CQ World Wide WPX CW Contest

I was on the air today making some contacts in the CQ World Wide WPX CW contest. Also kept a log of the stations I heard. Time: 15:00-21:10 UTC. Bands: 15 and 10 metres (21 and 28 MHz). Some good DX heard, plus the usual assortment of stations from the U.S. and Canada.

• 15 metres: Stations from Colombia (HK1R), Chile (XQ1KZ), Aruba (P49Y), Puerto Rico (NP2/OL5Y), Martinique (FM5CD), Honduras (HQ9R), Senegal (6W/RK4FF), Brazil (PW7T), Azores (CR2X), Portugal (CS2C), and Italy (II9T).
• 10 metres: Stations from Bonaire (PJ4A), Colombia (HK1NA), and Brazil (PW2D and PS2T).

More WSPR Receptions

Another WSPR session. Highlights included receiving 5 watt stations from Venezuela and Spain. Details here.

WSPR Receptions

Listening for stations in WSPR today. Highlights included receiving a 1 watt station from the U.K. (G4BJO) and a 2 watt one from Switzerland (HB9TPL). Details here.

Two More FM Stations

Driving back to Toronto today, I heard two stations on FM on the car radio new to my log. Both were heard near Odessa, Ontario, which is just west of Kingston:

• WBEE 92.5 Rochester NY at 20:40 UTC. Fair signal with country music. This is "new" in that I've never received this station with this callsign, but long ago I did log it under its former callsigns of WNYZ (1976) and WMJQ (1978).
• WSLZ 88.1 Cape Vincent NY at 21:00 UTC. NPR, part of the North County Public Radio network. Classical music, ID on hour, and then NPR's "All Things Considered". Fair signal.

This brings the overall FM log count to 328.

I should mention that my logging scheme, adopted back when I was just starting out, long before we had the Internet to look up station histories, is to count frequency and callsign changes as new stations. In the old days it was difficult to tell if two different callsigns from the same location were actually the same station with a callsign change, or two different stations operating at different times from the same location on the same frequency. So I opted to count each new callsign as a new station. And after all these years, there's no way I'm going to spend the time revisiting all those cases to figure out which are which. So the actual number of different stations logged is somewhat less than the official count.

AM Roundtable

Late last night (02:41 UTC April 24) I was tuning around the 80 metre amateur band and heard several stations on 3885 kHz transmitting in AM. It was an AM roundtable. I caught the callsigns of two of the participants: KC2IFR in South Glens Falls NY, and WA1HLR in Skowhegan ME.

Its always interesting to tune the 80 metre band when I'm in Harrowsmith. There's little interference and the band is full of signals at night. By contrast, almost nothing is audible on 80 for me in Toronto because of the noise levels. The building's steel frame does half the job, and the masses of electrically noisy consumer electronics that my neighbours and I have does the rest.

FM Logs in Kingston

I logged two new FM stations today while visiting Kingston, Ontario (my old home town). Neither station counts as DX from there since they're both local. Received these on the Honda radio in my old Civic:

• 106.3 MHz, CIRJ, Kingston ON at 2100 UTC. This is Kingston Information Radio, a low power (50 watt) information station. It was broadcasting a loop of prerecorded information of interest to people in Kingston.
• 106.7 MHz, WBDR, Copenhagen-Watertown NY at 2107 UTC. "The Border 106.7" playing hit music.

This brings the overall FM log count to 326.

FM DX

Two years ago I spent some time DXing the FM band. Eventually I hit a wall which caused me to set it aside. The wall was the fact that the FM band in Toronto is saturated with local and semi-local stations. Almost every frequency has a dominant station on it, or is adjacent to one. Just about the only truly open frequencies are 90.7 and 88.1 (now that CKLN is off the air).

Recently I found a solution to this. Both Sony and Sangean have FM receivers, designed for HD Radio, that are highly selective. That is, they do an extremely good job at preventing strong stations on one frequency from bleeding over into the adjacent frequencies. For example, we have a strong local station on 91.1 in Toronto. On most of my FM recievers, this station also spreads over and covers 90.9 and 91.3. I figured that if I had a receiver that was selective enough to stop this from happening, it would open up a lot of frequencies for DXing. So recently I bought a used Sony XDR-F1HD on eBay to use for FM DXing. This is currently set up and connected to the indoor wire dipole antenna that came with the unit.

