New EWE and Frustration

I have erected a 5 metre EWE at our property in Titirangi, Auckland, where we spend the week working.

The aerial is not working well at all and even regular power houses such as KUAU on 1580 and XERF on 1570 cannot be heard. I have to discover what the reason for this is. The noise levels don't appear to be too bad. The section slopes down quite steeply at the back of the house. The aerial is probably 3m lower at the far end - whether that makes any difference or not I do not know. It may be the way I wound the ferrite core, or the way things are connected up. It is a bit frustrating as we are within sight of the sea, so I should be able to hear things.

I will be trying to change things soon with the hope that I might hear something.

Ironically, the only frequency I could hear thing on was 1170. I think it was too early for the Aussies to come in, so it likely wasn't 1170. What it was I don't know - perhaps a birdie from a NZ station?? What I do know is that right on the top of the hour it faded!!

KEIB 1150 AM

I had the pleasure of logging KEIB in Los Angeles on 1150 kHz over the weekend. The signal was fair but conditions were quite noisy. If I used the passband facility on my radio (set at -.800, so almost a full kilohertz below the signal) I got a decent signal and was able to pick out a number of details. The splash from 1152 was quite bad. Reception was at 1000 UTC.

New EWE and things heard

I have finally got around to putting up my new south east EWE. I had one there originally, but it didn't perform terribly well, so I moved it to become a north east EWE, where it has performed admirably. Unfortunately the weather intervened before I could finish it this weekend, so next Saturday's job is to complete it.

While I was down in Auckland this week, I left my laptop running and the SDR and recorded 1430 kHz for 10 minutes each day from 0858 UTC. I have heard snippets of things on the frequency, but not much that you could really identify.

I was pleased to hear some music recorded on the 23rd and an announcement on the 24th (not very clear). I was complaining to Bryan Clark how noisy it had been. When I went out on Saturday to bring the EWE down so that I could use the back end pole to share the back end of the new EWE I realised that the earth wire had snapped off in the wind. No wonder the signal was noisy and I am surprised anything was heard at all.

That evening following the repair, signals on 1430 were much better. I managed to log KVVN the Vietnamese language station in California with an announcement in Vietnamese and a song. Just before the hour a station was playing Tom Jones' 'It's Not Unusual'. There were later snippets of KLO, but nothing concrete to verify it. On Saturday evening there were 4 stations visible with their various offset frequencies.

I am recording again this week in the hope I may hear more.

Noumea is an interesting place

Noumea is an interesting place with no AM to disturb the airwaves, everything heard must be from overseas. Using my Etón E1 with only its whip aerial, I was able to hear a bit. I was staying in an Air BnB apartment on the Baie des Citrons just south of the city and there was a fair bit of noise around. From about 800kHz down there was a lot of noise. However, if I held the radio horizontally, ie with the tuning dial facing up, the noise was reduced.

My first listening session was from 0630 UTC on 2^nd October. New Zealand only stations were heard. They started to fade in around then. Darkness is complete at about 0715

The second session was from 0855, well after sundown and after sundown in Australia. Results were quite different as the Aussies proved more powerful than the Kiwis. Disappointingly the PNG stations were not audible. I suspect with a EWE pointed in the right direction things might be a bit different.

I have left out repeats, i.e. where I heard NZ early and again late.

612	0856	AUSTRALIA, 4QR Brisbane very good // 630 4QN Townsville – also good 3/10
621	0856	UNKNOWN –mixed - likely to be 3RN Melbourne and Rhema Whangarei. 3/10
639	0857	AUSTRALIA – sport. Possibly 4MS Mossman….. ? Good 3/10
657	0857	NEW ZEALAND, Star Wellington – good. 3/10
684	0857	AUSTRALIA, 2KP Kempsey good. 3/10
738	0858	AUSTRALIA, 2NR Grafton very good. //747 4QS Toowoomba and 774 possibly Melbourne both fair. 3/10
792	0859	AUSTRALIA, 4RN Brisbane Fair/ good. 3/10
837	0900	AUSTRALIA, 4RK ABC Capricornia good 3/10
936	0900	AUSTRALIA, 4PB ABC News Radio fair 3/10
990	0636	NEW ZEALAND, R Apna, Auckland fair with rock mx 2/10
1008	0901	AUSTRALIA, 4TAB Brisbane fair but noisy 3/10
1017	0636	NEW ZEALAND, R Sport Canterbury – fair/ poor 2/10
1035	0901	UNKNOWN – possibly a mixture of Aussie and Kiwi 3/10
1035	0920	AUSTRALIA, 2EA, SBS2 good in German. I could even follow the conversation! 3/10
1080	0640	NEW ZEALAND, NewstalkZB Auckland – good with talk 2/10
1098	0915	MARSHALL IS V7AB (presumed) fair in an indigenous lang. Nothing else fitted with what I was hearing. 3/10
1107	0637	NEW ZEALAND, R Live, Tauranga – fair with talk 2/10
1125	0635	NEW ZEALAND, Radio Sport Hawkes Bay Fair 2/10
1125	0914	VANUATU, Fair with a discussion in Bislama, presumed. 3/10
1134	0902	AUSTRALIA, 2AD Armidale fair with music 3/10
1143	0902	UNKNOWN – surging signal. 3/10
1161	0903	AUSTRALIA – unknown which one but fair with music. 3/10
1170	0910	AUSTRALIA, 2CH Sydney good with talk and mx. 3/10
1179	0637	NEW ZEALAND, R Ake, Auckland – fair with music 2/10
1188	0903	AUSTRALIA, 2NZ Inverell at fair levels 3/10
1206	0855	NEW ZEALAND, supposedly Trackside Radio Dunedin, but mention as made of grasslands (perhaps a local ad) and mixed with Aussie. Fair 3/10
1215	0638	NEW ZEALAND, NewstalkZB Kaikohe – fair with talk 2/10
1233	0903	AUSTRALIA, ABC Newcastle good 3/10
1242	0640	NEW ZEALAND, 1XX Whakatane fair with mx 2/10
1242	0904	UNKNOWN – possibly 4AK Toowoomba good with mx. 3/10
1251	0635	NEW ZEALAND, Religion – fair 2/10
1269	0904	AUSTRALIA, 2SM Sydney good with the end of the news. 3/10
1296	0640	NEW ZEALAND, A bit of a mystery because it was //1332 and 1341. NewstalkZB Hamilton is what I expected. Will investigate again 2/10
1314	0905	AUSTRALIA, 2KY Racing Radio Wollongong fair. 3/10
1359	0642	NEW ZEALAND, Coast Taranaki fair with music 2/10
1386	0642	NEW ZEALAND, Tarana – Good as always. 2/10
1413	0643	NEW ZEALAND, NewstalkZB Tokoroa fair but surging signal 2/10
1413	0906	AUSTRALIA, SBS1 Newcastle fair in what sounded like an island language. 3/10
1422	0922	AUSTRALIA, probably 3XY in Greek, but it didn’t sound too Greek to me! 3/10
1449	0643	NEW ZEALAND, National Radio Palmerston Nth, fair with mx 2/10
1458	0644	NEW ZEALAND, National Radio, Westport fair with mx 2/10
1476	0644	NEW ZEALAND, Trackside Radio Auckland fair with racing 2/10
1494	0645	NEW ZEALAND, Star Hamilton fair with religious talk 2/10
1512	0925	AUSTRALIA, 2RN Newcastle good. 3/10
1593	0645	NEW ZEALAND, presumably R Samoa fair/ poor – fading in 2/10
1602	0645	NEW ZEALAND, R Reading Sce audible but poor. 2/10

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.

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.

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!