FM Loggings

Several new stations logged on FM this month. First up, three stations received while I was at the Warsaw Caves Conservation Area near Warsaw, Ontario, on Aug. 16. These were heard on a portable radio, the Grundig G5:

• CKYM, 88.7, Napanee ON, at 2148 UTC. Slogan: "My FM" playing soft rock. Fair signal.
• CKOL, 93.7, Campbellford ON, at 2150 UTC. Playing adult standards music. Fair signal.
• CFFF, 92.7, Peterborough ON, at 2155. This is the Trent University campus station. Excellent signal (expected, as I was close to Peterborough).

I also logged four new stations two days later, on Aug 18, when I was in Hamilton, Ontario, parked at the top of the mountain:

• CJIQ, 88.3, Paris ON, at 2055 UTC. "Rock 88" playing, not surprisingly, rock music. This is a 4 kW station. Excellent signal.
• CBLA-2, 89.1, Paris ON, at 2057. CBC Radio One, carrying CBC Toronto. 5 kW. Good signal.
• CJBC-2, 89.9, Paris ON, at 2101. Radio-Canada (French language CBC) carrying same programming as on 90.3 Toronto. 7.14 kW.
• CFWC, 93.9, Brantford ON, from 2101 to 2125. "Power 93" with rock music and ads for Simcoe county businesses. Fair-poor signal. Their power is 250 watts.

Mediumwave Loggings

Two new mediumwave loggings this month, one of which also gets to go into the ultralight log.

On the evening of Fri. Aug 17, WTIC on 1080 in Hartford CT went off the air for a few hours for maintenance. WTIC normally dominates this channel at night. I took the opportunity to listen for some new stations and was rewarded with two new ones.

First up was WOAP, Owosso, Michigan, which I heard from 0340 to 0413 UTC (which makes the date Sat. Aug. 28 in UTC terms). They were playing oldies and identified themselves by the slogan "The Big 1080" and referred to themselves as "Michigan's Best". This station is listed as 1 kW, daytime only, so I don't know why they were on the air this late in the evening. Maybe the listing is out of date. This was first logged on the Drake SW8, and then I tuned it in on the Eton E-100 to qualify it as an ultralight logging. This is ultralight logging 338, and is also the 380th station in my Toronto log and the 950th entry in the lifetime mediumwave log (stations logged anytime, anywhere).

After logging WOAP I set things up to record 1080 on the Drake and went to bed. When reviewing the recording, I heard a second new station: WKJK, Louisville KY, which is a 1 kW talk station. Plenty of IDs, talk, and CBS news. This is station number 381 in the Toronto log, and 951 in the overall log.

Fresh New Look!

Greg's Radio Logbook - now with a fresh new look! And the same old stale content you've come to love! But soon there will be new content so check back soon.

Update for July 2010

In addition to the things I've already posted about for July, here are some of the highlights from my radio logbook for July 2010:

1. 128.8 MHz, July 5 at 0225 UTC: Logged Toronto Pearson Airport Departures - Air Traffic Control working aircraft departing the airport.

2. 132.8 MHz, July 5 at 0232-0240: Heard various aircraft in contact with Toronto Pearson Airport. This is a frequency for incoming aircraft.

3. Logged W1AW, the ARRL HQ station in Newington CT, transmitting Morse code practice bulletins on several frequencies. July 9 at 0249 UTC on 3581.5 kHz, July 13 at 0245 UTC on 1802.5 kHz, July 14 at 0222 UTC on 7047.5 kHz, and July 15 at 2346 UTC on 14047.5 kHz.

4. Logged various amateur stations on the HF bands.

5. Heard various shortwave broadcast stations. Nothing new.

6. Heard a pirate radio station on 6925 kHz on July 14 at 0240 UTC. He was playing music, but no ID was heard and he disappeared after a few minutes.

7. Heard New York Radio (air traffic control for NYC) on 6586 kHz working various aircraft. This was on July 14 at 0415 UTC.

8. On July 24 I managed to hear CBC Radio from Kingston, 107.5, on my car radio. This was in the morning when I was down at the Lake Ontario shore.

9. Did some listening for local utility communications on VHF.

Pearson Airport Arrivals - 132.8 MHz

One thing I like to do with radio is to explore new types of signals - discovering new things to hear on the radio bands. I haven't spent much time on the frequencies above 30 MHz, except for the FM and TV bands. But there is another VHF band that many radios include, the VHF air band that runs from 108 MHz (right at the top end of the FM broadcast band) to 137 MHz. On July 4 I spent a few minutes listening to 132.8 MHz, which is one of the frequencies that aircraft use to communicate with Toronto's Pearson International Airport when they're approaching the airport. If you sit on this frequency you can hear different flights checking in with the airport. Between 2215 and 2223 UTC I heard three flights contacting the airport here, Exec Jet 937, Air Canada 590, and Eagle 4441.

