PUDXK-PreChristmas Meeting & Testing the netSDR at Muhos

It was nice not only to test and do some DXing at Muhos during the weekend 4th - 5th December but also to celebrate 2 x 50 years anniversary of two PUDXK-members (the two Jaris). We started again (like two other PUDXK-meetings) at "Sokeri-Jussin Kievari" at downtown Oulu (at Pikisaari, a small island just near the City Centre) - http://www.sokerijussi.net/.
At the listening QTH (JPRs DX-QTH Muhos) we had nice weather, some sunshine during the few daylight hours between 10 and 14 local time(sic) and temps around -10 degrees. Only about 5 cm snow, whereas in Southern Finland we got more and more during the week after this weekend, now accumulating to about 1/2 a meter at time of this writing!

Testing the netSDR
Testing was done only by "ear" without any equipments. I made some simultaneous files with Perseus & netSDR for later review. The Perseus was hooked up to an AcerLaptop (dual-core @ about 2 GHz)while the netSDR was connected to a bit older Dell (single core @about 2 Ghz tabletop pc). So the limitation of processing power limited us just to record everything on netSDR at FFT of 2048FFT/BLK and all the analyzing has to be made aftwerwards. The listening has to bedone using the spectrum display of the total span of 1300 kHz without measuring the exact carrier frequencies. The software used was SpectraVue 3.09. I did make some listening and freq. measurements also using a small span to achieve very good bandwidth resolution (picture) - and comparing the sensitivity with Perseus at the same time.

Performance of the netSDR as expected ...
was very good with a low noise floor and oscillator noise as stated in the specs. You have to notice of course that the unit tested was a prototype and as far as I know the real units (coming Q1-2011 ?) will be a bit better and there will be an option (?) to have even an oscillator of even lower noise soon. So by ear the output of netSDR sounded to be better than that of Perseus and/or IQ we had working at the same time. I do not know if some noise of Perseus was coming from the Perseus PSU as it was using the original power supply unit. The NetSDR was using an "old separate linear (?) PSU" originally used with SDR14 - not the original of 14 or netSDR. It seems that also the netSDR is equipped with a small switching PSU which should be replaced. An issue I fully do not understand - that was the case also with the original PSU of SDR14. Anyway the low signal performance of netSDR was good as well as filtering with the provided software (SpectraVue 3.09). I made a small comparison with very low signals on HF (the Papuan later on on 3905 kHz) by listening it directly on both the netSDR and Perseus. In genaral the reception was quite similar but the sound of netSDR sounded "better" and cleaner (the bandwidth of both rx´s was about 3 kHz). But the difference was very small. What we are missing still with the SpectraVue is the notch which is good on Perseus and on some situation wins the competition, when there is a strong het or signal nearby. As reported earlier the measurement of exact carriers was easier with netSDR/ SpectraVue as SVue tells you "automatically" 4 most powerfull carriers of the viewed span - and you can also see the spectrum (and carriers) at small spans when LSB/USB is used while on Perseus you have to use AM when looking at the spectrum or waterfall on small spans (usually we use 100 or 200 Hz spans). With Svue rather exact measurement can be done like on the picture: using the FFT of about 1Million and demod span of 100 kHz the resolution is about 0.1 Hz. Well, this is not often suitable and when you record 1300 kHz span you have to do measurements with the resolution of about 0.7Hz - which is, however usually enough.
As the unit was an prototype one, there was some decrease of spectrum (maybe the sensitivity as well) on the higher end of the mediumwave band (1500...1800 kHz) which could easily be seen on the spectrum. This issue has been reported also by RFSpace, however.

