March 2016 Michigan BCB logs

New stations heard from West Michigan during March, 2016 (with the exception of 1548 4QD). Antenna used is noted in the log. All dates and times UTC: TAs: 1431 Radio Sawa, Djibouti – 3/5/2016 0049-0053 UTC – Decent carrier noted several times here in past nights finally culminating with some audio on March 5th. Occasional strong peaks bursting into pop music lasting for several minutes. Parallel to a remote Perseus SDR located in the Mediterranean region that had a strong copy on Radio Sawa which provided a nice real-time comparison. 7,481 miles from my North D-KAZ antenna. DUs: 1548.01 4QD...

February 2016 Michigan D-KAZ logs

23 new stations added to the logbook in February! Here’s the rundown with a few reception videos thrown in. All heard from West Michigan using the Perseus SDR and reversible North/South D-KAZ antenna. Times/dates are UTC, all logs are new except where noted. Total MW stations now logged since Jan 2009: 1,845. DOMESTIC: 540 WDAK Columbus, GA. – 2/13/2016 1300 UTC – Briefly over a few seconds of WKFN dead-air with legal TOH ID and slogan “Newsradio 5-40, Columbus” and then lost again to WKFN, on South D-KAZ. 550 WDUN Gainesville, GA. – 2/13/2016 1300 UTC – With local ad...

January 2016 Michigan D-KAZ logs

New stuff heard in January from West Michigan using the North-South reversible D-KAZ & Perseus SDR. Not a bad start to the new year! Domestics: 560 WMIK Middlesboro, KY. – 1200 UTC 1/23/2016 – Southern accented OM ID and city with Southern gospel music under WIND. 600 WBOB Jacksonville, FL. – 0508 UTC 10/1/2016 – With scheduled DX test on day power/pattern, fast and slow morse code IDs, sweep tones, call sign IDs, etc. Very strong at times. 810 WWOS St. George, SC. – 1200 UTC 1/23/2016 – Strong signal with religious choral music and YL announcement: “For Christ honoring...

1530 Voice of America, Sao Tome Heard in Michigan Tonight

Decent TA conditions discovered tonight at the upper end of the band from the Middle East, and then I caught this! My first Trans-Atlantic reception on a domestic channel, this is the VOA from Sao Tome. They sign on at 0300 UTC with their signature Yankee Doodle Dandy interval signal which is clearly heard in this clip along with voice IDs.  Heard with the D-KAZ antenna pointed North to null WCKY as much as possible:

December 2015 BCB Logs

These are all new logs except the Honduras log as noted. Times / dates UTC. All heard from Western Michigan on the South D-KAZ during the auroral conditions we had here around Christmas. Sure, it sucks for HF but it also turns the BCB band upside with stuff from the deep south that usually isn’t heard here! 540 Radio Rebelde, Cuba – 0504 UTC 12/24/2015 – Presumed with the Cuban National Anthem beginning at 05:04:32 and exactly in sync with // 600 & 710, very weak. 550 ABC Radio, Tegucigalpa Honduras – 0500 UTC 12/24/2015 – With Spanish talk and...

Faint "DU" signals on the BCB band during sunrise

Since catching my first trans-pacific BCB signal a few years ago, and this reception of 4QD earlier this year, I get a little obsessed with the effort each year during this time.  If I’m not DXing live during sunrise, then I usually have the Perseus recording segments of the AM band with the hope of catching these elusive DX signals.  Such is the case here, taken from a spectrum recording I made on the morning of September 2nd, 2015.  Below are screenshots showing weak AM carriers between 1602-1701 kHz captured on this recording from my listening location in Michigan.  These high band “DU” signals are always best...

SDR File Analyzer: Taking a closer look at 1710 kHz

A big thanks to Simon at SDRradio.com for his release and continual tweaking of a useful tool that comes bundled with the SDR-Radio.com V2 suite known as the SDR File Analyzer (for 64 bit Windows machines only).  Here’s a spectrogram showing a variety of AM signals present over a course of 6-1/2 hours on 1710 kHz New Year’s Eve 2012 generated by feeding my Perseus .wav files into the File Analyzer tool.  The strong AM carrier in the center belongs to The Big Q which signed off between 1030-1100 UTC.  The moment of sign-off is quite obvious on the image....

Pirate radio meets Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM)

It was bound to happen at some point with pirates now pushing the technological envelope.  First, Red Hat from X-FM Shortwave experimenting with C-QUAM AM Stereo broadcasts on shortwave, and now with Undercover Radio dabbling with Digital Radio Mondiale.  Obviously this isn’t practical for a number of reasons as demonstrated in the video below, but it’s great to see pirates experimenting with new modes and proves that DRM isn’t just reserved for the big 100kw broadcasters. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpQtiLEHiWM]