All India Radio 11670 kHz

Today's logging is a first for two reasons: my first logging of All India Radio in their English language General Overseas Service (I've logged them many times in their Hindi language Vividh Bharati service), and my first logging on my new Sony CDX-GT180 radio.

The CDX-GT180 is a car radio, the only car radio available that has shortwave on it. And "available" is being generous - it is carried, as far as I know, at only one location in North America, at Durham Radio in Whitby, Ontario. I bought it there in September but didn't get it installed in my car until recently. The AM receiver is very good, and FM is too. Shortwave performs much better than you'd expect, given that it's attached to the regular car antenna. The radio doesn't have SSB, unfortunately, and the frequency coverage is a bit strange - full coverage of the amateur bands, which is kind of useless without SSB, but with part of the 31 metre broadcast band (that below 9500 kHz) missing. But it works very well and I'm happy with it.

Back to All India Radio. Details: Frequency: 11670 kHz. Time: 1910-1920 UTC. Signal: very good (SINPO 44444). Language: English. Transmitting from Bangalore, India. Details: News, ID as "General Overseas Service of All India Radio". Talk about women's rights and equality. Received in Eastern Ontario, near Harrowsmith (about 20 km northwest of Kingston). Transmitter power: 500 kW.

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).

WWVH 5000 kHz, Radio Enciclopedia 530 kHz, and WNNZ 640 kHz

December 26, 2010: While in Harrowsmith, in eastern Ontario (north of Kingston about 20 km) I spent a bit of time tuning the bands on the Kaito KA-1103, my usual travel radio, using its built-in antennas. Made three noteworthy catches:

• WWVH, 5000 kHz at 0509 UTC. WWVH is the time-and-frequency station in Kaui, Hawaii. I heard it under WWV in Colorado. The two stations transmit the same format, but WWVH is identifiable because it uses a female voice for the time accouncements, while WWV uses a male one. WWVH also announces the time before WWV. Signal was poor but clear. I've logged WWVH on 5000 kHz before, but it is seldom audible here, and I don't think I've ever caught it on a portable receiver with no outdoor antenna before.
• Radio Enciclopedia, CMBQ, 530 kHz, Havana, Cuba, 0545-0601 UTC. Radio Enciclopedia transmits cultural programming across Cuba. I caught them playing so-called "beautiful music" tonight - e.g., the theme from the 1940s movie "Laura". Musical numbers with announcements between them in Spanish by a female announcer. ID and location on the hour. Didn't catch the ID but did catch the location. Fair signal in null of CIAO in Toronto. New station for my overall log.
• WNNZ, 640 kHz, Westfield, MA, 1320-1340 UTC. Morning (after sunrise) logging. Fair to good signal, strongest on frequency, in null of Toronto's AM 640. Carrying NPR program "All Things Considered". 50 kW. Logging a 50 kW station from Massachussetts isn't unusual here, but this is my first reception of this station. Normally the frequency is blocked by my local AM 640.
• I also did a scan for WiFi WAPs using my netbook computer, running inSSIDer. Found four WAPs, all probably local. I don't know if there's any point to doing this sort of WiFi DXing - it's a good way to add quantity to the logbook, but there seems to be no way to know where the WAPs are so there's no way to distinguish between routine local receptions and DX. But they are radio "stations" of a sort, so there must be some way to turn this into a branch of DXing.

The two mediumwave stations were new, so this brings the count in the mediumwave overall log to 955.

Thanksgiving DXing

Over the Thanksgiving weekend I was in the village of Harrowsmith, Ontario, near Kingston. And as I usually do when I'm up there, I did some DXing. I'm always impressed by how much more I can hear there than from home, even though I'm just using a little portable shortwave receiver with its built-in antenna when I'm there. The reason for the great reception is that there is so little interference. There is very little electrical noise on the bands, and I'm not in a steel frame building there.

I was tuning around on the lower shortwave frequencies, and here's what I heard. Date: Oct. 11, 2010. Receiver: Kaito KA-1103 on its telescopic whip antenna.

