Targeting Taiwan - Real Hard-Core-DXing

We have only one longwire antenna pointing east in Tampere DX-Club's listening cabin in Niihama, Tampere. It’s pointing to NEE, 60 degrees exactly. Antenna is not very long, only 330 meters, but it's pointing to Lake Nasijärvi so there isn't much man made noise in that direction.

During the last two AM-seasons I have found out that our 60-degrees wire works quite well towards Taiwan. So I have heard some nice catches from Taiwan before, but this September was exceptional. I heard so many new stations from Taiwan that I really started to study the secrets of broadcasting in Republic of China. Here are some thoughts of what I learned and heard.  

Language

There is a reason why even the most experienced DXers consider Taiwanese stations one of the most difficult DX-targets in the world. One might say Chinese stations are piece of cake compared to Taiwanese. Most of the Chinese stations can be identified based on just a few keywords and phrases as you can learn from the great article "How to Identify Chinese Radio Stations" by Mika Mäkeläinen. That is not the case for Taiwanese stations. Private stations have no standard time announcements or common form of station id. Most stations don't even speak Mandarin Chinese.

Taiwanese stations broadcasts in three major languages: Taiwanese, Chinese (Mandarin) and local minority languages (Hakka, Minnan etc.). Taiwanese (with its two major variants Taiwanese Hokkien and Amoy) is the most commonly used on Taiwanese stations. Although Taiwanese belongs to same language group with Mandarin, it's quite different language.

Even though you don't understand any Mandarin or Taiwanese, you will soon notice the difference in Chinese characters and how they are transcribed into the Latin alphabet. For example names of the radio stations in mainland China and Taiwan are different both in Chinese characters and in Latin alphabet.

In mainland China Chinese is written in Simplified Chinese character set endorsed by General Mao's government from 1950's. Taiwan has never adopted Simplified Chinese characters and use of them in official documents is even prohibited. So Taiwan uses the more complex Traditional Chinese character set.  Take for example radio station Chengsheng Broadcasting Corporation that writes its name as

正聲廣播公司 in traditional Chinese. But when I use Google Translator to convert the characters, name is:
正声广播公司 in simplified Chinese.  Notice the difference between second and third character.

Probably the best Asian radio directory Asiawaves.net uses simplified Chinese when writing Chinese and Taiwanese radio station names. If you copy a Taiwanese station name from Asiawaves in order to find more information about the station, you might have to convert Chinese station name to traditional Chinese before using it for Google searches. I also have Mandarin reception report form translated to me, and when I use it to report Taiwanese stations, I must first convert characters to traditional Chinese.

Another difference is the transcribing of Chinese characters into the Latin alphabet. In Mainland China Pinyin is the official phonetic system for transcribing Chinese into the Latin alphabet. The spelling of Chinese geographical or personal names in pinyin has become the most common way to transcribe them in English. Pinyin has also become the dominant method for entering Chinese text into computers in Mainland China, but not in Taiwan where Bopomofo is most commonly used. Bopomofo was introduced already in the 1910's alongside the Wade-Giles transcription system. Although Taiwan officially abandoned Wade-Giles in 2009, people in Taiwan use or transcribe their legal names in the Wade–Giles system.  

If we take the previous example of Chengsheng BC and paste the traditional Chinese characters to Google Translator which uses pinyin transcription system, we will find out that
Chengsheng (Wade-Giles) is Zhèng shēng  in pinyin.
Not a big difference?
Let’s take another station name. This is time AM792 Keelung Broadcasting Station.
Keelung (Wade-Giles and 基隆 in trad. Chinese) is Jīlóng in pinyin.
English pronunciation is roughly the same but transcription in Latin alphabet is quite different.

Numbers

Recognizing numbers greatly helps identifying stations. Fortunately for DXers frequency announcements in Chinese and Taiwanese are relatively easy. That’s because each digit in the frequency is treated as an individual number. It means that AM990 is pronounced AM nine-nine-zero rather than nine-hundred-ninety-nine. So learning numbers from 0-9 will go a long way.

