Final Post from Newfoundland

Today was my last day in Newfoundland before returning home. Two last loggings, made from Deer Lake:

• WRCA, 1330 kHz, Waltham MA, at 0656-0700 UTC. English, fair signal. Danny Styles Nostalgia Show, then ID with location on the hour. 17 kW. Relog.
• XLM616, 162.4 MHz, Gander NL at 1104-1130 UTC. Fair signal. English and French. Environment Canada weather radio with conditions for southwestern Newfoundland. ID with callsign and location at 1128.

I logged a lot of new stations while I was in Newfoundland and made a few good DX catches. On the whole, however, it was not as productive for DXing as I had hoped. The main problem was the amount of electrical interference present at most of the places I stayed. A secondary problem was that it was getting dark late so good DX conditions each night on AM didn't really get started until well after 10 pm local time, and I usually needed to get to bed by midnight in order to be up for the next day's activities. Most of the places I stayed also did not have the option of setting up outside to listen.

From this I've drawn a few conclusions. If you want to go on a listening DXpedition, you need to scout out a suitable listening location beforehand to ensure it is free of electrical noise and has the physical facilities to enable you to set up your equipment and to put up antennas. You will also need to plan to stay in that location for several days. If you need to check out in the morning, that pretty much prevents you from staying up late DXing the night before. This is an important consideration when DXing the mediumwave or longwave bands in the summer at northern latitudes because it doesn't get dark until quite late. A place without maid service is also preferable, for the same reason. Finally you'll need to focus on the DXing. If you're spending your days doing other activities, you'll need to get up early, which prevents you from staying up late.

CFGN 1230 kHz

Here's a logging I was excited about until I checked my records later. I was in Barachois Pond Provincial Park (about 20 km east of Stephenville) for a hike (in the rain). After returning to my car I spent about half an hour listening to a faint almost unintelligible station on 1230 kHz waiting for an ID. Finally I heard the VOCM ID I was expecting, which meant this was CFGN in Port aux Basques NL (which is part of the VOCM network). It was exciting because CFGN was one of the few mediumwave stations in the province that I hadn't yet logged. At least that's what I thought. Checking my logbook later I discovered I'd actually logged this station back in 2007, and from a much farther distance (Twillingate NL). To top it off, I forgot to note the time of today's reception, so all I can say is that it was in the early afternoon local time.

Loggings from Stephenville

In Stephenville, NL. Several new stations for the log here but all are routine local or semi-local stations:

• XLW201, 162.4 MHz, Codroy Pond NL, at 0115 UTC with fair signal in English and French. Environment Canada weather radio for Southwestern Newfoundland. No ID or location, but Codroy Pond is only about 50 km south of here so there's little doubt of the identity.
• CBNC-FM, 88.7 MHz, Stephenville NL at 0119-0125 UTC. Excellect signal. English. CBC Radio One. 3.5 kW.
• CBAF-FM-16, 94.3 MHz, Port au Port NL. 0125-0128 UTC. Excellent signal. French, SRC Premiere Chaine network. Talk. 1.03 kW.
• CBN-FM-4, 95.1 MHz, Stephenville NL, at 0128-0132 UTC. Excellent signal. English. CBC Radio Two with show "The Signal". 8.9 kW.
• CKXX-FM-1, 95.9 MHz, Stephenville NL at 0133-0137 UTC. Excellent signal. English. K-Rock classic rock. Parallel to CKXX 103.9 Corner Brook (also audible here). 230 W.
• CIOS-FM, 98.5 MHz, Stephenville NL at 0145-0147 UTC. Excellent signal, English. OZ FM. 4.3 kW.

FM from Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island

This afternoon I was touring the Port au Port peninsula (on the Gulf of St. Lawrence coast west of Stephenville, NL) and caught two stations from across the water on FM. These were heard on the Mazda 3 car radio:

• CKPE, 94.9 MHz, Sydney NS, at 1602-1610 UTC, with fair to good signal. Pop music, callsign ID with location, and slogan "The Cape". 61 kW. New.
• CFCY, 95.1 MHz, Charlottetown PE, at 1715 UTC. Poor signal and audible only briefly. ID and music heard. I was listing to the CBC radio station from Stephenville on this frequency and CFCY broke through briefly while I was on the coast near Mainland driving by a mountain that blocked the path to Stephenville. 73 kW. New.