• 3485 kHz: Gander Radio, Gander Newfoundland, 0257 - 0300 UTC, with aviation weather.
• 3476 kHz: 0302 - 0310 UTC, weak station in English with Irish sounding accent with air traffic control transmissions. I think this is Shanwick Radio, an air traffic control station in Ireland.
• 3476 kHz: Gander Radio, Gander NL, 0310 - 0314 UTC. On after the preceding station went off. Air traffic control for North Atlantic from Gander airport in Newfoundland.
• 3350 kHz: Radio Exterior de Espana, broadcasting from Costa Rica, at 0317 to 0335 UTC.
• 3320 kHz: Radio Sonder Grense, Meyerton South Africa, from 0336 to 0042 UTC. With music and talk in Afrikaans.
• 3395 kHz: 0402 - 0403 UTC. Unidentified utility with strange pulsing sound: 3 harsh mid-tone beeps and one deeper one, repeated, with each cycle taking about 2 seconds.
• 3185 kHz: WWRB, Manchester TN, at 0405 UTC. Christian broadcaster. 100 kW.
• 3885 kHz: Ham radio roundtable in AM mode aty 0411- 0425 UTC. Stations heard include W2NBC in Oak Ridge NJ, WB2CAU in Dix Hills NY, and N1HCI in Concord NH.
• 3880 kHz: KG2IR, Greenlawn NY at 1320 UTC. Another amateur in AM mode.

On the Road: Loggings from Eastern Ontario

I spent the weekend of October 17/18 in Harrowsmith, a small village in eastern Ontario about 20 km north of Kingston. I like tuning the dials from there because the level of background electrical noise is so low. I can hear all sorts of faint signals that are buried under noise from home.

I brought the Kaito KA-1103 along and just used it with its built-in antennas. Got some interesting catches. Here's what I logged on the AM band:

• 1440 WNPV PA Lansdale - 17-Oct-2009 1753 ELT - Penn State football. Ads for Pennsylvania Service. ID on hour. Mixing with an oldies station. 2.5 kW. Relog. (Fair-Poor).
  
• 800 CJAD QC Montreal - 17-Oct-2009 1805 ELT - News, ID. Interference from CJBQ and from IBOC noise from WGY on 810. Even though this is 50 kW I never hear it in Toronto, because of its antenna pattern. Relog. (Poor).
• 790 Radio Reloj Cuba - 18-Oct-2009 0004 ELT - Voices not audible but could hear sound of clock ticking and the Radio Reloj "RR" ID in morse code every minute. Relog (Very Poor).
• 640 WWJZ NJ Mount Holly - 18-Oct-2009 0035 ELT - Radio Disney. Kids music. New. (Poor).
• 700 WTUB MA Orange-Athol - 18-Oct-2009 0738 ELT - ESPN Radio; sports talk. Mixing with WLW. No ID but this is the only ESPN station in the eastern half of the country, so little doubt of its identity. Ex-WJOE. 2.5 kW daytime. New. (Poor).
• 740 WNYH NY Huntingdon - 18-Oct-2009 0745 ELT - Korean language talk. In null of CFZM at about equal strength. 25 kW. New. (Fair).
• 790 WTNY NY Watertown - 18-Oct-2009 0825 ELT - "The Garden Hotline" hosted by Ralph Snodsmith. Ads for North Country Urgent Care just outside Watertown, AIDS walk, etc. ID before hour as "AM 790 WTNY". 1 kW. Relog. (Fair).
• 1440 WSGO NY Oswego - 18-Oct-2009 1210 ELT - Oldies, nostalgia music. IDs for WTLA and WSGO. 1 kW. Relog. (Poor).
• 1440 WFNY NY Gloversville - 18-Oct-2009 1620 ELT - Oldies, nostalgia music. 3.6 kW. New. (Fair).

So three new stations for the overall log. None of these count for the ultralight log, of course. Some of the relogs were from me looking for stations that I've been trying to add to my ultralight log from Toronto but which I've simply been unable to hear yet. I wanted to hear what they sounded like.

One of these loggings is noteworthy: WTUB on 700 is only the second station I've ever logged on 700 kHz. It's amazing that after decades of DXing the AM band there are still a handful of frequencies on which I've only logged one station. 700 is tough because there are no daytime stations audible on it from my location, and at night in Toronto it is dominated by (a) WLW, and (b) horrible electrical noise.

I also made a few loggings of radio amateurs:

• 14318 W0BH KS Hesston - 17-Oct-2009 2055 UTC - Calling CQ New York in New York QSO Party. SSB.
• 3997 W1AAT VT Waitsfield - 18-Oct-2009 1221 UTC - In roundtable discussing emergency preparedness in Vermont.
• 3997 W4YFJ VT Essex Junction - 18-Oct-2009 1221 UTC - In same roundtable. There was a third amateur in there too but I didn't get his callsign.

