1028Gary@... [ultralightdx]
Sent: ‎17/‎07/‎2015 6:14 PM
To: ultralightdx@...
Subject: [ultralightdx] 531-More FM (2 kW) in Alexandra, NZ Received atRockwork 4

 

Hello All,
 
While continuing to sort through 7 hours of 531 recordings made during the Rockwork 4 DXpedition a real gem was uncovered-- a vibrant ID of a long-term target, the 2 kW More FM station in Alexandra. This low-power station rarely has a chance on the cliff because of 531-PI's overwhelming presence-- and its strong appearance for this MP3 may have been due to the tail end of auroral propagation on June 26th.
 
 
531-More FM is not in the Grayland Master log, and was not one of Chuck's 87 Kiwi stations received last July.  As such, it is apparently an all-time west coast first.
 
73 and Good DX,
Gary DeBock (in Puyallup, WA, USA)
DXing at the Rockwork 4 Ocean Cliff near Manzanita, OR
7.5" loopstick C.Crane Skywave Ultralight + 15" DXpedition FSL antenna
531-More FM (2 kW) in Alexandra, NZ Received at Rockwork 4

Gary DeBock
 

Hello All,
 
While continuing to sort through 7 hours of 531 recordings made during the Rockwork 4 DXpedition a real gem was uncovered-- a vibrant ID of a long-term target, the 2 kW More FM station in Alexandra. This low-power station rarely has a chance on the cliff because of 531-PI's overwhelming presence-- and its strong appearance for this MP3 may have been due to the tail end of auroral propagation on June 26th.
 
 
531-More FM is not in the Grayland Master log, and was not one of Chuck's 87 Kiwi stations received last July.  As such, it is apparently an all-time west coast first.
 
73 and Good DX,
Gary DeBock (in Puyallup, WA, USA)
DXing at the Rockwork 4 Ocean Cliff near Manzanita, OR
7.5" loopstick C.Crane Skywave Ultralight + 15" DXpedition FSL antenna
Stealth Ultralight DXing Bag - MK2

Paul Blundell
 

Last month I decided to try and find a better way of carrying my ultralight radios, accessories and other bits and pieces I like to carry while out and about DXing, I looked around and weighed up using a bag against a hard carry case, I have used both methods in the past and each have advantages and disadvantages. I was keen to find a digital camera bag which was suitable but they were all either too big or too small, this lead to this case I modified to use my own needs: http://ultralightdxing.blogspot.com.au/2015/06/uldxing-custom-hard-case.html

 

Yesterday I happened to be out on another matter and noticed that a local retailer had a new line of digital camera bags, these were of various sizes and one was perfect for my needs, just fitting my 7.5” loop stick equipped TecsunPL-380 with some room to spare. This is the bag I purchased: http://www.ctponlinestore.com.au/sirix-digital-sib420-dslr-twin-lens-case

 

My plan was to attempt an improved version of my “stealth ultralight DXing bag” from early 2014, this time in a more suitable bag and with the advantage of what I learnt from this and access to a much better workshop to aid in the modification process. I wanted the keep the “stealth” look of a normal camera bag with the added protection of a hard case inside to protect my 7.5” loop stick equipped TecsunPL-380.

 

Some photos of the finished product are below, the hard case for my 7.5” loop stick equipped TecsunPL-380 allows for this to be removed from the top while still providing a good level of protection, this whole case can be removed easily as some double sided tape and the pressure of the other radio and battery charger are all that hold it in place (unlike my original case which was attached to the bag). The bag has enough spare space for one or two more ultralight radios when I move the battery charger to one of the other spare storage pockets. I can clip my camera to one side, drink bottle to the other, add a food bar and off I can go DXing, not looking like anything more than a photographer. The last photo shows just how much stuff I have been able to fit in this bag.

 

Photos: http://ultralightdxing.blogspot.com.au/2015/07/stealth-ultralight-dxing-bag-mk2.html

 

 

 

 

 
Re: June 2015 Rockwork 4 Ocean Cliff DXpedition-- Ultralight Radio Results [1 Attachment]

Paul Blundell
 

Excellent report as always Gary, I will read it fully over the next few days.
I hope you don't mind but I have posted your message above and links on my blog :)

On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 4:07 AM, D1028Gary@... [ultralightdx] <ultralightdx@...> wrote:
 
[Attachment(s) from D1028Gary@... included below]

Hello All,
 
For those interested in the latest discoveries in FSL antennas, modified Ultralight radios and ocean cliff transoceanic propagation boosts, an 11-page report covering the Ultralight radio portion of the recent Rockwork 4 Oregon cliff DXpedition has been uploaded to https://app.box.com/s/co2jwyzt8mdtdeqlud2tsp85jajd7x1a 
 
Although my Perseus-SDR DXpedition partners Chuck and Tom are still reviewing their files for this trip, the linked DXpedition report includes a detailed propagation assessment for each of the five days from June 25-29, multiple site photos, MP3 recording links for each of the 31 South Pacific MW stations received on Ultralight radios (22 New Zealand, 7 Australian, 1 Tahiti and 1 Fiji) plus a narrative on the challenges and rewards of chasing transoceanic DX from the edge of a 400' (122m) plunging ocean cliff. This awesome cliff was the site of the best New Zealand MW-DXing results ever obtained in North America, recorded by my DXpedtion partner Chuck Hutton last July. 
 
73 and Good DX,
Gary DeBock (in Puyallup, WA, USA) 
 
 
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