Recording the Spectrum ...
of 1300 kHz was good, and the 5 minute files were about 2 Gb each. While recording it was possible not only to listen but also to transfer file to external HDs, connect them etc which was very good as the netSDR was SUPER stable - it was running about two days without any crashes. This could be because it was connected by Ethernet and not by the USB. The USB-connected Perseus did suffer of some instability - an issue detected earlier also - you have to be careful when connecting other usb-devices when you have Perseus recording - we had some issues when the Perseus stopped working during these situations. The connecting of netSDR via Ethernet worked really good - this was reported by TuA earlier also when he was using the device at ENOX in November. The 1300 kHz span was good as this is enough for the entire MW-band to be captured. The size of files is so about 12 x 2 Gb = 24 Gb/hour when Perseus record files (using the 2 MS/s/1600 kHz span) of about 2,3 Gb/5 minutes which makes about 28 Gb/hour. OK, not a very big issue, but during the 10 hour session you can save about 40 Gb of HardDisk. We did not tried to record other than 1300 kHz SPANs duringthe tests. It seems we did not do the calibration very well, as the both NetSDR-files and Perseus-files seems not to show correct frequencies, the NetSDR files seems to have an error of about 1 Hz (too much) while Perseus shows about 2-3 Hz too much. Shame on us.

Evaluation of files later ...
at home I finally made some afterwards listening ("Post DX-session evaluation") of the files of total of about 300 Gb. Again there was no big difference between the signals I listened to, so in general both hardwares worked ok. Maybe I can do some real "DX-listening" with those files later (I transferred only some files of TOH´s of the two nights with me) in a few days. I know some files have already been analyzed by JVA who has also a powerful "automatic split frequency capture&analyze software" - but he can tell about it later on. The listening was done using my Pentium dual-core @3GHz (4 Gb memory) PC so it was easy and took maximum 10-20% of the processing power. The recommended PC/Laptop for the NetSDR is at least about 2 GHz/dualcore, but as we noted the recording and listening (without exact carrier measurements) can be done easily with older pcs/laptops of about 2 Ghz/single-core. Then you have to use the full spectrum view and set the FFT low (like 2048 FFT/BLK) and possible set the screen update speed (n=10-20). And furthermore - you do need a BIG HD (preferably an internal, but the external works ok and there is no problem with multible USB-connections as you have the RX hooked up to the Ethernet port).

The reception conditions...
towards "TA" were rather average to good especially on 5 December (coming better later that week) and some early reception of common NAs were noted starting at around 19 utc. Also some Latin American were noted at night on both 4 and 5 December. The conditions were rather wide spread however with stations from Venezuela to West Cost.The antennas used during the tests were beverages (700-900 meters)usually at around 290 ... 305 degrees.

Last but not least...
I have to point out that the NetSDR is priced at about 1300...1400 euros - and you can get a Perseus at about 700...800 euros, so if the money talks you can get "about the same" with 500 euros less. However, if you want to see the exact carriers easily, prefer using the SpectraVue (or SDRRadio) software and like the "look and feel" of NetSDR and last but not least - like to use the Ethernet connection (and easily connect the device used remotedly via net) the choise is NetSDR. And there will be some software development going on with the SpectraVue (I believe), SDRRadio and what is the most interesting with the totally new "CuteSDR", which seems to be an open source platform to develop softwares available also for Mac OS - an issue most wanted by the increasing number of Mac-users among radio enthusiasts!
Well, which one? for myself - I´d like to have them both.

Thank You very much for RF-Space letting us to test this proto of the great new receiver, let´s hope we will see the final products soon!

A testfile of 5 minutes covering 500-1800 kHz will be published later on for those wanting to test with the SpectraVue 3.09 or later.
73 TK

SWR Special Summer Meeting Broadcast - Results of the Competition

I have finally got the list of the DXers who had accepted reports to Scandinavian Weekend Radio on August 6-7th 2010 and we have done the decisions of the winners of the competition. As we reported earlier, a special QSL will be out - the Art Director has been doing the first drafts and we hope to get the printing machines printing during the Christmas Season, please be patient!

The list of reporters and distances from the tx site Virrat is:
Europe/World: Alan Pennington, Caversham, UK. Distance: 1900 kms.
Scandinavia: Henrik Klemetz, Borås, Sweden. Distance: 780 kms
Finland: Raimo Karjalainen, Rantsila. Distance: 257 kms.
Thanks to Mauno / MR for calculating the distances!

The prize of the most distance reporter, the WRTH 2011 (from the WRTH) will go to Alan soon!
The special prizes for two others will be sent also soon - these are donated by the Kymenlaakso AMK University of Applied Sciences.