Today (Apr. 14, 2011) when I was trying it out I found that there was some tropospheric propagation happening, and that some distant and new stations were coming in. Here's what I heard:

• 91.3, WQLN, Erie PA at 03:10 UTC. Decent signal. Classical music program - NPR. Relog.
• 94.3, CJBC-1-FM, Belleville ON at 04:08 UTC. Poor signal. French - Radio-Canada. New.
• 95.1, WFXF, Honeoye Falls NY (near Rochester) at 04:12 UTC. Fair signal. 95.1 The Fox. New.
• 95.5, CJOJ, Belleville ON at 04;23 UTC. 95.5 Poor signal. Hits FM - classic rock. New.
• 97.9, WPXY, Rochester NY at 04:32 UTC. Poor. Hit music. Relog; new to Toronto log.
• 104.3, CKWS-FM, Kingston ON at 04:45 UTC. Very weak. Oldies. New.

Four of these are new to the overall FM log, so that brings the overall count to 324. Five are new to the Toronto log - the total count in that log is now 110.

WSPR

For the past week and a half my DXing activities have been about using a new amateur radio mode called WSPR. Stations use this mode to operate as low power beacons; I've been using it to log a bunch of these stations. Because I've been doing this as part of getting my own station on the air in WSPR mode, I've been posting about it over at my amateur radio blog. Rather than duplicate that material here, I'll direct you to the posts on that site, in case you're interested. Posts are here, here, here, and here.

2011 CQ Magazine World Wide WPX Contest, SSB

Logged a lot of stations heard in another amateur radio contest, the 2011 CQ Magazine World Wide WPX contest, SSB. Date: Sun. March 27, 2011. Time: 11:50 - 13:00 UTC and 17:50 - 22:55 UTC. Bands: 20 and 15 metres (14 and 21 MHz).

Stations heard from Europe, North Africa, and the Americas: Anguilla, Argentina, Aruba, Belgium, Belize, Bermuda, Canada, Canary Islands (Spain), Colombia, Croatia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, England, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Martinique, Morocco, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Scotland, Spain, Trinidad & Tobago, United States, Wales.

WKVQ 1540 kHz Eatonton, GA

Very early this morning the nice folks at WKVQ 1540 in Eatonton, Georgia, put on a special DX test broadcast to give DXers a chance to log them. I did not expect to hear this station because Georgia is a long way from Toronto, and because we have a 50 kW local station (CHIN) on 1540 here. WKVQ is 10 kW day, 1.6 at night. I don't know which power they used for the test but even a 10 kW station is a tough catch on a crowded frequency at that distance. Nevertheless, I knew that the station would be broadcasting Morse code IDs and that Morse code has a real ability to punch through the noise. I figured that if CHIN had a program of talk, not music, that there might be the occasional gap through which WKVQ might creep. I've logged other stations this way, by hearing IDs during brief silent pauses on the dominant station. So I set things up to record 1540 overnight so I could review the recording later.

The DX test was scheduled to run from 06:00 to 06:30 and from 07:00 to 08:00 UTC. That's 1:00 to 1:30 and 2:00 to 3:00 a.m. local time. CHIN was playing music, but there was an announcer between songs. At 06:29 I thought I heard a Morse code ID underneath CHIN during a momentary pause in the announcer's speech. Very, very faint. I had to listen to the recording over and over, fiddling with the equalizer settings in Winamp to boost certain audio frequencies and to suppress others. Eventually I was able to improve it enough to verify that I was hearing "WKV?" with the final letter being four elements long - it was partly wiped out by the announcer on CHIN. Since "Q" is a four element character in Morse code, and since no AM station is going to broadcast its ID in Morse code except in a DX test, and since there are no other stations on this frequency whose callsign starts with WKV, this was enough to convince me it was WKVQ. Cool!

This is station number 965 in my overall mediumwave log, and number 386 in the Toronto log.

2011 ARRL International DX Contest, SSB

More DXing on the amateur bands - stations heard while I was making contacts in the 2011 ARRL International DX Contest, SSB. Date: Sunday March 6, 2011, Time: 15:10 - 20:30 UTC, Bands: 15 and 10 metres (21 and 28 MHz). Good conditions, and 10 metres was open to the south.

A sampling of what I heard:

• 15 metres: HQ2GL Honduras, V48M St. Kitts & Nevis, DL2ARD & DL2DX Germany, PJ7DX St. Maarten, E71A Bosnia & Herzegovina, S50R Slovenia, 8P5A Barbados, 9A3TR & 9A5Y Croatia, TM6M & TM7F France, EA3EZD, EA3QP & EA7RU Spain, OQ4U Belgium, 5C5W Morocco, CR2A Azores, TI5N & TI8II Costa Rica, PJ4G Bonaire, CT3HF Madeira Island, J7Y Dominica, and YV5AM Venezuela.
• 10 metres: NP2I U.S. Virgin Islands, LR4E Argentina, PJ7DX St. Maarten, P49Y & PJ2T Bonaire, HK1W Colombia, and XE1CWJ Mexico.