Other Loggings from Steady Brook

In addition to UVB-76, I also heard the following while in Steady Brook, NL:

• VOAR-9-FM, 105.7 MHz, Corner Brook NL, at 0147-0149 UTC with excellent signal. Show "Night Sounds with Bill Pearce". Religious music. Some audio distortion, 250W. New.
• Unidentified digital station on 4610 kHz at 0151 UTC with fair signal. Mode unknown. Strange digital sounds.
• XLW200, 162.55 MHz, Corner Brook NL, at 0945-1000 UTC with good signal in English and French. Environment Canada weather with conditions for southwestern Newfoundland towns. New.

UVB-76

The highlight of today's DXing is that I finally have heard the mysterious UVB-76 (also known variously as UZB76, MDZhB, and The Buzzer). I've been trying for almost a year to catch it, after reading that article about it in Wired magazine. Frequency: 4625 kHz. Time: 0155-0200 UTC. Station location: believed to be located somewhere near Pskov in Russia. The signal was very weak but its distinctive buzzing came through clearly at times. I also compared it to a webstream of the station to verify that the station was actually transmitting at this time. My location: Steady Brook, NL, just a little bit north of Corner Brook.

Other Catches in York Harbour

I also caught the following while in York Harbour, NL. All are relogs:

• JT, 390 kHz, Stephenville NL, at 0027 UTC with good signal. Non-directional aeronautical beacon with Morse code ID. This is one of the only longwave stations from Newfoundland that I've heard from Ontario.
• BBC Radio 5 Live, 693 kHz, from the United Kingdom. 0241-0300 UTC. Fair to poor signal (weak but relatively little interference, some fading, but good enough to follow the programming). English with British accents. Talk about the early days of Apple Computer. ID on hour. BBC Radio 5 Live transmits from several locations on this frequency, including Droitwich (150 kW), Stagshaw and Start Point (both 50 kW) and Burghead (25 kW). I don't know which this is. Relog - I caught the BBC on 693 in 2007 from Twillingate, NL.

BSKSA 1521 kHz

This is an exciting catch: the most distant mediumwave station I've ever heard, and the first Asian one too. Station: BSKSA (Broadcasting Service of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) from Duba, Saudi Arabia on 1521 kHz at 0236 UTC. Signal was fair to poor: fairly strong but some fading and co-channel interference from WWKB 1520 (Bufallo, NY). Programming was talk in Arabic and some singing.

I'm classifying this one as tentative-but-probable. No ID was heard, but as far as I can tell there are no Arabic language stations on 1520 in North America, esp. at night; this was also definitely on 1521; and there are no other Arabic stations listed in Europe, Africa, or Asia, BSKSA on 1521 transmits at an incredible 2 MW of power (2000 kW) making it 40 times more powerful than the most powerful stations in North America, and it is a regular catch by DXers along the east coast of North America.

Today's listening location: a bed-and-breakfast in York Harbour, NL (on the Bay of Islands west of Corner Brook). The first place I've stayed in since Rocky Harbour where there was no electrical interference on AM (at least after everyone went to bed).

Listening from Labrador

Today I am in Labrador, staying in a little town called L'Anse au Clair. Labrador is part of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, but is on the mainland separate from the island of Newfoundland. I had hoped to do some DXing from here in a truly RF-quiet environment, but unfortunately there is an annoying electrical buzz across much of the AM band in my lodgings. This is coming from outside - I can hear it on the car radio while driving through much of the town. However it is possible to null it out by reorienting the radio and it isn't audible outside of town so there may be DXing possibilities here.

For today, I have two loggings of AM stations which I heard on the car radio, a longwave logging, and a bunch of FM stations logged from inside my room.

Mediumwave:

• WLAM, 1470 kHz, Lewiston ME, at 0010-0020 UTC with fair signal in English. Oldies, IDs, and mentions of Lewiston. Relog.
• WNYY, 1470 kHz, Ithaca NY at 0015 UTC. Poor signal. English. Mixing with WLAM, ID heard. Relog.

Longwave:

• YMH, 250 kHz, Mary's Harbour NL, at 0053 UTC. Very weak but very little interference so no problem understanding ID. Morse code beacon. New to log.

