After almost a month of very poor or non-existent NA DX conditions came back this week down south (Scottish dxers saw a return last week). On 25 November at 0629 I had a personal first – XEARZ-AM Zer Radio was coming into London on 1650 kHz with easy listening music and “Zer Radio 16-50” ids as can be seen below:
Finally, a welcome back home to Paul C after his hospital stay. Take it easy Paul but keep those dx-ears of yours available!
The ultra-rare AM pirate Radio Britannia from Barnsley South Yorkshire was heard in London tonight between 20-21.00 UTC. Signal was weak but readable and the the video below shows how it was sounding:
Equipment in use was the Perseus SDR and the 10x5m Flag orientated at 300 degrees.
Hard rocking and propagating well into London this early afternoon.
The station is run by students of the Moscow Technical University of Communications and Informatics (MTUCI). Rig is the Perseus SDR with 10x5m Flag antenna. Home-brew bi-monocular balun is used with 10:3 ratio of turns with 24 swg magnet wire. The balun performs really well at MF and extends up to 26 MHz and beyond.
After the poor conditions week before last and start of last week NA DX came back towards the end of the week. Nothing spectacular but some reasonable signal strengths from the East Coast regulars. Morning of Friday 11 October saw the New York stations coming through with above average strength. Video below shows how WINS 1010, WBBR 1130 and WLIB 1190 were sounding in London.
Conditions have been very poor for the last week or so despite some F2 noted on 10m and US repeaters on 10m FM being audible in the late afternoons. Just before the the sun erupted again and disturbed MF conditions started I recorded the X-Band as heard in our rural dx location outside Carcassonne. The video shows how quiet it was with audio from 1640 WTNI Biloxi MS, 1670 WPLA Dry Branch GA, 1630 KCJJ Iowa City IA and 1620 Radio Rebelde Cuba.
Receiver is Perseus SDR with 300m BOG (Beverage on Ground). Conditions went rapidly downwards the following nights with nothing of interest making it through.