It was surprisingly difficult to find the list of Taiwanese numbers that would have matched the numbers I heard on the air. When I googled “numbers in Taiwanese”, I got many lists and YouTube-videos varying greatly from each other. I still don’t know is it because of different dialects (Hokkien, Amoy, Minnan) or something to do with differences between spoken word and official written form.  Following list of Taiwanese numbers is completely my own based on what I have heard on the air in comparison to several lists found online.

Examples:
Taiwan BC, Hsinchu AM 1206
Clip starts with phone number khong-pat-khong-khong (0800-) and station announcement starts from 34 sec: “Taiwan Kon Po Kon Shi. Hsin(chua?) Kon Po Den Tai AM it-li-khong-liok (1-2-0-6)”

BCC Hsinchu AM 1017 local station identification
At 15 sec BCC’s distinctive top of the hour time signal and from 29 sec station announcement:
“Tiyon Gok Kon Po Ko Shih, Hsin(chie?) Kon Po Tien Tai... AM it-khong-it-chhit (1-0-1-7)”

What I heard

My AM-season started with great Far East conditions on 31st of August 2015. That night I heard two stations from northern Taiwan previously unheard for me.

AM792 Keelung Broadcasting Station, Keelung is listed in WRTH as 1 kW station.  Still it was audible at least three times in August-September. Keelung BS verified my report quickly with short English e-mail and some pictures from the events station has hosted. On the 27th of September Keelung came loud and clear with 17UTC id: “Keelung Kongpo Diantai AM chhit-kiu-li (792)". Listen Id at 10 sec.

819 Cheng Sheng BC, Taipei was a real surprise on this difficult frequency normally dominated either AIR Delhi, Shanxi or North Korea. But not at 1858UTC on 31st of August when ChengSheng was alone in the frequency giving local id in Mandarin: "Cheng Sheng Taipei… diantai AM ba-yi-jiu (819)". Listen id. This is the only time I have heard Cheng Sheng on this frequency. So it’s not an easy catch. Taipei and Keelung are only some 15 kms away so no wonder they were audible at the same time.

Cheng Sheng BC is very DX-friendly station. They verify correct reports with beautiful laminated full color QSL-certificate where they put listener’s picture in the middle.

Nice Taiwan openings continued three weeks later on 15th and 17th of September. I noticed some more BCC stations like 882 BCC News Network Hsinchu-tx and local ids from 891 BCC Tainan and 1017 BCC Hsinchu. 1206 Taiwan BC Hsinchu was booming at 20UTC on 17th and left no change for dominant Jiangsu Gushi Guangbo. Listen local id: “Taiwan Kon Po Kon Shi. Hsin(chua?) Kon Po Den Tai AM it-li-khong-liok (1-2-0-6)” at 34 sec.”

Best catch and the new station for me on 17th was again Cheng Sheng BC now Yunlin on 1125 kHz with local id: "Cheng Sheng Kon Po Kon Shi, Yunlin Kon Po Den Tai AM (1125)". Listen id at 20 sec. I have no idea how they pronounce those numbers after AM ? Also 1260 ChengSheng Taipao was audible at the same time with local program. Listen id here at 7 sec. They are using Taiwanese version of an old Harry Belofonte tune “Banana Boat Song” as their interval music.

My new discovery this fall was that Far East stations can be heard (at least in southern Finland) quite late at night up until 20-21UTC if the frequency is “Eurofree”. On 26th of September I noticed great late night opening to Taiwan that offered me three new stations.

1224 kHz is an interesting Asia fq these days. Guangxi Jingji Guangbo with 97.0 Nü Zhubo – Hostess Radio program is the usual dominant. Fortunately most Chinese stations have silent period at local night time leaving frequencies empty for other Far East stations. 1224 JOJK NHK-1 Kanazawa was also pretty common this fall giving local id before top of the hour at 20UTC. I also heard KBS-3 Gwangju with HLKC ids few time and even Neimenggu RGD from Chinese inner Mongolia. But in the evening of September 26th two Taiwanese stations dominated frequency.   

