Skegness Log: 01-05-14 (FM)

Band 2 Sporadic E:
 89.4 2045 ALG Chaîne 1, Tiaret - Gzoul (14) Arabic music, as web  1976km
 94.0 2046 ALG Chaîne 1, Aïn N'sour (48) Arabic music, as 89.4  1913km
 87.7 2047 ALG Radio Chlef, Aïn N'sour (48) Presume Chlef. Web stream down. As 87.6  1913km
 87.6 2048 ALG Radio Laghouat, Aflou (3) Presume Radio Laghouat. Arabuc music, as 87.7  2120km

Band 2 General Scatter:
 93.8 1043  G  BBC Radio Scotland, Durris (SC-ABS) V weak between BBC Radio 4s, as 04.3  461km
 94.3 1044  G  BBC Radio Scotland, Black Hill (SC-NLA) Tropo? Stable-ish. Noise free peak 
               405km
 92.7 1045  G  BBC Radio Scotland, Forfar (SC-ANG) Presume Forfar as 103.7 in. As 94.3  430km
103.7 1047  G  BBC Radio Nan Gaidheal, Forfar (SC-ANG) Gaelic music, as 104.2. V weak 
               430km
104.2 1049  G  BBC Radio Nan Gaidheal, Meldrum (SC-ABS) OM, as 103.7  501km
 91.8 1601  F  France Musique, Bourges/Neuvy (18) First time at the new QTH. OM news, as 88.7 
               672km

The beginning of the day saw some tropo to Scotland. I wasn't sure at first whether this was unusually good scatter or the end of the previous evening's tropo. I suspect it must have been the latter in view of the stability of the signals.

The end of the day saw a brief sporadic E opening to Algeria, reaching 94 MHz. The opening served the purpose of answering the question will will have been on many DXer's lips: "Does Algeria have RDS yet?". The answer would appear to be "No". :O(

Good DX!

John Faulkner, Skegness, Lincolnshire (JO03dd) <3m ASL.
Blog: skegnessdx.blogspot.co.uk

Receivers:
Sony XDR-F1HD with Konrad i2c modification & XDR-GTK software.

Aerial:
Körner 9.2 at 5.5 metres AGL. Yaesu G-5500 elevation/azimuth rotator.