Welcome


Hello and welcome to my blog.

My wife and I relocated to Mangawhai, Northland, New Zealand - just over 100 km north of Auckland in July of 2018. Whilst not as active as I would like to be, this is a record of what I have been hearing.

Sunday 23 September 2018

Yanks are about

Having turned my EWE from south east to north east recently I have been able to hear Mediumwave Yanks.

I had a quick flick around the dial on Saturday evening at 1000 UTC and as a result heard the following:

580
1100
USA, KMJ (presumed) fair with news then talk 22/9 SMF
590
1100
HAWAII, KSSK Fair/ poor 22/9
650
1059
ALASKA, KENI Fair with ads for the Alaskan National Guard then ABC nx. 22/9 SMF
710
1100
USA, KIRO with ESPN ID and mentions of KIRO Fair/ Good. 22/9 SMF
760
1100
USA/ HAWAII – unknown with talk – possibly either KGU or KFMB – Fair 22/9 SMF
940
1100
USA, KFIG – ESPN ads. Fair. Mixed with music station 22/9 SMF



It is not a great list, but the Alaskan in September was interesting.

Friday 21 September 2018

A new verification

All India Radio was heard on 10 August 2018 on the frequency of 9380 kHz coming out of Aligarh. A verification arrived this week.


Tuesday 4 September 2018

Inactivity 
Once we got home from living in Malaysia, I eventually erected a 5 metre high EWE antenna (15 metres between verticals) in a generally southeasterly direction. However, this aerial has proved quite disappointing with a lot of noise on it. The only two stations I could positively identify are Radio Capital in Lima, Peru on 1470 and Radio Rebelde, Cuba on 1620 and that had to be verified by listening ot the shortwave parallel on 5055.

The difference between listening for Latins up north and down in the deep south is that because of the angle of the antenna, you have to go through a lot of New Zealand and of course the stations that are there as well. It was very annoying as there were carriers on every 10 kHz, but they just were not good enough to rise above the locals.

So, having had enough of the noise and no signals, I turned my aerial to the north east. Unfortunately conditions were still noisy, however, I was able to easily hear and identify KUAU in Hawaii on 1570 kHz. I haven't listened to my recording yet, but I haven't got them verified so my task next weekend is to write a report.

I might yet get that elusive first verifiaction from my home QTH!

It might also be noted that Bryan Clark, living 3 or 4 km away in a very good DX location also reported that conditions were so noisy that he wasn't prepared to waste time lsitening either. This may be the end of the solar cycle, but compard to 11 years ago, it is rubbish!