Judging from all the traffic on the various DX lists, I’d call the WBOB DX test a big success. Here’s how the test sounded from my place in Michigan (loud and clear!): Thanks to everyone involved with arranging this test, it’s a new station logged here!
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...
Many thanks to Redhat from pirate station X-FM Shortwave for QSL’ing my reception of their low powered MW test on July 8th, 2015 on 1720 kHz. Redhat adds “Congrats on our first confirmed MW report!”
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...
Realizing that I never posted a photo of the finished ACE V 1-tube regen, here it is, all cleaned-up and ready to use:
Two Perseus WAV recordings have been uploaded containing a relatively good reception of The Disco Palace as captured here in 2011. Use your favorite SDR client and DRM decoder to enjoy the music: Tromp_Michigan_2040_UTC_26NO11_17755_kHz_DRM_The_Disco_Palace.rar
A big thanks to “Doug” for writing in and sharing his memories of 1620 WJDI and sharing his off-air recordings of WJDI’s big Christmas Eve broadcast of 1996. Doug recorded two hours of the show in amazing clarity from his home in Shandaken, NY. Doug’s recordings capture the moments right up to the point when the pole transformer blew. The third recording ends with the sound of dead air after the incident. Please see the 1620 WJDI story to read more about this. Doug recalls the following: “The day I helped Dave and Jim with the cage antenna erection will...
This ACE Model V has been sitting on the bookshelf for at least 20 years, neglected and worn. This weekend I brought it back to life. I have a few 1920’s battery sets in the radio collection but have never fired any of them up. I got the urge today. This early Crosley seemed like the easiest to get running. Wrong! After a struggle removing the chassis from the case to repair the open filament rheostat, I got it repaired for a test run tonight. Amazingly this thing fired right up and I’m “DXing” with it right now! I’m using...
I connected with Dave Schneider a year ago after posting some old WJDI audio clips on my blog. After exchanging some emails, we thought it would be nice to properly document the history of WJDI with facts provided by the person behind the operation, Dave Schneider. This story documents Dave’s interest in DXing at an early age and how this interest evolved into the first WJDI in 1970 using only 7-1/2 watts. WJDI would later be recognized as running one of the most powerful hand-crafted pirate transmitters on the AM dial on 1620 kHz during the late 1980s through the...
Pirate activity has continued to be slow at the top of the AM dial for most of this DX season, especially with the void left by the absence of The Big Q on 1710. Some new life has been discovered on 1720 kHz though, perhaps the new MW pirate “clear channel”. There have been a number of shortwave pirate radio shows being relayed on 1720 kHz during the last few weeks including Radio Free Whatever, Pirate Radio Boston and Partial India Radio. DXers from Montana to Florida and the Midwest have reported hearing these broadcasts. I’ve caught a few of...