Thanks to all the reporters!

73s, The FDXA Summer Meeting 2010 Team.

King´s Village DX-Station October 2010: Radio Verdad Guatemala 4052.5 kHz

Also this month a station on the tropical bands was chosen. This is mainly because this particular station is one of the few station still transmitting from Central America on tropical bands and it is a very friendly one for radio ethusiasts. I remember to have heard back in the 20´th century and got also a reply then. I tried it a couple of times this fall when it was transmitting with a temporary small transmitter on 4055 kHz but I think it was rather hard to capture in Europe. Now after the end of October ( I checked it on Oct. 28th and found it with rather good signal) it was again on 4052.5 (4052.455) and since then it seems to be a regular visitor on this a bit odd frequency between 75 and 60 mb.
Information I have seen (thanks to R. Wayne Borthwick, VA7GF vie Glenn Hauser DXLD):
The antenna is a 89 m long with a phasing stub 11m long hanging near the middle. The two current nodes are separated to give near maximum collinear gain (about 7.5 db above isotropic theoretical). Since the antenna is oriented NE to SW it is ideally oriented toward covering Mexico and Western N. America on one side and C. America, S. America on the other side.

I designed it so the lower elevation angle minor lobes are about 8 to 10 dB down off the ends of the antenna to cover E. USA and Europe. It hangs over a gully with a max depth of about 25m and is end fed through a matching network by approx. 10 m of RG8 coax. The matching network is mounted in a sheet metal box on the tower and consists of a single 30 cm diameter coil of three-eighths soft copper tubing. Top of the coil is to antenna and bottom to ground with the 50 ohm tap about 1.8 turns up from the ground.

The big problems in the installation were getting a good solid ground in dry earth covered by concrete and buildings. Lots of work by the mason chipping holes for the ground wires in the concrete. It also turned out the power feed from the transformer at the edge of the of property had a bad neutral so today that got fixed. Prior to that we were completing the neutral current through our antenna ground, and indication that the antenna ground is at least capable of a few amps at 60 Hz without too much voltage drop.

Hope this and the 500 W carrier from the Omnitronix solid state transmitter helps reception up your way. 73 (R. Wayne Borthwick, VA7GF, Oct 29, WORLD OF RADIO 1537, DX LISTENING DIGEST).

Freezing DX!

Two important issues are to be announced soon:

1) The list of the accepted reports from DXers of the SWR FDXA Summer Meeting Broadcasts 6-7th August.

2) The King´s Village DX Stations October and November.

While waiting for these news (which are not from the DXleaks) we can enjoy the Art of the Arctic Winds coming from the North Pole at the window of the DX-QTH at King´s Village. Yes, it has been freezing times the last two weeks with temps. down to -20 degrees C. But we are used to manage, unlike the friends of us in Central Europe.

73 TK

How to Listen to the Philipinos on MW?

During the "Golden Years of DXing in 1970´s" with loops and small wire antennas (and an old tube receiver) one could easily get a few MW stations from the Philippines also when they started the broadcast day. I remember one of these was DWWW on 1280. And several others, but that was before the Asians adjusted the channels to the current 9-kHz spaced allocation which is everywhere but in Americas.
Things become a lot more difficult later on. However, during wintertime, especially in October, sometimes you can get a few (a dozen seems to be almost the maximum number) of them even in South Finland. What you need is a wire to 50...80 degrees (a beverage could be best or a BOG/LWOG) of about a wavelength long and of course a suitable receiver. Nowadays a SDR-rx which records the whole band before the sunset (usually in Finland around 12-14 utc) at least during the TOH´s is good. A good outdoor loop (ALA100 for example) can be used as well, but you have to reduce the intereference from Europe. In Lapland the situation is of course better.
It seems that last season was not that good as the more Northernly stations (Japan, Korea and Northern China) were often the dominants. For these areas in South East Asia, you need actually a bit more disturbed propagation conditions.
This year I has been able to note at least two good days for reception of Philippinos in October: the 5th and the 10th of Oct. Some new frequencies were noted like 684 (Aksyon Bacolod) and 864 (UNID so far). I have tried to measure some of the offsets (list) as quite a few of them seems to be rather stable on their offsets. From the list all but those on 1422 (maybe back on nominal now?) and 1575 have been noted recently. Some of these might be possible even in Central Europe - at least the easily recognizible carriers? Please note the accurancy of the offsets is about 1 Hz due to the daily variation, Doppler effects and the resolution / accurancy of Perseus (some of the measurements have been done by SpectraVue-IQ).
What's also interesting with the Philipinos is the language (sounds a bit like Spanish) and the style of programming they have (some of them religious, though). Those having "normal" informative / music programs also identifies rather well with call letters and/or slogans. They seems to have to give "the official ID" prior to closing down.
The published lists of "KOJE" etc of NA-MEX stations is a big one as the lists of Latins (and so seems to be the lists of logged "Kiwis" as well nowadays. This is a tiny one, but the small number can become bigger - so let´s try to get them!