Numbers Station - 5898 kHz

On July 3 when I was tuning around the bottom end of the 49 metre broadcast band, I happened across a station on 5898 kHz that was transmitting in Morse code, sending text in 5 character groups at a fairly rapid clip. This was at 0505 UTC (around 1 a.m. local time). This is probably one of those spy stations you read about in the news, where some country's intelligence service sends encrypted messages over shortwave to their agents abroad. A lot of these stations apparently operate from Cuba. I obviously have no idea where this station was from or what message it was transmitting. But even when you have no idea what the station is or is sending, it is still fascinating to run across these sorts of stations. Another example of the unusual sort of thing you find on the radio bands.

Radio Ronin Shortwave

One aspect of radio DXing that appeals to some listeners is the search for "unofficial" stations - stations that operate without a licence in defiance of the rules that govern broadcasting in their home country. These are usually known as pirate radio stations. I don't normally go looking for these, but when I hear them I log them. In North America these stations often operate around 6925 kHz on shortwave.

On July 1, I caught a broadcast by one such station, Radio Ronin Shortwave, from 0210 to 0224 UTC. The signal was poor but I was able to copy it. They were playing oldies pop songs from the late 60s and 70s by bands like the Moody Blues, ELO, and the Eagles. There were also IDs and an email address to contact them at (radioroninshortwave@gmail.com). The station appeared to go off the air at 0224. Shortly after that more pop music was audible, but I think it may have been a different station - Radio Ronin was in AM mode and the subsequent signal was SSB.

Another example of the amazing variety of signals you can find on the radio bands.

Update for June 2010

I didn't do much DXing in June. Just a couple of things worth mentioning:

1. On June 28, heard Radio Cairo on 9305 kHz at 0235 UTC. Talk in Arabic, with some type of Arabic music at 0300.

2. On June 30, I heard an ID for "The Big Talker 1580" under semi-local CKDO. This is WHFS in Morningside, MD. This was at 0025 UTC (7:25 pm), sometime before local sunset, so they were most likely on their day power of 50 kW, not their night power of 270 watts. This was on the Honda radio in my car. This is a "new" station for the overall log and the Toronto log. I put "new" in quotes because I've logged this station once before, back in 2007 when it was WPGC. This is the first logging of it under its new WHFS callsign.

Update for May 2010

Still catching up on my radio logbook recordkeeping. Here are the highlights from May:

1. Added one station to the ultralight log: WRIE, 1260 kHz, Erie PA, on May 1, 2010 at 0130 UTC. Ultralight count is now 337.

2. Added one new station to the FM log: CHLK-FM, 88.1, Perth, ON, "Lake 88" on May 23, 2010 at 1916 UTC. This was received in Harrowsmith, Ontario (north of Kingston).

3. Did a lot of listening on the amateur bands and logged a bunch of amateur stations.

4. Did one new thing this month. I came across a couple of frequencies used for long-distance air traffic control - 5616 kHz for Gander Radio, and 5598 kHz for New York Radio. Listened for a while and heard them talking with aircraft crossing the Atlantic. This was on May 25 at 0330 to 0400 UTC.

5. Did a bit of shortwave broadcast listening, but didn't log anything particularly noteworthy.

6. Logged two maritime channel markers on May 10 around 0250 UTC: WLO in Mobile, Alabama on 4213 kHz, and TAH from Istanbul, Turkey on 4216.

7. Logged two VOLMET weather stations on May 26: Shannon VOLMET from Ireland on 5505 kHz at 0345 UTC, and RAF VOLMET from England on 5450 kHz at 0350 UTC.

8. Logged several longwave beacons on the afternoon of Sat. May 29 on a Grundig G5 portable, at the Limehouse Conservation Area in Limehouse, Ontario. This was after a hike in the area. Nothing new, but I was surprised to get YGK, 263 kHz, all the way from Kingston, Ontario - surprised as it was probably 300 km in the middle of the afternoon.

Update for April

Here are the highlights from my radio logbook for April 2010:

1. Logged one new AM station. WGVA, 1240 kHz, from Geneva, NY. April 2, 2010 at 1800 UTC. This is a talk station in the Finger Lakes News Network. Heard it on my car radio while driving near Port Hope, Ontario.

