Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Last day of summer DX from Australia

For our friends in the southern hemisphere, looks like they just rounded up their last days of the summer shortwave season. Contributor, Bob Padula sends in his Last Day of Summer DX logs to share with our readers. Thanks, Bob.
Gayle VH

It is now official - Summer has ended and Autumn has commenced!

On the last day of Summer, February 28 2011, I did some propagation research in the 11 MHz band during our Melbourne early afternoon period, with plenty of longpath (darkness) activity from Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, and shortpath from the Americas and Asia.

In fact, there was evidence of multi-path propagation, which occurs during our early Autumn.

This is a summary of key occupancies as monitored from one of my favourite field sites on the Warrandyte State Park, about 20 km from central Melbourne, between 0330 and 0400 using the Eton E5 and a 3m random antenna tossed into a scrubby tree, not far from the Yarra River!
11640 CHINA CRI-Kashi Hindi
11665 MALAYSIA RTM-Kajang, carrying RTM-Sarawak
11670 CHINA CNR2 Chinese
11695 SRI LANKA DW-Trincomalee English
11710 ARGENTINA RAE French, one of strongest signals in the band!
11735 INDIA AIR Dari
11760 CUBA RHC Spanish
" CHINA CNR1 Chinese, co-channel Cuba
11780 GERMANY VOA-Lampertheim Somali *0330
11815 BRAZIL R. Brasil Central, on extended schedule
11840 INDIA AIR Hindi
12010 CUBA RHC Spanish
12015 SRI LANKA IBB-Iranawala Turkmen
12025 KUWAIT VOA Uzbek
12040 RUSSIA VOR Vladivostok English

Note: Arnie Coro, Technical Manager of Radio Habana Cuba, has asked me whether there is any propagation from Cuba into Melbourne during this time window on 11 MHz - only two outlets noted on this occasion - 11760 (almost buried under co-channel China), and 12010).

Regards from Melbourne!

Bob Padula
Melborne, Australia