New SDR-Equipments & Tools

While waiting for a new NetSDR with the latest versions of software I made some tests with SDR-Radio SOftware. I was not very satisfied to measure frequencies accurately or maybe I just do not know how to do it? However it works OK and especially the easy connection with remote RXs is interesting.

The software has a nice tool to analyze IQ-files to make quick waterfall charts of several files. What I would like to add here is lines of frequency steps (like vertical lines / grids for every Hz or so).

Here is an example of a typical situation on 1580 kHz - the TA conditions were rather poor, but the dominant TA carriers can be seen around the nominal (usually: Maria Barranquilla right below, Bogota station on around +4 Hz and the Dominican on around +16 Hz. I had to adjust contrast to show only the strongest carriers as there are a lot of RFI at my home QTH. Interesting smearing can be seen also before the sunrise.

King´s Village DX Station September: Radio Fly, Papua-New Guinea

It is not very often that a new shortwave station starts transmissions on tropical bands. However, during the summer the first signals from this new station in Papua- New Guinea was first time picked up in Finland.
After I got my Asia-BOG working in September I could listen to Radio Fly on 3915 kHz very often, sometimes with good signal during the night time broadcasts of mostly music with some IDs and announcements. The best time was always before the local dawn.
However in the end of the month this frequency has been silent. I have heard them on 5960 kHz but very seldom and always with the very heavy intereference from China which has a powerfull transmitter on 5960.
The station is run by the Ok Tedi Mining Company and there is more info on their web-page here
Let´s hope the station will resume using 3915 kHz in the future.

Trying to Catch the Harvest Moon and check the Autumn Equinox in Northern Germany!

I had a very nice overnight (21-22 Sept.)visit to a wellknown DXer Jürgen Bartels at Süllwarden near the coast of North Sea. JBs QTH seems to be one of the best in the Continental Europe, as being in the countryside there is no big manmade noise - and being at the edge of Europe facing towards the North America, it is ideal for TransAtlantic DX. I was amazed of the set ups of JBs equipment: everything including FM and TV was controlled by a sigle PC and you can even do simultaneous listening with sdr-rxs (Perseus / WinRadio)and exact measurements of carriers by SpectrumLab - the demodulation was done by SpectrumLab as well - and the antennaselection by the famous JB´s StationList. Jurgens photo of the setup with some TVDX going on is here.
We did note some of the most easier North American stations on MW but something was coming through by tropo on FM and even something by Es on TV. But we so much to talk during the night that the real listening was impossible.
You can see more about the Jürgen´s set up at his web pages:http://dx.3sdesign.de/
When flying back from Berlin later that week I noted also a very rapid temperature change in the troposphere - later on I heard that a good ducting with big tropos on FM were noted (from Finland to Romania and Eastern Europe)!

And yes - we were very near the Autumnal Equinox moment - and the Harvest Moon was almost 100% Full during the Night - wouuuu!

Thank You Jürgen - Danke Schön!
73 TK

Final Call For Reports of SWR 6th August

This is the final call of all reception reports of the special SDXL-Summer Meeting 2010 broadcast over Scandinavian Shortwave Radio on August 6th.

All correct reports will be answered with a special QSL.

