Special thanks to contributor Walt Salmaniw for sharing the following loggings from his recent DXpedition to Ukraine. This continues his observations from yesteday's post.
Gayle VH
Another day and night of loggings from Kremenchuk, Ukraine. Enough to wet my appetite before leaving for Donetsk this afternoon. No more professional grade receivers nor antenna systems :-( Oh well. On the other hand I'll get the chance to dx in a small village. 4 years ago, there was 0 RF noise when I was there. I brought my Kaito/Degen 1103 with me plus about 10 meters of wire. I wish it had switchable side bands though. Can't have it all, I suppose. On to the loggings:
BELARUS 6010 1225 17 August 06 Belarus 1 hs program. I can't understand why there are so many low power channels carrying this service on 49 and 41 meters. All are easily heard during the day here. 6010 is listed with 5 kw from Brest and heard with fair strength. // are 6040 Hrodna fair/good with 5 kw, 6070 Brest with 5 kw at good levels, 6080 S9 + 20 with 150 kw from Minsk, 6115 also Minsk with 75 kw fair/good, 6190 Mahilou 5 kw good, over a cochannel, 7110 Hrodna 5 kw good reception, 7145 Mahilou 5 kw, much weaker than the rest at fair level. Nice ID at 1239 as "Belaruska Radyo Pershyi Kanal", or similar to this. Ads from 1255 to 1258. The only 2nd channel on SW is 7265 Hrodna at fair/good level with 5 kw. At 1259 5 + 1 time pips, and then "novyny na Kanaly Kultura" in Belarussian. ie: news on the cultural channel. Can anyone give a logical explanation regarding so many transmitters? (Salmaniw, Kremenchuk Ukraine)
AZERBAIJAN 6110.8 1325 17 August 06 A most frustrating frequency to monitor. A strong carrier throughout the day, but no or virtually no audio heard. Finally heard some very weak audio in probable Azeri at 1659. IS at 1700 then talk, but too weak to understand the language. Should be English, but I have my doubts. Sounded more like Russian style, but this is listed at 1730. In fact nothing heard at 1730. This will need more investigation, but I fear my portable gear won't be up to the challenge! (Salmaniw, Kremenchuk Ukraine)
ABKHAZIA 9494.75 1414 17 August 06. Strong S9 + 20 signal, but lowish modulation. Russian heard at this time with local weather , and ID at 14:18:35. Stronger when rechecked at 1435 or 1735 local time. Local, presumably Abkhaz music. Audio link seemed to have been lost at 14:48 during a Russian language broadcast, but resumed 5 minutes later. Radio Kuban id at 1453:40 with weather and Black Sea/Azov sea temps....very warm! 35 to 38 during the day, with sea temps of 26 to 28. A bit overmodulated. At 1500 into Radio Rossii programming. Well worth pursuing this one. I left the mp3 player running for the hour during dinner. Hopefully some nice ids in there somewhere! (Salmaniw, Kremenchuk Ukraine)
DJIBOUTI 4780 1738 17 August 06. A big disappointment so far. A new ute has parked right on frequency and is heard all day long on both side bands ruining the previous excellent reception. Finally heard well enough in a local language, but not an enjoyable experience! Didn't stick around for an id. Wonder if this ute is heard in North America or beyond Europe? (Salmaniw, Kremenchuk Ukraine)
KYRGYZSTAN 4010.06 1749 17 August 06. Kyrgyz Radio 1st hs program heard very well here. Good reception with local talk in presumed Kyrkyz. Occ cw on LSB so USB best to use. // to 4795 at same or sl lower level. They sign-off at 1759 with announcement also in Russian, I believe and into NA. I retuned them at 2340 at which time Bishkek is heard at very good levels, while 4795 was only poor to fair. Mostly EZL music and announcements in Kyrgyz. I left the mp3 running until 0152 to review later. (Salmaniw, Kremenchuk Ukraine)
RUSSIA 5965 1800 17 August 06. Found Radio Radonezh here with s/on and ID. This is an Orthodox service that sounds very right wing. Fair to good with some transmmitter blips. Also announce 1296 not heard. (Salmaniw, Kremenchuk Ukraine)
BULGARIA 5775 1901 17 August 06. IRRS with site presumed. Radio 6 International, Scotland program at excellent levels. (Salmaniw, Kremenchuk
Ukraine)
