From Cisco, Utah

March 30, 2009

Camped on a high saddle between two hills near the virtual ghost town of Cisco, Utah. This is open range country, treeless, with a perfect unobstructed view for 50+ miles in all directions. At 3 PM this afternoon I laid out 60 ft. of wire on the ground and fired up the Eton E1.

First, some shortwave.

9890 KHz, 2206 UTC, Voice of Russia, Moscow. Fair signal.
9790 KHz, 2212 UTC, R. Romania International, Bucharest. Weak to fair.
9580 KHz, 2219 UTC, Afrique Numero Un, Gabon, Moyabi. Delightful African music.
9435 KHz, 2221 UTC, FEBC, Manila. Sign on voice interval.
6070 KHz, 2230 UTC, CFRB relay, Mississauga, Ontario. Weak but copyable.
11670 KHz, 2234 UTC, Venezuela, R. Nacional. Via Havana.
15720 KHz, 2238 UTC, R. New Zealand International. Good signal.
15560 KHz, 2241 UTC // 15515 KHz, R. Australia, Shepparton. To Pacific and NA with good signal.

Much further north and east than my winter location in Arizona, shortwave signals here seem generally much weaker. The Pacific and Asia are way down, as is Europe.

A perfect time for some daytime long distance AM BCB DXing.

KFI-640, 1550L, Los Angeles, CA. Weak but Q4 copy. 597 miles, a new record!
KNBR-680, 1552L, San Francisco, CA. Good signal.
KDWN-720, 1555L, Las Vegas, NV. Very weak.
KKOB-770, 1557L, Albuquerque, NM
KVEL-920, 1604L, Vernal, UT. 5KW.

The previous stations were logged nearly three hours before local sunset, occurring today at 1845L. I was amazed to hear KFI, Los Angeles, on a 60 ft. wire at 597 miles distant. This is a new distance record for me for daytime AM BCB DX.

From Moab, Utah

Arrived here yesterday morning to a terrific dust-windstorm. Cold front with snow is blowing into Colorado from the northwest. It was a cold night camping last night. Excellent signal out of WBAP-820, Dallas-Ft. Worth on the truck radio. Denver stations KOA-850 (50KW), and KHOW-630 (5KW) strong at night and well into late sunrise period. Still looking for WWL-870, in New Orleans. I tried many times from Quartzsite to catch WWL, to no avail. Will head eastward over the Rockies and the continental divide tomorrow!

Gettin' Short

15360 Khz, 0117 UTC, Thailand, BBC relay to Asia in English. Great signal early evening here (local time 1817) on the Kaito 1103 with a 15 ft. wire. Good coverage of the economy, including audio excerpts from Congress. Why can't we have some AM radio (other than NPR), here in the states, with coverage like this?

Picked up 20 feet of one-inch PVC yesterday to use as an unsupported vertical antenna. Will string some wire along the length of it and feed it with the RF Systems magnetic balun. Plan to do some testing this weekend.

One week from today I head east across the U.S. back to Rochester, New York by way of Denver. Will be doing some AM DXing along the way. Should be interesting!

120 Meter Loggings

Nice signals out of Australia this morning on 120 meters. All with Eton E1 and 60 ft. longwire. Parallel programming on all three stations.

2310 Khz, 1127 UTC, Australia, ABC NT Service, Alice Springs. S-7.
2325 Khz, 1132 UTC, Australia, ABC NT Service, Tennant Creek. S-5.
2485 Khz, 1137 UTC, Australia, ABC NT Service, Katherine. S-5.

Wish I had more time to look for Indonesians on the 60 meter band.