Furthermore there will be prizes:
1st Prize to the most distance listener - WRTH 2011 from World Radio TV Handbook-
check: WRTH

2nd The most distance Scandinavian
and
3rd The most distance Finnish
Dxers will get a special prize as well.

Please send your reports with the return postage to SWR (before 1st November 2010):
SWR

DX-Station August 2010: CX154 Radio Patria Treinta y Trés, Uruguay 1540 kHz

On August 21st I had one of the best Uruguay-openings on mw for years. Although I could "listen" (record) on 1390 - 1580 kHz, several - for me new - captures were found. Again, Thanks to Henrik Klemetz some of these were solved/verified, like Treinta y Tres 1390, Radio San Carlos on 1510 and the station one 1540 which turned out to be from Treinta y Trés as well.

The station of August on 1540 is RADIO PATRIA, TREINTA Y TRES, URUGUAY and it is easy for me to announce this as the station of August as it made it through interference by other Latins and Europeans (on 1539)!

I thought the station has been heard earlier in Scandinavia, but I am not sure as the station writes "Es la primera confirmación de recepción a larga distancia que recibo".

Thanks for the material send by the stations technical personel Sr Gian Carlo Fallini as well as Paolo Fallini CX2UA for the photos!
More pictures at the blog of CX2UA

It really seems the start of the season has favoured some stations further South, like from Uruguay and Argentina, but also some from Peru. So the conditions might be a bit different of that of the season 2009-2010.

73,tk

SALUDOS CORDIALES Y GRACIAS AM 1540 RADIO PATRIA TREINTA Y TRES!

DX-Station of the Summer 2010: Radio Corporación, Cerro de Pasco 1540 kHz

Before the medium wave season really starts (actually it has started already) I decided to announce a DX-Station of the Summer Season - this station was observed first time already in March 2010 and was identified first in Sweden by several dxers with the help of Henrik Klemetz - it has been noted also after that a copule of times even in summer months. Thanks to the stations frequency which is a bit above the nominal, it can been "seen" often and there is also a "het" easily audible on the upper side band of 1540 with the favourable propagation conditions to Peru. The station is located very high - at the altitude more then 4300 meters - maybe one of the reason it can be heard so well and often although there are several stations around 1540 kHz often present. The station identifies also as "La Voz de Cerro de Pasco" but often just "Corporación" is heard. I don´t know if the station is active on its sw-frequency 6170.

Saludos Cordiales a "Radio Corporación"!

It´s Harvest Time!

This years Harvest Time of DXing Latin America has begun indeed! Some nice openings to Peru and LaPlata area has been noted.
Particularly interesting conditions has been observed before the current (23-26 August) Coronal Hole distururbance.
On August 20th the conditions favoured more Argentina while on August 21 some interesting stations from Uruguay were noted. As an example of the mixed stations can be seen on the screenshot of an IQ-recording containing pictures at 0230 when Radio Belgrano on 1509.99 was dominating (it has been on this "split" quite a long time) - but soon another station just above it was noted - also from LaPlata - the second screenshot shows the situation at 03.00 when another one was dominanting. After 03 utc with some commercial spots for Maldonado and San Carlos are was heard and a full ID after that ""...15-10 kHz Radio San Carlos, una radio regional cubriendo este y sur del Uruguay.." (Thanks to Henrik Klemetz for checking the ID).
Once again an example how modern SDRs help us to see there is something else on the channel than the normal dominant!
Some other (for me new) stations were noted on August 20-21 like Argentinians 1550 LT23, 1560 LT11 and a few still unidentified Uruguayans on 1520 (pres. one of these was from Uruguay) and 1540 (commercials mentioning Uruguay, tentatively this could be Radio Centro). It seems quite a few new split frequenccies were noted as well. Stay tuned for more info and the station of the month to be revealed soon!
73 TK

The MW-DX-Season 2010-11 Officially Started!

This season´s mw-dx was officially opened during the "SDXL-Summer Meeting 2010" at Haapavesi. The Fireworks at the end of the meeting together with a heavy thunderstorm (sic!) marked the "official start" this year.