NRV 8422 KHz

Caught a distant one today, Friday, March 4, 2011 at 13:30-13:43 UTC. On 8422 kHz I heard NRV, a U.S. Coast Guard station located on the island of Guam in the western Pacific Ocean. It was broadcasting a SITOR channel marker with Morse code IDs. I didn't have anything set up to decode the SITOR signal but the Morse code ID was clear. This is my first logging of this station, and of any station from Guam.

2011 ARRL International DX Contest, CW

This weekend (Feb 19 & 20, 2011) has one of the big amateur radio contests of the year, the ARRL International DX Contest, CW. I was on the air making contacts in this contest, and during this time I also kept a log of all the stations I heard, worked or not. I've said this before but I'll repeat it again: if SWLs are looking for a new aspect to the hobby of shortwave radio, they should check out the amateur bands, especially during a major contest. There are a lot of DX targets available on the amateur bands from places that have few, or no, shortwave broadcast stations. Here are some of the highlights of what I heard:

Feb 19: Listening on the 10 metre band from 15:30 to 16:30 and from 19:15 to 20:30 UTC. Stations heard included:

• PJ6A from the island of Saba in the Carribbean.
• PJ4A in Bonaire.
• VP2MMM on the island of Montserratt.
• KP2M from the U.S. Virgin Islands.
• V31RR from Belize.
• CW5W in Uruguay.
• FM5BH, Martinique.
• V48M, St. Kitts & Nevis.
• PY2MT, Sao Paulo, Brazil.
• HK1AA in Colombia.
• CE3/VE7SV in Chile.
• YN3M, Nicaragua.

Feb 20: 40 metre band, 04:30-04:45 and 11:30-11:40 UTC:

• C6AGU, Bahamas.
• C6AGP, Bahamas.
• PJ2T, Bonaire.

Feb 20: 15 metre band, 14:30 - 18:30 UTC:

• CE1/K7CA, Chile.
• EA8NC, Tenerife, Canary Islands.
• PJ2T, Bonaire.
• PV8ADI, Boa Vista, Brazil.
• EF8R, Canary Islands.
• HK1R, Colombia.
• CR2A, Azores.
• ZF2AM, Cayman Islands.
• EA8URL, Canary Islands.
• XE7S, Mexico.
• CR3L, Madiera Island.
• CN3A, Morocco.
• IR4M, Italy.
• CO6LP, Cuba.
• C6AGU, Bahamas.
• CW5W, Uruguay.
• V48M, St. Kitts & Nevis.
• HQ5A, Honduras.
• CS2C, Portugal.
• ED8A, Canary Islands.
• EA5DFV, Spain.
• EA4KD, Spain.
• PY2NDX, Brazil.
• TI5KD, Costa Rica.
• EA4TX, Spain.
• D4C, Cape Verde.
• EA2W, Spain.

Feb. 20: 10 metre band, 20:35 UTC:

• PY2NDX, Brazil.

Feb 20: 20 metre band, 20:50-23:55 UTC:

• EF8S, Canary Islands.
• V48M, St. Kitts & Nevis.
• WP3C, Puerto Rico.
• TI5A, Costa Rica.
• D44AC, Cape Verde.
• PV8DX, Brazil.
• HK1N, Colombia.
• CR3L, Madeira Island.
• PZ5P, Suriname.
• OA4SS, Peru.
• PY2NDX, Brazil.
• C6AGU, Bahamas.
• PJ4A, Bonaire.
• P4OL, Aruba.
• P49V, Aruba.
• XE7S, Mexico.
• PV8ADI, Brazil.

Two Amateur Radio Contests

On the air this weekend making contacts in two amateur radio contests. Feb 12 & 13: CQ WPX RTTY contest. Feb 13: SKCC Weekend Sprintathon. Logged a lot of stations but nothing unusual.

WCXN 1170 kHz Claremont, NC

I logged a new mediumwave station today, Feb. 12, 2011: WCXN, 1170 kHz, in Claremont, NC. I heard a Spanish language station on 1170 under WWVA, so I left the radio on overnight, using the Sony MP3 recorder to record it. The station was present all night, making the time of this logging 0340 to 1000 UTC.

The station was usually under WWVA, but sometimes dominated the frequency. Mexican music format with several “La que buena“ IDs. No callsign heard - not sure the station ever gave one. But “La que buena“ is WCXN’s slogan. Also while WCXN is a daytime only station, it has been reported widely on the DX reflectors as frequently staying on all night. Since there are no other plausible candidates, I concluded this must be WCXN.

There was also a second Spanish station heard with talk under WXCN a few times. But it was very weak with no identifying material heard.

This is the 385th station in my Toronto mediumwave log, and the 964th in the overall log.