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.

Listening in Deer Lake

I stayed the night at Deer Lake, NL and spent a bit of time tuning the radio bands. Here's what I heard.

Mediumwave:

• WUNR, 1600  kHz, Brookline MA, 0050-0100 UTC. Poor signal. Religious programming in Spanish. ID on hour in English, then into a religious program in English. Relog.
• Unidentified station in Spanish at 0105 on 1485 kHz, which means it is probably from Europe. Very weak with only a few brief fragments of talk heard.

Longwave:

• FK, 335 kHz, Deer Lake Junction NL, 0904-0908 UTC. Good signal. Non-directional aeronautical beacon with Morse code ID. New.

FM:

• Unidentified station on 107.75 Mhz (slightly off the 107.7 channel frequency) at 0920-0930 UTC with excellent (local quality) signal in English. Audio from CPAC (Canadian Parliamentary Access Channel), a cable TV station. My guess is that this is someone's personal FM transmitter, like those used with wireless headphones, and is located close to the place I was staying in Deer Lake. New.
• CKXX-FM, 103.9 MHz, Corner Brook NL, 0930-0934 UTC. Good signal. English. News, sports, weather. ID with callsign and slogan "109.9 K-Rock". 40 kW. New.
• Unidentified station on 103.5 MHz at 0935-0937 UTC. Very weak and unintelligible. There is a station in Grand Falls-Windsor on this frequency; my guess is that this is it.
• VOAR-5-FM, 102.1 MHz, Deer Lake NL at 0938-0940 UTC. Excellent signal in English. ID at "Listener-supported VOAR". 50 W. New.
• CFDL-FM, 97.9 MHz, Deer Lake NL, at 0944-0946 UTC. Excellent. Campaign for school supply donations. ID as CFCBradio.com. (CFDL is parallel to CFCB). Only 16 watts. New.
• CBDT-FM, 96.3 MHz, Deer Lake NL, at 0946-0949 UTC. CBC Radio One. Excellent signal. 670 W. New.
• CKMY-FM, 95.9 MHz, Grand Falls-Windsor NL, at 0950-0958 UTC. Fair signal. OZ FM with hot adult contemporary dance music. 50 kW. New.
• CBNR-FM, 95.5 MHz, Ramea-Burgeo NL. 1000-1002 UTC. Fair signal. CBC Radio One with news. 780 W. New.
• CBN-FM-3, 90.5 MHz, Deer Lake NL, 1003-1005 UTC, with excellent signal. CBC Radio Two news. 980 W. New.
• CBN-FM-2, 91.1 MHz, Corner Brool NL, at 1005-1007. Fair signal. CBC Radio Two. 3 kW. New.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Some Neighbor on FM

Is this worth logging? It's not a "real" station, but it was on FM. Received tonight on 88.3 MHz at 0000-0100 UTC with a good signal. Television audio. For the first 45 minutes it was the audio from TV Ontario (a show about Queen Victoria's Britain), and then the audio started jumping around, as if someone were changing channels. It then settled on CBC television, (show "This Hour Has 22 Minutes") for the rest of the hour. I think this was probably a neighbor who plugged one of those tiny FM transmitters designed to work with wireless headphones into his television. It was only audible on my indoor FM dipole; on the outdoor FM antenna WCOU was coming in and there was no sign of the television audio.

OK, I'm adding it to the log. It's an FM transmission and I received it so it counts. This is station #160 received in Toronto.

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).

Unidentifieds on 88.1 MHz

Heard on the car radio today on 88.1 MHz while I was in Whitby, Ontario: a couple of stations battling for the frequency. Neither sounded like any of the semi-regular ones that come in on this frequency. Perhaps there was some tropo or e-skip in action. No IDs heard. First was a CBC Radio outlet with a program of acoustic music. English, but not parallel to either of the local CBC stations. This was mixing with a station playing country music. Both disappeared before any identifying material was heard. 1820-1831 UTC.

WLNF 90.5 KHz

Logged today: a new FM station for the Toronto log. WLNF, Rapids, NY, on 90.5 MHz at 2025-2035 UTC with a poor signal. English, playing old pop music (e.g., Barry Manilow). ID and announced as "serving Lockport and the Niagara Frontier regions". Only 250 watts. Received on my car radio at Rouge Park in Scarborough.

This is the 159th FM station received in Toronto.

CKFG-FM 98.7 MHz

There's a new FM station on the air here in Toronto: CKFG-FM, 98.7 MHz. Heard it today for the first time at 2100 UTC with excellent signal (as you'd expect). Callsign ID on the hour. Slogan ID is "G987". Show "Soca Therapy" with Caribbean music. 446 watts.

This is the 158th FM station I've logged from here in Toronto.

Before CKFG-FM occupied the frequency the CBC Radio One outlet in Peterborough usually came in with a decent signal on 98.7. I was actually surprised that the CRTC authorized a Toronto station on 98.7, because of the potential for interference with the Peterborough CBC station.

Loggings from Algonquin Provincial Park

I went to Algonquin Provincial Park today to get in some hiking and to see the fall colours. This is about 250 km northeast of Toronto. I also did a bit of DXing while I was there and heard some interesting things.

In the car park of one of the hiking trails near the centre of the Highway 60 corridor I caught two local Environment Canada weather stations. One was in the regular FM band and the other in the weather band:

• CJNK, Lake of Two Rivers, 100.1 MHz, at 1835 UTC in English and French with fair signal. Environment Canada Weather with weather conditions and forecast for Algonquin Park and area. 50 watts.
• VEF956, Lake of Two Rivers, 162.4 MHz, at 1842 UTC. English and French with good solid signal. Environment Canada Weather, parallel to CJNK.