It seems there has been some good Trans Atlantic DX-openings like the one on August 9th with some nice loggings of Bolivia (at least on 1440 by JVH) ! and a few Peruvians (1540.16 seems to be rather common now, noted also at my home QTH). It seems we will see some good openings towards Latin America also later this month.

More about the Summer Meeting with some pictures later on. Stay Tuned. In the meantime please try to identify some of the DX-stations from the small video of the performance by our special guest star at the meeting Sauli Heikkilä ("DXing in 1970´s").
73 TK

Special Broadcast from the SDXL Summer Meeting - and a Competition

A Special broadcast by the Scandianvian Weekend Radio on 1602 kHz & HF will be broadcasted from the SDXL Summer Meeting at Haapavesi on August 6th - 7th. More info at swradio.net.

Competion for DX-listener´s

SDXL in co-operation with Northern Dimenson DXers, Haapavesi Folk High School and King´s Village DX will announce a competition for DXers in Finland and abroad!

Who will be able to pick up the broadcasts on August 6th-7th from the biggest distance (from the TX site at Virrat, Finland N 62°23' E 23°37').

The competition will have 3 categories:
1) Finnish listeners
2) Scandinavian listeners
3) Rest of the World

All reports should be sent (with a return postage) to SWR (see SWRadio.net). Please give a distance and/or your coordinates with the report.

Correct reports will be replied with a special QSL-Card.

More info about the convention at http://dx2010.blogspot.com/

Best 73s
SDXL Summer Meeting Team

Happy Summer Solstice !

So we are again wittnessing the time when the "sun is standing". Although the sun was behind some clouds at 14.28 local time (11.28 UT, the exact time of the solstice) it seems we are starting to move towards the next medium wave season - slowly. As the sun stands so did my little friend on the tree, staring at my ALA100 loop under the old oak tree in my backyard. The antenna is having a summer rest for a month or two...

King´s Village DX wish you a Happy Summer Solstice 2010!

The Secret of the "Kantelemies" revealed!

During a short visit at Haapavesi with some preparations for the next solar minumum (more about that later on)I got the answer of the strange "Kantelemies" / "Kanteleman" standing at the backyard of the DX-Summer Meeting Venue´s Buildings at Haapavesi: the guy is playing with this nice instrument the first version of an old traditional Finnish song which has been an interval signal of YLE "Suomen Yleisradio" - Finnish Broadcasting Company since 1931! Actually the very first tune was played with kantele and the later version with other instruments and finally by the computer. A Kantele is a tradional instrument of the people of North Eastern parts of Europe at least. A kantele (pronounced [ˈkɑntele] in Finnish) or kannel ([ˈkɑnːel] in Estonian) is a traditional plucked string instrument of the zither family native to Finland, Estonia, and Karelia. It is related to the Russian gusli, the Latvian kokle and the Lithuanian kanklės. Together these instruments make up the family known as Baltic psalteries (Wikipedia). Haapavesi is very well known of this instrument and has been called also as a "Kantele Town" of Finland! You can listen to the original YLE-interval signal by clicking the video above.

More details with programs (in Finnish) now about the FDXA Summer meeting blog: http://dx2010.blogspot.com/.

The next picture shows that the preparation for the next solar minimum has been taken place at my Haapavesi QTH: totally 238 birches has been planted in two rows (to the north west, towards North America) - so maybe I have to start more activily to dx North America after 5-6 years when the trees should be of about 5 meters high. I will be back of the results then...

More details of the SDXL Summer Meeting in August

...will be published soon. In the meantime, you can take a look of the symbols of the event: maybe the first one is a guy tuning an old tube receiver and another one, erecting antennas during the winter dx-pedition or maybe "following the tracks of a DX" (which seems to be a new habbit among sdr-dxers...).
Stay tuned for more information at sdxl-summer meeting 2010