FM:

• CBSI-FM-21, 107.1 MHz, Blanc Sablon QC, at 0220-0224 UTC with excellent signal (as expected, as Blanc Sablon is only a few km from L'Anse au Clair). French, SRC Premiere Chaine network. Talk, music. 78 watts. New to log.
• CBMS-FM, 102.7 MHz, Blanc Sablon QC, at 0225-0227 UTC. Excellent signal. English. CBC Rado One with show "Saturday Evening Blues". 78 watts. New to log.
• CBYM, 98.7 MHz, Mount St. Margaret NL, at 0227-0230 UTC. Excellent signal. English. CBC Radio One. 10 kW. New to log.
• CBTB, 97.1 MHz, Baie Verte NL, at 0230-0233 UTC. Poor signal. CBC Radio One in English. New to log. 24.2 kW.
• CBTR-FM, 92.9 MHz, Roddickton NL, at 0233-0236 UTC. Fair signal. CBC Radio One in English. New to log. 2 kW.
• CBNJ, 90.5 MHz, Port Saunders NL, at 0236-0238 UTC. Good signal. English. CBC Radio One. 260w. New to log.

All these CBC Radio One outlets were carrying the same programming. I didn't bother to wait for IDs - CBC stations seldom identify with their callsigns. Anyway, all of them are either semi-local or are the only plausible candidates.

Northern Newfoundland Loggings

I left St. Anthony today and drove west across the tip of Newfoundland's northern peninsula to St. Barbe on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, with a detour up to Cook's Harbour (named after Captain James Cook, who visited here during his voyages to chart the coasts of Newfoundland). During the drive I caught the following stations on the car radio:

• CKIM, 1240 kHz, Baie Verte NL, at 1615-1745 UTC with a fair to poor signal. English. Country music and IDs for VOCM (part of their network). Received from near St. Anthony to Cook's Harbour. Relog.
• CBG, 1400 kHz, Gander NL, at 1730-1740 UTC. English, fair signal. CBC Radio One with show "Definitely Not The Opera". Received near Cook's Harbour, NL. Relog.
• CBN-FM-6, 95.5 MHz, Baie Verte NL at 1753-1830. English, fair signal. CBC Radio Two with an opera by Gluck. Received beginning at the intersection of highways 430 and 435 and heard most of the way to the Gulf of St. Lawrence coast. New to log.
• CJVA, 810 kHz, Caraquet NB, at 1840-1850 kHz, with fair signal. French, with oldies/variety music and talk. Received at Eddie's Cove, NL. Relog.

4XZ 4594 kHz

Heard on shortwave: station transmitting in Morse code, sending "V V V de 4XZ 4XZ BT". Time: 0150-0156 UTC. Frequency: 4594 kHz. Signal: Poor. 4XZ is an Israeli navy station, located in Haifa. This is my first time hearing it. "V V V" is what's called a V-marker, which a station that isn't currently handling traffic transmits to mark its frequency. "BT" is a prosign (the letters B and T sent together with no space, which is also the = character in Morse code). Literally it is supposed to mean "space down two lines" but in radio traffic it is often used to mean "break" or "pause".

DXing location: Hotel room at the Haven Inn, St. Anthony, NL.

DXing at Fishing Point, St. Anthony NL

Yesterday I said I would look for an alternate location from which to DX. I decided to try DXing from Fishing Point, a scenic spot overlooking the ocean on the edge of St. Anthony. This was shortly after sunset. First I tried listening on the Kaito KA-1103 while sitting on a bench, but this didn't work. I had no light with me and couldn't see the radio. So I retreated to the car and tuned around the AM band using the car radio. This unfortunately precluded the option of catching most transatlantic stations, since the car radio only tuned the North American 10 kHz frequencies. Only a handful of things to report, but at least one is a new station for the overall log:

• 1610 kHz, 0120 UTC. Fair signal. Pastor Melissa Scott preaching. Same programming as can be heard on all of the "University Network" stations on shortwave. From past experience I know that those stations almost never ID, so I didn't bother waiting for an ID. Most likely this station is the 30 kW Caribbean Beacon in The Valley, Anguilla. That station is part of the University Network. Relog.
• WBAE, 1490 kHz, Portland ME, at 0122-0126 UTC with fair signal. 1 kW. New York Yankees baseball on the Yankees Radio Network. Ad for MJ Storey (?) Landscaping. "ID" consisting of station's URL "am1400and1490.com", from which I was able to determine what the station is. New (although I did log this station way, way back in 1978 when it was WPOR).
• 1510 kHz at 0127 UTC. Poor signal. Spanish language station with sports. No ID. Pretty sure it was a U.S. station.
• 1520 kHz at 0127-0133 UTC. Fair signal. Station with talk in Arabic.