The other loggings are from late in the afternoon. I was finished hiking and dusk was about an hour off. I stopped at the picnic grounds at Tea Lake Dam, near the west gate to the park. I sat at a picnic table tuning shortwave, using my trusty Kaito KA-1103 with its built-in telescopic whip antenna.

• NMG, New Orleans, LA, 8502 kHz, from 2140-2150 UTC. Fair to good signal. In English, in SSB. Marine weather conditions and weather forecast. Mentions of NOAA Ocean Prediction Center and National Weather Service Hurricane Prediction Center.
• N7MSH/B, North Powder, OR, 28226.5 kHz at 2155 UTC. CW (Morse code) amateur radio 10 metre beacon. Good signal.
• K5GJR/B, Corpus Christi, TX, 28224.5 kHz at 2155 UTC. CW with fair signal. Amateur 10 metre beacon.
• K6FRC/B, Sutters Mountain, CA, 28250 kHz at 2157 UTC. CW with fair to poor signal. Amateur 10 metre beacon.
• WI6J/B, Bakersfield, CA, 28287 kHz at 2157 UTC. CW with poor signal. Amateur 10 metre beacon.
• K4SAK/7, Reno, NV, 28348 kHz at 2200 UTC. SSB with good signal. Net Control in Northern Nevada Sideband Net.
• K5HK, Reno, NV, 28348 kHz at 2200 UTC. SSB with good signal. Checking into Northern Nevada Sideband Net.

No Sporadic E Propagation

As the FM DXing season winds down, one of the most surprising things about it this year was the complete absence of any sporadic E propagation. I spent much more time on FM this year than in past years, and I heard no sporadic E propagation on the FM band at all. There probably was some when I wasn't listening, but nothing while I was.

No complaints, however. I've been very successful with receiving new stations via tropo. And the season's not quite over yet so maybe there's more to come.

FM: WYRK, CFLZ, and WQHZ

Today's FM DXing yielded some interesting catches:

• WYRK, 106.5 MHz, Buffalo NY at 04:25 UTC (00:25 local time) with country music and excellent signal. This one is interesting. There is a local station on 106.5 in Toronto, CKAV (Aboriginal Voices Radio), and it had a solid, excellent signal. 50 kW WYRK in Buffalo is normally not audible here. But WYRK broadcasts in HD Radio as well as analog, and the Sony XDR-F1HD can recieve HD Radio. There was strong tropo from the south tonight. So CKAV controlled the frequency, but when the HD signal from WYRK was captured it took over the frequency. Occasionally it would weaken and CKAV would return for a few moments. It was interesting in that the two stations were not interfering with each other - one would own the frequency and then the other would take over, until the first returned. This is a relog for the overall log, but is my first logging of WYRK from Toronto.
• CFLZ, 105.1, Niagara Falls ON, at 04:33 UTC. This one is interesting because it's the second logging today of a distant station on a frequency with a local Toronto station on it. Local CHOQ was transmitting a silent carrier. I was getting CHOQ on the outdoor FM antenna, but CFLZ owned the frequency when I switched to the indoor dipole. CFLZ was playing 80s music and identified as "105.1 The River". 4 kW. Logged once before when I was in Niagara Falls; new to the Toronto log.
• WQHZ, 102.3, Erie PA, at 04:46 UTC. Good signal. "Erie's Z-102" playing classic rock. Only 800 watts!

Toronto FM log count: 157. Overall FM log count: 376.

FM: WVOR 102.3 and W248BH 97.5

Two loggings today, via tropo:

• WVOR, 102.3 MHz, Canandaigua NY at 04:58-05:05 UTC. Fair to good signal. Rock/pop music with legal ID with callsign and location on the hour. 460 watts.
• W248BH, 97.5, Gates NY at 05:20 to 05:27 UTC. Fair-poor signal. Mars Hill network with Christian talk. Translator of WMHR. Only 19 watts!

FM log counts: Toronto 154, overall 375.

FM: Islamic Prayers on 87.9 MHz

Today I came across an unlicenced radio station at the bottom end of the FM band, on 87.9 MHz. As soon as you hear a station broadcasting on 87.9 you know it's an unlicenced station because there is only one station in North America licenced to broadcast on this frequency (10 watt KSFH in California).

An unlicenced station is not necessarily transmitting illegally. It is legal to broadcast on FM without a licence at very low power but the range is very limited - a few tens or hundreds of metres at most. That's how those little "talking house" or business broadcasters, and those tiny FM transmitters you can buy for use around the house or in your car are legal.

Stations that transmit illegally are usually called pirate stations. In most big cities, unlicenced stations operating at illegal power levels appear occasionally on empty frequencies. That's what I think I heard today.

Details: 87.9 MHz at 02:40 to 02:56 UTC (10:40 p.m. July 28 local time). Fairly good signal. No talking or announcements. It was broadcasting what I think were Islamic prayers - sounded like a solo voice half-singing in Arabic. Went off air at 02:56.

I googled for information about this and found two references from a year ago in Glenn Hauser's DX Listening Digest about an Islamic pirate station in Toronto on 87.9:

• DX LISTENING DIGEST 10-12, March 26, 2010: "On Air: ON, Toronto, 87.9, a pirate with prayers in Arabic from the Scarborough Muslim Assocation at the Jame Bakr Siddique Masjid, heard at 74 km. Industry Canada has been notified (FMedia! Final Issue 2009-2010 via DXLD)"
• DX LISTENING DIGEST 10-16, April 22, 2010: "87.9 - Islamic prayers and talk, in mono, seems to originate from the city's northwest quadrant, perhaps in Etobicoke, Brampton or Mississauga. It carries well over a large area, despite adjacent 88.1 CKLN in downtown Toronto. I am guessing something in the order of 50 watts."

I count pirates in my log counts, so this brings the Toronto FM count to 152 and the overall FM count to 373.