2. Did a lot of listening on the amateur bands and logged numerous stations. The highlights are:

• K4S, April 11 at 0027 UTC, 14248 kHz. Special event station for the Venice Shark's Tooth Festival in Venice, Florida.
• SP2GWH, April 15 at 2030 UTC. CW from Wloclawek, Poland. 14013 kHz.
• LZ19HR, April 15 at 2145 UTC. PSK31, 14072 kHz. Special callsign for HQ of the BFRA, for the 19th annual Hobby Radio Expo. Kazanlak, Bulgaria.
  
• Also logged a lot of U.S. and Canadian amateur stations.

3. On April 21, at 0402 heard the US Coast Guard station NMN from Chesapeake, VA, on 4426 kHz, with marine weather and ocean conditions. On the next day at 0345 heard another broadcast on 4316 kHz which was parallel to 4426, so I assume it was also NMN.

4. Did some listening for shortwave broadcast stations but didn't log anything noteworthy.

Nothing to report for March.

February Update - One New Ultralight Logging

The only thing to report for February 2010 is that I added one new station to the ultralight log:

• 910 WSBA PA York - 01-Feb-2010 1250 UTC - ID as "News Radio 910 WSBA". Heard callsign several times. Talk segment with comment by Rush Limbaugh. Mixing with a music station. Sangean DT-400W. Relog in overall log. (Poor).

This puts the ultralight count at 336. This is also new for the Toronto mediumwave log. I'd logged this station before but that was in Kingston, Ontario.

Update for January 2010

I fell behind on my logbook recordkeeping, but I'm starting to get caught up now. Just finished going through the loggings from January 2010. Here are the highlights from January.

1. Two noteworthy loggings of shortwave broadcasters:

• RS Makadonias, Athens Greece, on 3-Jan-2010 at 2228 UTC on 7450 kHz in Greek with a fair signal.

• Glas Hrvatske, Croatia, via transmitter site at Wertachtal, Germany on 10-Jan-2010 at 0015 UTC. This was in Croatian on 7375 kHz. Good signal.
  

2. Two loggings of utility stations: New York Radio, from New York City, and Gander Radio from Gander, Newfoundland, on 6604 kHz. These were at 2217 and 2220 UTC on 4-Jan-2010. These are aviation weather stations. Not new and not particularly rare, but the only utility stations I logged this month.

3. Logged a lot of radio amateurs on shortwave, mostly on the 40 metre band. All were stations in the continental United States.

4. I also made three loggings of amateurs on VHF. These are worth noting:

• VA3WLD, Downsview, ON. 23-Jan-2010 at 1945 UTC on 2 metres (144.215 mHz) in USB, in ARRL VHF contest. Noteworthy because this was the first station I've logged on 2 metres in SSB, and the first station I've ever worked on the air on 2 metres. I only recently got set up to operate on VHF.
• VA3WLD, Downsview, ON. 23-Jan-2010 at 1954 UTC on 50.130 MHz. He was working stations in the ARRL VHF contest. Worth noting because this is the first amateur station I've heard on the 6 metre band.
• VE3UBL, Pickering, ON. 23-Jan-2010 at 2226 on 50.058 MHz. The first 6 metre beacon I've logged.

Year End Update

It's the end of 2009 so I figured I'd make one post to catch up on. Here is what I've been hearing lately:

• I added one more station to the ultralight log, bringing the count to 335. This was WORC 1310 from Worcester MA, which broadcasts in Spanish. Logged December 15.
• Did some mediumwave DXing while up in eastern Ontario over Christmas. Added four new stations to the overall log.
• I recently got interested in DXing Navtex stations on 518 kHz. These stations broadcast marine advisory information in a digital format. I set up an old laptop for decoding it and have caught a few new stations. The most noteworthy was OXI in Nuuk, Greenland. I think this is the first radio station I've ever received from that country.
• Did a bit of shortwave DXing too. Most noteworthy things logged: (a) the Royal Air Force Volmet (aviation weather) station on 5450 (SSB) from the U.K., (b) the AFRTS station on 5446.5 kHz (SSB) from Florida, and (c) several frequencies of the Saudi Arabian international broadcaster BKSKA.

And that's it for 2009.

Ultralight Loggings Update

It's time for an update on my ultralight DXing activities. I haven't been spending as much time on it as I was doing this time last year. It has also become a lot more challenging because there are no easy catches left. But I've still managed to add a few more to the log. Used the Eton E-100 for all of these. Ultralight count is now 334.