CFNN-FM 97.9 MHz and XLW299 162.4 MHz

Today I am in St. Anthony, the largest town on Newfoundland's northern peninsula. It's near the northern tip of the peninsula, on the east side on the Atlantic Ocean. (Rocky Harbour, where I was the past four days, is on the west side of Newfoundland on the Gulf of St. Lawrence.).

I'm staying at the Haven Inn. As a place to stay it's nice enough, with a decent restaurant attached. But from inside my room there's a high level of electrical noise across most of the AM band. DXing mediumwave from here isn't going to be possible. Tomorrow I'll try to find an alternate location from which to listen.

Only two loggings for today, both local stations. Both are new to the log:

• CFNN-FM, 97.9 MHz, St. Anthony, NL, at 0022-0032 UTC. English, with excellent signal. ID for "VOCM-CFCB Radio Network" and also ID with CFNN's callsign and frequency. Call-in show: "Nightline". Ads for businesses in Corner Brook and Deer Lake. The only station audible on the entire FM band from here.
• XLW299, 162.4 MHz, St. Anthony, NL, at 2210-2223 UTC. French with good to excellent signal. Environment Canada weather radio with weather conditions. I also heard this in English at a later time. 

Final Day in Rocky Harbour

For the final DX session in Rocky Harbour, NL, I have loggings of two longwave stations, two mediumwave stations from Ontario, and two FM stations from the local area:

• JT, 390 kHz, Stephenville, NL, at 0025-0030 UTC. Fair to good signal. Non-directional aeronautical beacon. Relog.
• AY, 356 kHz, St. Anthony, NL, at 0035-0036 UTC. Fair signal. Non-directional aeronautical beacon. Relog.
• CFRA, 580 kHz, Ottawa, ON. 0044-0047 UTC. English, fair to good signal. News/talk, phone-in show. ID. Ads for AlarmForce, BMR Builders, etc. Relog.
• CFZM, 740 kHz, Toronto, ON, at 0100-0108 UTC. Good solid signal, dominating the frequency. English. "AM 740" with oldies. Relog, obviously.
• CBNF-FM, 89.1 MHz, Bonne Bay, NL. 0140-0143 UTC. English, excellent signal. CBC Radio One, show "Q" with end of an interview with Daniel Radcliffe. New.
• CKOZ-FM, 92.3 MHz, Corner Brook, NL, at 0147-0252 UTC. Poor signal. English. "OZ FM". ID for sister stations in Argentia and St. John's. Ads. Hot adult contemporary music. New.

YHR 276 kHz

Little time for radio today; only one logging to report:

• YHR, 276 kHz, Chevery-Harrington Harbour, Quebec, at 0130-0139 UTC with fair signal. Non-directional aeronautical beacon, repeating ID in Morse code. Received at Rocky Harbour, NL. New to log.

Absolute Radio 1215 kHz; BX 220 kHz

Just two stations logged today. Reception location: Rocky Harbour, NL. Receiver: Kaito KA-1103.

• Absolute Radio, 1215 kHz, United Kingdom, at 0220-0236 UTC with poor signal. Pop music, including song by Lionel Ritchie. Absolute Radio ID. This is a relog, but the last time I logged it, in Newfoundland in 2007, the station was still calling itself Virgin Radio.
• BX, 220 kHz, Lourdes-de-Blanc-Sablon, QC, at 0240-0244 UTC with fair to good signal. Aeronautical non-directional beacon with repeated Morse code ID. Relog.

One cool feature of DXing in Newfoundland is that transatlantic reception of mediumwave stations is not difficult there. I got Absolute Radio using the KA-1103's built-in ferrite bar antenna. The saltwater path plus the fact that Newfoundland is much closer to Europe than is Ontario are the main factors. But another important factor is that Newfoundland is so much farther east than the United States and the rest of Canada. This means that for a period of time after sunset, there's nighttime propagation to Europe while most of the rest of North America is still in daylight. So the transatlantic signals are coming in while North American DX stations are not yet competing with them.

VOBB 95.9 MHz Norris Point, NL

I logged one new FM station today while in Norris Point, NL (a town 8 km from Rocky Harbour): a community radio station located in Norris Point called VOBB (for the Voice of Bonne Bay) on 95.9 MHz. Time: 1828-1845 UTC. Signal was excellent in Norris Point but degraded as I drove back to Rocky Harbour. This was received on the stock car radio in the 2012 Mazda 3 I was driving (a rental). The station was playing Newfoundland music with some talk and identified as the Voice of Bonne Bay. A couple of hours later I also heard a VOBB ID.

