Monday 18 August 2008

Anothe mix of music and voice

Last Saturday, 16 August, E25 had a 35-minute long music session (and some brief voice but no real traffic) on 6140 kHz, starting at 0936z.

Here is the entire transmission (a bit cleaned-up using the usual software techniques) recorded in USB mode. An initial carrier offset is apparent in the beginning of the transmission. If you're going to listen the sample with good-quality speakers (good bass response), please keep the volume down (not to scare your siblings!)

Mr. DXer also logged the transmission and identified one more song from Kalthoum, "What can I say about missing you." at ~0954z, and songs of Chris Be Burgh.

Tuesday 5 August 2008

E25 rocks on 6140, then on 9450!

E25 on 9450 kHz playing "Don't pay the ferryman"!



And this one shows my scanner (Icom R20) with its stock antenna (ok, ok, I'm cheating... placed near the window for better reception) also tuned to 9450!



A lot of odd things happened today... music started on 6140 at 0918z and ended at 1003z. Then at 1006z a carrier appeared on 9450 kHz and a mix of music and E25 transmissions occurred till 1147z!!!

If you still don't think there's a connection between the music heard on 6140, 9450 and E25, just listen to this! It starts as a normal E25 transmission (well... wrong frequency! 9450 instead of 6140!) but then... Please be patient and listen the whole file. What do you think now? You can verify that it's not something edited, since there's a BC station audible in the background (which should be WYFR Family Radio).

ENJOY!

Monday 4 August 2008

Athens HF-FAX service improves its transmission quality

The local HF-FAX service, Athens, suffered from bad transmission output (probably too much audio level in an SSB transmitter). See my older post. Nowadays all seems to work fine; the image quality is superb:

8105 kHz USB, 03/08/2008, 1007z


8105 kHz USB, 03/08/2008, 1019z

Both images logged yesterday morning on 8105 kHz USB mode with a +20dB signal. Athens also transmits on 4481 kHz (had an S9 signal). Usually the lowest frequency is better received at my QTH, but if ionosphere permits (relative) local propagation on higher frequencies, the 8 MHz transmission is better, with less multipath distortion (fuzziness of the lines).

Monday 21 July 2008

At last! Some activity at the higher freqs!

Yesterday morning I was able to hear CB stations (27 MHz) from Italy and Turkey with the R75 (and my brother's wireless mouse at 27.1 MHz...) Even the scanner (R20) could receive them outside, with its stock antenna.

And for the first time in my life (yes!) I heard some true activity on the 6m band! Some CW stations (except the beacon from a nearby town; even this one is not all days audible!) and some USB voice. I don't remember any call signs now, but I do have logs and sound samples!

Saturday 12 July 2008

A nice HF-Fax picture from Tokyo

Last night I decided to give a try to JMH HF-Fax service. I only got this nice picture at 1930 UTC on the highest (13988 kHz) JMH frequency:

13988.5 kHz, 1930z
24HR SURFACE PRESSURE, WIND, FOG, ICING, SEA ICE PROG

The following transmissions were noisy so 1930z sets a limit for the reception on 14 MHz from Japan to my Location.

Monday 16 June 2008

ART2 and EZI together

This morning as I was browsing Icom's memories and I stumbled on a noisy (buzz) E10 carrier on 6840 kHz and decided to record it. Suddenly ART2 and EZI appeared on air at the same time (~0526 UTC) for some moments, then the buzz stopped and EZI continued with an S9 signal. Sound sample!

Friday 13 June 2008

New edition of rfax.pdf available

Check out http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/marine/rfax.pdf for an updated HF-Fax schedule compilation from NOAA, as of 30 May 2008.