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.

Sunday 25 September 2011

Saudi Arabia and Mexico on 10 Metres

Two interesting amateur radio stations heard today on the 10 metre band:
  • HZ1FI, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on 28116 kHz at 1429 UTC in RTTY mode with a fair signal. He was working stations in the CQ Worldwide DX RTTY amateur radio contest. This is the first amateur station I've heard from Saudi Arabia.
  • XE3D, Merida, Yucatan, Mexico at 2223 UTC on 28215 kHz with a weak signal. This one was operating as a Morse code beacon.

Saturday 17 September 2011

Loggings on Shortwave

Today's loggings. Receivers: Drake SW8 and Yaesu FT-817:
  • W1AW, Newington, CT, USA, from 0247 to 0255 UTC, on 1802.5 kHz in the 160 metre amateur radio band. Fair to poor signal. W1AW is the club station of the American Radio Relay League. They were on the air with one of their regular Morse code practice transmissions.
  • Voice of Turkey, 9515 kHz, broadcasting in English from Turkey at 0345-0351 UTC. Good signal. Turkish music, news headlines, and broadcast schedule. Off air at 0351.
  • Radio Exterior de España, 9535 kHz, transmitting from Noblejas, Spain, at 0356-0401 UTC in Spanish with fairly good signal. Rap/house music in Spanish, then ID and into news.
  • Deutsche Welle, 9480 kHz, via Kigali, Rwanda relay station at 0410 UTC in German. Fair signal.
  • Voice of Greece on 9420 kHz from Avilla, Greece from 0415 to 0455 UTC in Greek. Good signal. Greek music and talk.
  • Unidentified digital station on 10100 kHz at 0500 UTC. Strong signal with digital traffic in unidentifed mode.

Monday 5 September 2011

Two Utility Stations and Two CB Loggings

Still in Harrowsmith. I logged two utility stations on shortwave today, using the Kaito KA-1103:
  • KAG, 8462 kHz, at 11:50-12:00 UTC with poor signal. SITOR channel marker with "KAG" morse code ID. I have no idea what this station is - I can't find any information on the web about any maritime service stations called KAG. The transmission pattern is typical of other maritime stations like WLO, TAH, IAR, etc. I suppose it's possible I miscopied the ID but it's pretty hard to believe I'd mess up something as simple as that.
  • WLO, 17362 kHz, in Mobile, AL, at 12:15 with good signal. Transmission in English, in SSB, with weather from National Weather Service and notices to ships, etc. WLO and KLB IDs, and then off air.
I also caught a couple of CB radio transmissions around this time:
  • Unidentified CBers on 27025 kHz (channel 6) at 1221 UTC in incomprehensible jabber plus heterodynes.
  • CBer identifying himself as something like "Six Five" in Mobile, Alabama with fair to poor signal. 1222 UTC on 27215 kHz (channel 21).

Mediumwave Loggings, Including a Pirate Station

I'm still up in Harrowsmith for the Labour Day weekend. I logged three mediumwave stations today, two of them new and one of them a radio pirate. Receiver: Kaito KA-1103.
  • WCKL, 560 kHz, Catskill NY, at 0357 UTC (11:57 p.m. EDT Sept 4) with fair signal. "Family 560" playing nostalgia music. This station is 1 kW daytime, 43 watts at night. If it really was at the night power, then this is a good catch. Relog - logged once before in Toronto.
  • WLIE, 540 kHz, Islip NY, at 0359-0402 UTC with poor signal. ID on hour, also with slogan "South Asian Radio". 2.5 kW day, 220 W night. New to overall log.
  • Pirate, 1710 kHz, 0405-0410 UTC. Talk in Haitian-accented French and Caribbean music. Signal coming from south east. Very weak but strengthened at times to listenable levels. This is likely to be one of the French language pirate stations known to transmit from Boston, MA and operated by people in the Haitian population there. New to overall log, and only the second pirate ever logged on 1710.
This brings the overall mediumwave count to 967 (counting the pirate).

Sunday 4 September 2011

Shannon Volmet, 3414 kHz

I'm up in eastern Ontario, in Harrowsmith (near Kingston). One logging to report for today:
  • Shannon Volmet, 3414 kHz, from Shannon, Ireland. 03:00 to 03:11 UTC, in English. SSB. Aviation weather for Ireland and U.K. Lots of static crashes from thunderstorms. Receiver: Kaito KA-1103. New logging - Shannon Volmet is not new but this is my first logging of it on this frequency.