King´s Village DX-Station December: Radio Cucú San Jose Costa Rica

In November-December a Latin American station below the 1200 kHz channel was noted and it seems the split was a new one or I had not noted it anyway earlier. Finally when I got some audio it seemed there was a Spanish station with talk programming around 06-07 UTC and there was indeed some IDs at around 6 and 7 UTC. When I first listened to the clips it all sounded something like "Radio U" which was something like (maybe) "U Radio" from Ecuador. However, when HK checked the clips he immediatly answered to me "it is Cucú Radio"! Well, I had been looking only to the lists of South America and did not think it could be from Costa Rica as if I remember right I have never got anything from Costa Rica on medium waves ! Anyhow, the id seems to be "Radio Cu Cú - tu Radio"!

Since then the station seems to be there fairly often at least with the carrier visible (and some sudio also in January). This is a bit hard channel during good conditions as there a other stations usually also and La Voz de la Raza from Colombia on 1200.17 makes sometimes a big het here. Cucú has been on 1199.880 so LSB has to be used when listening to it.
Thank You Henrik once again for the work with this one. The station seems to have a web-page but unfortunately the audio stream is not working.

Saludos a Radio Cucú San José!

73,TK

King´s Village DX Special Station of the Holiday Season

Bergern Kringkaster LKE/LLE 1314 kHz

These were indeed interesting test transmissions organized by local radio hams and enthusiasts (check the link below). It was not that easy to hear in Finland and indeed almost impossible at my King´s Village DX-QTH 100 kms to the East of Helsinki. That´s because all my antennas pick up too much other interfering stations and Romania was on the top of the pile almost always.

However using my urban-DX-equipments (ALA100 3x7 meters + SDR-IQ) at home I was able to capture at least something although the local noise seems to be increasing al the time. The first attempt to hear the tests were on November 25 during the first transmissions. As the noise was high I tried to pick up a Morse-code ID but probably there were any as I could not hear these although the signal was clearly visible on 1313.995. It seems the carrier frequency was very stable after a one minute warm up (drifting only about 1 Hz at the beginning). Later on in Decemeber I made some recordings and when the Morse IDs were on they could make it through the local noise also! Also in December 26th the Piano-instrumental interval signal was captured. The distance to the TX was about 1065 kilometers. I think Bjarne Melde in Kongsfjord was the longest distance DXer to catch the station.

When playing a bit with Audacity-audio tool I found that almost all noise could be filtered away using the softwares noise filtering. You can compare the results by listening the clip below: first the original Morse-ID starting with "VVV..." and then a part of the clip filtered. And indeed by looking the software´s screen capture.You could also "read the code" as well. The clip from the box can be listened to by clicking this:

1314_Morse-ID

 Thank You Bergen Kringkaster/LA1ASK and Svenn Martinsen for these interesting tests and QSL! According to him the power was 120 watts with a vertical Comrod / Tjøstheim of 15 meters.

73,TK

Hi! My ALA100-antenna seems to be on fire (1st Jan. 2013 00.03 local time - 22.03 UTC)!
73,TK

PS: You can check what is happening and how winter / spring / summer is developing at the nearest market place of the King´s Village QTH (20 kms from the QTH) at Lovisa (Lovisa Town Hall Square) by clicking this: http://www.loviisansanomat.net/kamera.php