Weekend Trip to Eastern Ontario - Other Logs

I always bring a portable radio along when I go up to Harrowsmith because it is so incredibly radio quiet there. It's astounding how much can be heard. Example: in my Toronto apartment, on the Kaito KA-1103 I hear almost nothing except noise on the amateur 80 metre band (3500-4000 kHz) . Take the radio outside on my balcony and stick the antenna out away from the building, and there are lots of signals audible. But go to a place that is radio quiet and the entire band is alive with dozens or hundreds of stations. I don't think there's actually anything special about Eastern Ontario itself; rather I think it's good there because there are so few sources of electrical noise about and because I'm not in a steel frame building. No doubt my reception would be much better even here in Toronto if I were in a wood-frame house, but you just can't beat going to a place where there's so little electrical noise.

A few interesting logs from this visit on shortwave. Date and times in UTC (local time + 4 hours):

• Radio Australia on 15240 from Shepparton, Victoria, Australia. 2009-08-02, 03:19-03:32 UTC. Sports talk show "Grandstand". 100 kW to Pacific, almost alone on the 19 metre band but coming in at a very nice listenable level.
• On 2009-08-03 from 03:45-04:00 I was listening to three radio amateurs in a roundtable on 3885 kHz transmitting in the AM mode. They were W2PFY, W2NBC, and KC8ZEH, in New York State, New Jersey, and Ohio. AM interests me; someday I may give it a go. Currently I don't have a transmitter that's capable of outputting AM, except for one QRP rig that can output all of 2.5 watts in that mode. Most radio amateurs operating in AM use vintage tube-based gear, but one thing that interested me in this roundtable was that one of the members, the net control actually, was using a FlexRadio, one of those new software-defined radios. He sounded really good too. If I do get into AM, maybe that's the path I should take.
• On 4170 I heard an unidentified station with talk and country and western music. This was at 04:05 UTC on 2009-08-03. This is a long way outside any of the broadcast bands.
• Logged two utility stations (same day, at 04:15 and 04:20 UTC). The first was on 4316 and was giving weather and marine information from the National Weather Service. Didn't catch the ID but I think this was NMG in New Orleans, LA. The other was on 4425 and was just signing off. This was the U.S. Coast Guard station NMN in Chesapeake VA.

That was all I had time for. I want to try mediumwave DXing from there because there are no longer any local stations in the Kingston area on AM, so the entire band is open for DXing.

Weekend Trip to Eastern Ontario - FM Logs

On the long weekend of August 1 to 3, I went to Eastern Ontario. I did some radio listening on the trip. I was staying in Harrowsmith, a small village some 20 km north of Kingston, Ontario. Here's what I heard. As usual, dates and times are in UTC.

First, two more FM loggings to add to the Toronto log. I got these in my car on the drive there and back. Both of these were heard while I was driving through Scarborough.

87. CKLY, 91.9, Lindsay ON, 2009-08-01, 18:20-18:40, Bob FM - 80s rock.
88. CHUC, 107.9, Cobourg ON, 2009-08-04, 00:50-00:50, The Breeze - Oldies.

I also logged some other FM stations outside of the Toronto city limits. These don't go in the Toronto log, but some are new and have been added to the overall log.

• CKSG-FM, 93.3, Cobourg ON, 2009-08-01, 18:55-19:00, Star 93.3 - Rock. Received in Whitby, ON on Honda car radio - in fact I was sitting in the parking lot of Durham Radio when I logged this. New.
  
• CJOH-TV-6, 87.7, Deseronto ON, 2009-08-02, 03:15-03:19. Audio from CJOH-TV on channel 6 from Deseronto. Received on Kaito KA-1103 at my location 20 km north of Kingston, ON.
• CJTN, 107.1, Quinte West ON, 2009-08-03, 21:00, Rock. Received on car radio at Frontenac Provincial Park. New.
  
• CJXY, 107.9, Burlington ON, 2009-08-03, 21:04-21:05, Y108. Received on car radio at Frontenac Provincial Park. Tropo - a long way from Burlington to Eastern Ontario!
• WWHT, 107.9, Syracuse NY, 2009-08-03, 21:09, Hot 107.9. Received in Frontenac Provincial Park. New.
  
• CKQM, 105.1, Peterborough ON, 2009-08-03, 21:35-21:45, Country 105. Heard on car radio while passing through Harrowsmith, Ontario.