A site about the radio listening hobby and my activities therein - longwave, mediumwave, shortwave, FM, and television DXing. A site about the radio listening hobby in all its forms, or at least the forms that interest me.

I am also a licenced amateur radio operator, callsign VE3LXL. Information about my amateur radio station is found on my station website.

Tuesday 10 March 2009

Recent Ultralight Loggings

Pretty much all of my radio listening activity continues to be focused on ultralight DXing. I didn't intend this; it just happened. But I will switch the focus away from this soon. The mediumwave DXing season will be coming to a close in the next month or two, and at that point I may shift to listening to other things over the summer. Of course, mediumwave DXing is still possible during the summer months, but conditions are not as good as during the fall-winter-spring season, so it's a good time to go explore other things. However, I am hoping to reach 300 stations in the ultralight log before the season ends.

Recent additions to the ultralight log:
  • 1230 WTSV Claremont, NH 0700 UTC 02-Mar-2009 DT-400W
  • 1230 WMPC Lapeer, MI 1003 UTC 02-Mar-2009 DT-400W
  • 1600 WWRL New York, NY 0447 UTC 07-Mar-2009 E-100
  • 580 CKWW Windsor, ON 0515 UTC 07-Mar-2009 E-100
  • 610 CHNC QC New Carlisle 0501 UTC 08-Mar-2009 E-100
  • 1590 WGGO NY Salamanca 2045 UTC 08-Mar-2009 E-100
  • 1590 WAUB NY Auburn 2100 UTC 08-Mar-2009 E-100
Total ultralight count: 271. Radios used here: the Sangean DT-400W and the Eton E-100.

The two stations on 1230, WTSV and WMPC, were logged from an overnight recording I did. Not a particularly productive one: over 8 hours and only two loggings. But still, it's two more stations on a graveyard frequency (bringing the count of those to 32).

Logging CKWW on 580 was a surprise. It is only 500 watts and is adjacent to the local Toronto station on 590, which is very dominant. But the E-100 has great selectivity, and allowed me to hear it. The Eton E-100 is really an amazingly good little radio. Too bad Eton has discontinued this model.

CHNC 610 is a station I've been chasing for a couple of months. I had thought I'd heard it several times before, faintly under semi-local CKTB. But this was the first time it that it was coming in strong enough to identify with certainty. Easy enough to identify when it's strong enough - it's the only significant French language station on this frequency in Canada. Glad to have caught it - as I understand, it's moving to FM soon.

WGGO and WAUB on 1590 are odd catches - odd that I hadn't logged them before. They're both semi-local (WGGO is audible during the day here). I guess it's because after doing my daytime bandscans on the ultralights last fall, I reckoned that I'd logged all the semi-local stations and haven't listened for any more during the day. Also, the band above 1500 kHz is badly attenuated inside my apartment, so to DX those frequencies I usually have to head outside. Oddly enough, there's another semi-local station on 1590 even closer to me that I haven't heard yet - WASB in Brockport, NY, near Rochester. No hint of that one yet.

Sunday 1 March 2009

Ultralight Loggings for this Weekend

Two more stations added to the ultralight log, this time using the Eton E-100:
  • 600 WICC Bridgeport, CT 0500 UTC 28-Feb-2009
  • 960 WHYL Carlisle, PA 2328 UTC 01-Mar-2009

Total ultralight count: 264.

600 kHz is a tough frequency for me because it is usually obliterated by slop from local CJCL on 590. But yesterday WICC was coming in strong enough to make it through the interference. So was WCAO from Baltimore (which is already in my ultralight log).

WHYL 960 is an adult standards / oldies station. Usually this channel is dominated by other stations, but tonight WHYL was the strongest one there. This is also a new station for my overall log.