• 890 WKNV VA Fairlawn - 08-Nov-2009 1703 ELT - Gospel music. Ads. ID as "Joy 890 and ..." some FM frequency. Also heard slogan something like "Today's Southern Gospel Music". 10 kW daytime only. Spotted first on non-ultralight Palstar R30 receiver and then tuned in on the Eton E-100. New. (Fair).
• 970 WZAN ME Portland - 09-Nov-2009 0015 ELT - End of Sunday Night Football broadcast: wrap-up of game. Ads. Callsign IDs with location. Then into some talk show already in progress. Overwhelming normally-dominant WNED. 5 kW. Relog, but first logging from Toronto - previous logging was from Newfoundland in 2007. (Fair).
• 1550 WSRY MD Elkton - 29-Nov-2009 0020 ELT - DX test broadcast on day power of 1 kW. Heard talk and music under dominant CBE, and sweep tones and Morse code IDs: "V V V de WSRY WSRY WSRY WSRY K". Unable to copy the programming but the Morse IDs were clear. New. (Poor).
• 1540 KXEL IA Waterloo - 06-Dec-2009 0115 ELT - Received when local CHIN was transmitting only a silent carrier. Talk show "Midnight Radio Network". Ads. ID for "News Talk 1540 KXEL". 50 kW. (Fair).
• 1630 WRDW GA Augusta - 06-Dec-2009 0204 ELT - Promo saying to log on to wrdw.com. Sports show "Sporting News Radio". Ads, including a spot for a blood donor clinic in Augusta. Mixing with KCJJ, mostly dominant. 1 kW night power. New. (Poor).
• 1250 WARE MA Ware - 06-Dec-2009 1745 ELT - Oldies. Fox news on the hour, weather, and then ID with callsign. Also ID as "Oldies 1250". Then into nostalgia music. Mixing with and occasionally overpowering semi-local CJYE. New. (Poor).
• 1670 CJEU QC Gatineau - 11-Dec-2009 0020 ELT - "Radio Enfant". Children's music. Brief talk at top of hour. French. Brand new - just on the air a day or two. 1 kW. New. (Poor).
• 620 WTMJ WI Milwaukee - 11-Dec-2009 1703 ELT - News, weather, ID. Sunset logging - still on day power of 50 kW. New. (Poor).
• 1470 WLOA PA Farrell - 12-Dec-2009 1655 UTC - Country music. Partial ID on hour. Inaudible most of time under WNYY or under noise. @ approx. 1745 heard ID "Classic Country 940 and 1470". A few minutes later heard a very clear ID "Classic Country WGRP 940 and WLOA 1470". 1 kW day, 500 W night. Initially heard on the JRC NRD-525 but the best ID, with the callsigns, was heard on the Eton E-100. New. (Poor).

I should add that some of these were actually logged on a non-ultralight communications receiver first, and then tuned in on the E-100. I listened on the E-100 long enough to verify that I was hearing the same station, but the actual identification may have taken place on the communications receiver. The details of these loggings are combined from both radios.

Ultralight DX

I'm continuing with ultralight DXing this season, although it is becoming a tough slog. The limitations of my location for this type of DXing are making themselves felt. One of the features of the current crop of ultralight receivers is their superb nulling ability - by simply rotating the radio you can often null out a dominant signal, revealing other stations on the same frequency. This is a feature I cannot make use of from home. My apartment is in a steel frame building so the only way I can get good reception is by sitting by the large window in the living room with the radio's ferrite bar antenna broadside to the window. Rotating the radio causes ALL signals to be nulled out. Another problem here is the bad electrical noise on certain parts of the spectrum. Another is that signals in the upper end of the band (1500-1700 kHz) are badly attenuated by the building's frame. I can overcome these issues by finding a spot outside to listen, but that's not so practical, especially now that the weather is getting colder.

Nonetheless I am still making new loggings. And here is the latest batch, all logged on the Eton E-100:

• 540 KWMT IA Fort Dodge - 23-Oct-2009 0722 ELT - Country music. Ads. IDs. ID on half hour: "True country 540 KWMT" plus location. 5 kW. New to overall log. (Fair).
• 1310 WTLB NY Utica - 26-Oct-2009 0725 ELT - Sports talk. "TLB" ID. Ads for businesses in Syracuse and in New Hartford. 5 kW. (Poor)
• 1380 WSYB VT Rutland 26-Oct-2009 0740 ELT - Talk, Ads, ID: "Here on WSYB". 5 kW. (Poor)
• 1510 WWSM PA Annville-Cleona 27-Oct-2009 0719 ELT - Country music, chatter, IDs. (Very Poor)
• 1440 WCDL PA Carbondale - 29-Oct-2009 0757 ELT - Nostalgia music. ID for WNAK and WCDL. 5 kW. (Poor)
• 1290 WFBG PA Altoona - 01-Nov-2009 1845 ELT - ID: "The Big 1290 WFBG" repeated three times in promo for the Jim Bohannen show. 5 kW. (Poor)

Total ultralight count is now 325.