I'm not certain what the callsign of this station actually is. I found some online sources (Wikipedia) that give the callsign as CHBB, but the station itself was identifying as VOBB. That could just be an acronym from their Voice of Bonne Bay slogan, but there are a few stations in Newfoundland that do have "VO" callsigns (VOCM in St. John's for example), so I suppose it's possible that the CRTC decided to let this station have a VO callsign.

Two days later: I happened to run into a man who is a volunteer at this station and he told me the station's output power is 30 watts.

Southern Ontario AM Stations

Whenever I start DXing the mediumwave band from a new location, I begin on the frequencies occupied by local stations in Toronto, especially by 50 kW powerhouses. I reckon that the best chance to pick up something new will be on the frequencies that I can't DX at home. I tried doing this tonight here in Rocky Harbour, NL, but was greatly surprised to find that most of the Toronto stations were coming in quite well, dominating their frequencies. It's a surprise because I don't think I've ever been able to receive stations from Newfoundland in Toronto. Well, maybe it shouldn't be a surprise because there are no 50 kW clear channel stations from western Newfoundland to receive in Toronto. The strongest station in western Newfoundland is  CBY on 990 in Corner Brook. It's 10 kW but in Toronto the frequency is dominated by CKGM from Montreal.

Here are the stations I logged:

• CFTR, 680 kHz, Toronto, ON, at 0207-0211 UTC. Fair to poor signal. English. "680 News" with Toronto traffic, weather, and news.
• CHUM, 1050 kHz, Toronto, ON, at 0212-0213 UTC. Fair to poor signal with lots of co-channel interference. "TSN 1050 Toronto" ID. Sports talk.
• CFRB, 1010 kHz, Toronto, ON, at 0214-0215 UTC. Fair to poor signal with co-channel interference from New York. English. "Newstalk 1010" ID, ads for Toronto businesses, and talk.
• CKOC, 1150 kHz, Hamilton, ON, at 0216-0219 UTC. Fair signal, little interference. English. "Oldies 1150 CKOC" ID and oldies music. This station is Canada's oldest radio station now, being on the air for 90 years. 
• CKDO, 1580 kHz, Oshawa, ON, at 0900 UTC. Fair to good signal. English. Oldies music, and CKDO ID. One of the strongest DX signals on the mediumwave band.

I also heard other Toronto stations in passing after 0220 UTC, like CHIN on 1540, but didn't log them as it was late and the point had already been made.

WJNY 90.9 and WRVO 89.9

Heard on the FM band today, thanks to tropospheric propagation:

• WJNY, 90.9 MHz, Watertown, NY at 1129-1138 UTC (0729-0738 local time). Poor signal. Classical music. ID on half hour as WCNY Syracuse and as Classic FM. This is a new addition to the Toronto log, and is in fact the first station I've logged on 90.9 from Toronto. However, this is not a new catch for me - in my former home town of Kingston, Ontario, this is a semi-local station. This is station 161 in the Toronto FM log.
• WRVO, 89.9 MHz, Oswego, NY, at 1138 UTC. Poor signal. NPR. ID heard. Relog.

Heard on FM Near Georgian Bay

I spent the day near Georgian Bay and found a few minutes to tune around the FM band. This yielded two new stations plus a third interesting logging:

• CFRH-FM, Penetanguishene, Ontario, 88.1 MHz, at 1800-1810 UTC with fair signal. In French. "Vague FM". Country music. Received on Airport Rd. near the Simcoe/Dufferin county boundary, not far from Creemore. The station was still audible when I stopped in Creemore. New.  8.6 kW.
• CISO-FM, Orillia, Ontario, 89.1 MHz at 2205-2215 UTC with excellent signal. "Sunshine 89.1". Real estate talk show. Received in Collingwood, when parked on the shore of Georgian Bay. New. 2.1 kW.
• Unidentified station that sounded like Espace Musique (Radio-Canada, French language CBC) on 90.9 MHz at 2215 UTC. French talk, classical music. Received in Collingwood when parked at the harbour; signal was fair but station disappeared in the noise after I drove away from the shore. No ID but the only Espace Musique station in Ontario on 90.9 is CBBX in Sudbury (which I've logged already). That seems like quite a good catch, although maybe it's not unusual (the path between Sudbury and Collingwood would be mostly over water).