INDIA 4860 1920 17 August 06 AIR Urdu Service at very strong level until sign-off at 1930. One of the strongest on 60 meters at this time. (Salmaniw, Kremenchuk Ukraine)
BOTSWANA 4930 1922 17 August 06. VOA in English with good reception over presumed Turkmen R. (Salmaniw, Kremenchuk Ukraine)
UGANDA 4976 1924 17 August 06. Red Channel of Radio Uganda at fair/good
reception. Better than their Blue channel on 5026. I taped the rest of the hour for later monitoring. African high-life music at 1958. OC at 1959 and nothing further. Darn! They seemed to come back with a very distorted signal a few minutes later, so must have had a transmitter fault at the worst moment! A welcome logging as east Africa is very difficult if not impossible to hear in WCNA. (Salmaniw, Kremenchuk Ukraine)
MONGOLIA 4895 2141 17 August 06. Mongolian Radio heard with better results compared to the previous night. Sometimes at almost very good level. S7 to S9 signal. Confirmed that Russian NOT heard at 2300. All 3 frequencies remained in Mongolian. ie 4895, 4830, and 7260. 7260 heard after 2200 only and is the weakest, it seems. The m/w/f Russian schedule at 0000 to 0010 fits, kind of, since in summer this would equate to 2300 to 2310 as I heard the first night, and remains m/w/f. Will check tonight if possible again. (Salmaniw, Kremenchuk Ukraine)
TURKMENISTAN 5015 2308 S9 + 10 signal with Turkmen Radio 1st hs programme in Turkmen with listed 20 kw. A very powerful signal here. Many mentions of Turkmenistan and Turkmen. I returned at 0152 on August 18th to hear an exceptionally strong signal with repeated mentions of Asgabat. These were ads. At 0200 4 + 1 time pips, and into news in Turkmen. (Salmaniw, Kremenchuk Ukraine)
PHILIPPINES 15510 0204 18 August 06 Radio Filipinas. Fair signal in the clear with English news. // of 11885 is just barely audible under a cochannel. (Salmaniw, Kremenchuk Ukraine)
BRAZIL 4885 0217 18 August 06. Probably Radio Club do Pora with fair to good reception in Portuguese with repeated mentions of Pora. Strongest Brazilian heard here so far. (Salmaniw, Kremenchuk Ukraine)
BRAZIL 4985 0221 18 August 06. Presumed Radio Brasil Central at fair/good level. (Salmaniw, Kremenchuk Ukraine)
CUBA 5025 0223 18 August 06. Radio Rebelde with a long winded Spanish program. Excellent reception. (Salmaniw, Kremenchuk Ukraine)
COSTA RICA 5030.04 0225 18 August 06. Dr. Gene Scott's University Network heard at fair level with his usual programming. (Salmaniw, Kremenchuk Ukraine)
ZAMBIA 4960 0246 18 August 06. The Voice with an S9 to S9 + 10 signal with inspirational hymns in English. Lots of static crashes, though. USB has a ute, but LSB in the clear. Absolutely no sign of ZNBC, so wonder if they have left SW for good? (Salmaniw, Kremenchuk Ukraine)
RUSSIA 6160 0251 18 August 06. An absolutely impossible channel to monitor in Victoria. Weakly heard, presumably Arkhangelsk in Russian at fair level with Radio Rossii ID at 0300. Lots of splash from 6165 so fair level at best. Nothing local heard here, just the network feed. (Salmaniw, Kremenchuk Ukraine)
Final comments: I tried a bandscan on the MW band looking for north American MW stations, but not a peep yet. Vlad tells me this starts up within the month. A huge thank you to Vlad for his incredible hospitality once again. A DXer of the highest caliber in all respects, but get that loose coax connection fixed ;-) OM! We had the most enjoyable late evening using his WinRadio 383e which he ably demonstrated to me....got to get one of those. The DRM feature was of great interest to me. Even here in Europe. I was less than impressed with the technical limitations of the system.
With a strong signal it still took perhaps 15 seconds to lock on, sync, and start demodulating. Although the results then can be superb...fm quality from Luxembourg for example, I can't imagine the average listener being patient enough with this system. Will it ever catch on....me thinks that this may go the route of USB on SW. Remember that fiasco? Perhaps I'm overly pessimistic. Let's hope so. Time to head to Dnipropetrovsk to pick up my younger brother, and off to visit family in Donetsk. Cheers for now!..........Walt Salmaniw, Kremenchuk Ukraine, but usually in Victoria, Canada.