There was tropo coming in from across Lake Ontario this morning, as is often the case during the warm weather months here. And because of it I added two Rochester NY area stations to the log.
Overall FM log count is now 333. Toronto FM log count is 116.
Saturday, 4 June 2011
Friday, 3 June 2011
FM: WDNY and CBLU
This morning before leaving for work I spent a bit of time tuning the FM band. There was some tropo to the south and north, and I had time to log two new stations before I had to leave.
Overal FM log count: 331. Toronto FM log count: 114.
Overal FM log count: 331. Toronto FM log count: 114.
Monday, 30 May 2011
FM: WRVO and WFRY
Today, May 30, 2011, I added two stations to the Toronto FM log and one to the overall log. There was some tropospheric propagation bringing in stations from the eastern end of Lake Ontario.
Logged these on the Sony XDR-F1HD using the new outdoor FM antenna I bought recently. The antenna is omnidirectional with a single element curved around into a circle. I doubt it is very efficient but it has the virtue of being small, small enough to fit unobtrusively on my balcony. And even an inefficient omnidirectional antenna that's outdoors is a big improvement over an indoor antenna.
- WRVO 89.9 MHz, Oswego NY. 11:35-11:42 UTC. Good signal. NPR. WRVO ID. Logged before - this is a semi-local station in Kingston, ON. First logging of it from Toronto. 50kW.
- WFRY 97.5 MHz, Watertown-Carthage, NY. 11:50-12:00 UTC. Good signal. "Froggy 97", news items, country music. ID on hour. New to overall and Toronto logs. 97 kW.
Logged these on the Sony XDR-F1HD using the new outdoor FM antenna I bought recently. The antenna is omnidirectional with a single element curved around into a circle. I doubt it is very efficient but it has the virtue of being small, small enough to fit unobtrusively on my balcony. And even an inefficient omnidirectional antenna that's outdoors is a big improvement over an indoor antenna.
Sunday, 29 May 2011
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).
Monday, 9 May 2011
More WSPR Receptions
Another WSPR session. Highlights included receiving 5 watt stations from Venezuela and Spain. Details here.
Saturday, 7 May 2011
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.
Sunday, 24 April 2011
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:
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.
- 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.
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.
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.
Saturday, 23 April 2011
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.
Thursday, 14 April 2011
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:
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.
Tuesday, 12 April 2011
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.
Sunday, 27 March 2011
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.
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.
Saturday, 12 March 2011
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.
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.
Sunday, 6 March 2011
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:
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.
Friday, 4 March 2011
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.
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