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Friday 22 January 2016

Skegness Log: 2016-01-22 (MW)

1270 0259 CAN CJCB Sydney NS. 12-70 CJCB Sydney ID. C&W Weak  4290 km
1470 0300 USA WLAM Lewiston ME. Multiple calls on the  hour, including 14-70 WLAM Weak  5069 km
1660 0359 USA WWRU Jersey City NJ. WWRU Jersey City just heard in noise, another call given. Long time pip.  Weak  5540 km
1440 0400 USA WRED Westbrook ME. WRED call heard in noise Weak  5103 km
1330 0500 USA WRCA Waltham MA. YL, then OM ID 30 secs after the hour Weak  5251 km
1590 0500 USA WARV Warwick RI. WARV Warick ID by YL Weak  5308 km
1600 0500 USA WUNR Brookline MA. Radio Mexico ID Fair  5251 km
1690 0500 CAN CJLO Montréal QC. Partial YL ID obscured by QSB, You are listening to .... AM in Montreal Weak  5188 km
1700 0500 USA WRCR Spring Valley NY. AM 17 Hundred WRCR ID Weak  5516 km
1570 0505 CAN CJLV Laval QC. OM ID after news, Radio Mieux-Être, CJLV AM Quinze Soixante-Dix Fair  5194 km
1580 0556 CAN CKDO Oshawa ON. Original .... Oshawa Ontario Canada, 107.7 FM ... Classic Hits CKDO Fair  5613 km
1180 0600 USA WHAM Rochester NY. Mention of WHAM in 1179 splatter Weak  5605 km
1210 0600 CAN VOAR Saint John s NL. Inspirational music, briefly heard in three second Absolute Radio silence. No question this is VOAR.  Good  3734 km
1240 0600 USA WGBB Freeport NY. Presumed with Chinese time pips in brief Absolute Radio silence. Matches web stream.  Vweak  5521 km
1430 0600 USA WENE Endicott NY. The Team ID heard in pile-up Fair  5572 km
1560 0600 USA WFME New York NY. Your friends at Family Radio. Now Give us your money! Good  5538 km
1650 0600 CAN CJRS Montréal QC. Radio Shalom ID in mush Fair  5186 km
1680 0600 USA WTTM Lindenwold NJ. ID - 16-80 WTTM Lindenwold Philadephia Fair  5668 km
1575 1600 THA Voice of America, Ban Phachi (pay) Yankee Doodle and Voice Of America Washington DX ID Fair 

** Personal First (Skegness)

Local noise gone! Most of the time. For how long, who knows?

This is bizarre. Only yesterday I was going to move the flag back to the far east position as medium wave conditions blew out, which usually renders the North American continent a no-go area. Not this morning, however. Signals were unstable, but quite a bit stronger than they have been during quiet conditions. Everything was east coast, however.

What also amazed me was the amount of activity in the X band! I hardly ever hear anything in the X band lately. 

Some usually splattered frequencies had more than one North American station. 1310 1380 1420 1430 & 1500 come to mind. 

At 0600, I was very pleased to see decent signals on 1210, 1220, 1230 and 1240 and 1250, all of which produced audio. I just happened to find a quiet spot on Absolute Radio, who had broadcast almost three seconds of dead air! I got two very pleasant surprises in this silence:

1210 had two stations fighting it out. Clearly the dominant one was VOAR with a snippet of inspirational music. Praise the Lord! I can only guess the other was talk station WPHT Philadephia. These two would be regular stations again were it not for the immense splatter produced by Absolute. 

1240 was the real gem and, yes, it's an ID based on a time signal. I could hear rather odd Chinese time pips on the hour. They were badly produced and sounded like somebody had been pressing a button to produce the time signal, such was the character and uniqueness of the tones. It had to be a North American station with Chinese ethnic programming. Topaz to the rescue! Four ethnic stations are listed on 1240, only one of which was Chinese. WGBB Freeport NY. I located their web stream and recorded their top of the hour ID. Bingo! The very same time signal in all its disjointed glory!

Come the afternoon I moved the flag antenna over to the far east position. Hardly anything from that area was audible, but VOA Thailand still managed to put in a decent signal. Nothing stops that transmitter getting out!

So, a very pleasant return to medium wave DXing!

Good DX!

John Faulkner, Skegness, Lincolnshire (JO03dd) 1m ASL
Blog: http://skegnessdx.blogspot.com

Receiver: Elad FDM-S2 SDR Receiver
Antenna:  Movable 10ft x 25ft flag (home) Various Beverage antennas 'on location' in rural Lincolnshire.

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