King´s Village DX-Station April: Radio Victoria, Arequipa

This station was finally IDed in April after many recordings on this very interesting channel, often dominated by the Venezuelan or Colombian stations. As Radio Victoria is a bit low on the frequency it is easy to see even without audio. Now on April 10th the channel was free of other stations and the station ID was heard almost in the beginning of the IQ-recording starting at around 0250. In about an half an hour the station had only this announcement and non stop music programmes.
As my sister´s son (Jarkko) visited Arequipa he made some recordings with an "semi ultralight" Philips receiver & MP3-recorder (Transcend MP330, which is a nice little device with a line-in!) and he managed to make some observations of the Peruvian stations in Arequipa. More about his observations later on - the recordings have been analyzed by Henrik Klemetz. Among other things some announcements and slogans of Radio Victoria were found:”Radio Victoria, llegando a todo el sur del Perú, presentó ‘Los Protagonistas’ en Victoria deportiva”. “Transmite, transmite, radio, radio, radio, Victoria. Radio Victoria, la emisora de Arequipa para el Perú”. “Radio Victoria, en todo superior, superior, superior”.
Thanks also for the logo of the station, Henrik!

Saludos cordiales a Radio Victoria, Arequipa!

King´s Village DX-Station March: Radio Cóndor Manizales

This station was heard on the nice "Manizales" dx-opening on March 26th. As in my earlier post the identity was found by Henrik Klemetz (TNX HK!) and the station also verified that it was really Radio Cóndor although the word "Cóndor" was just lost in the very deep fade at around 04.00. A nice email from the station´s director pointed out of a nice coindicence as my DX-QTH is near Kotka city in Finland (Kotka in English = eagle and "cóndor" is a big "Andean eagle" as well. The director Mrs. Ana María Mesa writes "Sí, el cóndor es un ave andina de gran envergadura. Es una bonita coincidencia."
Below is a clip with both the ID captured on March 26th and an "original" from the web (tnx HK!). Although it is hard to hear the "Cóndor" when the station was heard, the station verified that the program was from them, as well as the (canned) ID although it fell down fading out at the critical moment. Thanks for the picture of Manizales,Henrik.

Muchas Gracias Directora Ana María Mesa!

Measuring Latin American frequencies

During a few nice mornings in March I made some more offset measurements of the typical (and some more rare) stations of Colombia (& some other Latin American countries).
Especially on March 26th during a nice opening to Colombia favouring Manizales - Cali area, quite a few signals were well above audio level making IDing also by audio possible. The list of the statations heard is on picture below the article. The band was captured simultanously by IQ- and SDR-14-receivers at the King´s Village QTH covering 1190 - 1580 kHz. I have kept also one IQ on at home more to review the current conditions and make some observations during the sunrise period (usually about 15 minutes by daily basis) with a ALA100 loop (3x7 meters) in the garden. Although the urban RFI is heavy. sometimes signals do make their way up from the noise. On 26th March nice signals from some of those Colombians were noted also at home. The clearest was Sonora Cali mixed with Maria Manizales on 1500 kHz. At the picture you can easily see the slight drift of Maria and Sonora closing down (a clip with the Sonora sign off with QRM of Radio Maria).

The second figure shows a three days analysis on 1540. It is very easy to do with the SpectraVue automatically just to "listen" afterwards with waterfall and "allow file chaining" on. All measurements are done on a resolution of 0.19 Hz, but there is a calibration error of (below) 1 Hz. On 1540 it was nice to note that besides the common Bahamas (dominates during conditions favoring the Caribbean/Colombia) or TurboMix Cajamarca (during conditions favouring Peru) a Colombian station on 1539.994(5) could be noted. The waterfall shows it being the dominant on March 26th.

The station turned out to be Radio Cóndor Manizales which could be an "easy guess" as Mainzales was also strong on 1450.027 (no ID though) and 1500.005 (Maria). Thanks to Henrik Klemetz (again) to solving the ID!
On the bigger view a station on 1540.154-5 can be seen. This was first noted in Sweden by Gert Nilsson. On March 26th the close down was at 04.17 after instrumental music. A Peruvian or from Bolivia? Any ideas?
Remarks 17 April: According to Swedish DXers the station is Radio Corporación, La Voz de Cerro de Pasco (Tnx TJ, HK)


The whole list (mainly 26 March & a few others can be found by clicking the text below)
The list of offsets (google docs).

73 TK