1224 HwaSheng BC (or Hua Sheng in pinyin) is relatively hard station to identify but at 1859UTC on 26th of September I was able catch pretty clear id: “Hwa Sheng Kon Po Den Tai AM chit-li-li-su (1224)”. Listen id at 17 sec. BCC Country Network, Kaohsiung was also on frequency at the same time as you can hear from BCC’s distinctive top of the hour time signal on the same audio clip at 1:14 sec. After some e-mails and Facebook messages HwaSheng BC finally verified my report with nice e-mail in Chinese.

1350 Chung Hwa 1 BC, New Taipei City has become pretty common catch this fall. First time I catch it with an id on 26th of September and since then I have heard the station at least five times now. On 1350 kHz Chung Hwa (or Chung Hua) broadcasts 1st programme “…1 Den Tai. Chung Hwa Kong Po Kon Shi”. Listen id.

Frequency 1287 kHz is full of Asian station from Kyrgyzstan and Iran to China, Korea and Thailand.  Late in the evening on 26th station with Taiwanese phone-in programme was dominating frequency. Signal got better and better up until 21UTC and I was able sent pretty clear audio clip to 1287 Min Li Radio, Fangliao. They also have Facebook-page and I received very friendly reply from the girls Carol and Vicky in English. This station is located in Pingtung county, southern Taiwan.  

27th of September was the best day for Far East DXing in southern Finland this fall. South Korea was booming with massive signals at 17-18UTC then strong signals from Japan at 19-20UTC. Taiwan was not the main direction of the conditions but after carefully listening through the recordings, I found two great catches also from Taiwan. On former YLE AM-frequency 963 kHz I heard weak but clear top of the hour id from "Taiwan Guangbo Gongsi, Chung Hsing Guangbo Diantai" aka Taiwan BC Chung Hsing Broadcasting Station, Nantou.

Another surprise was 1026 Chung Hwa 2 BC, New Taipei City. On 1026 Tien Sheng BC has been heard quite regularly but Chung Hwa 2nd program is a rare catch. Id was almost the same as Chung Hwa 1st program on 1350 kHz, only the words before “…diantai. Chung Hwa Kong Po Kon Shi” were different.    

Conditions to Far East were clearly better in September than in October. Still I was able catch two stations worth mentioning. 675 kHz has been Eurofree frequency since September when legendary Lopik-transmitter site in Holland was shut down and antenna tower demolished. Since then I have checked the frequency almost daily and finally on 27th of October before 21UTC I was able to hear typical Taiwanese night time program on frequency. Station was certainly 675 Cheng Sheng BC Peikang. This station should be more common in the future if the frequency stays free from euros.

Already in fall 2014 I was puzzled with station on 1161 kHz. It was using a familiar Christmas Carol as its interval melody on top of the hour, but I never heard spoken id. This October I heard the same melody again and later also some program that sounded Taiwanese. After some googling I end up to Feng Ming Radio’s web site (at http://www.fengmin.com.tw) where I found audio stream of their program.  From audio stream I heard the same melody at the top of an hour, so I was now positively able identify the station as 1161 Feng Min BC, Kaohsiung. I e-mailed two audio clips to the station and they quickly confirmed my reception with QSL-letter in Chinese.

I have sent mostly e-mail reception reports to Taiwanese stations. Currently bit more than a half of the stations have answered my reports. Percentage is much higher that from the stations in mainland China. I have used Chinese reception report form but over half of the replies have been in English.  I would say that most Taiwanese stations are able to communicate in English, but some still prefer Chinese.

Any comments and corrections to this article are appreciated.
Thanks to Pyry Mäkeläinen for floating audio player code.

Jouni Keskinen
jkz(at)sdxl.org

Pro FM Oradea 107,6 local ads and FFF-QSL!

Thanks to the new FDXA Es alarm ring via WhatsApp I was live on the FM band from the very beginning on June 25th evening when Sporadic E woke up with cx to a quite wide angle from Croatia to Belgium. Later on began a rather common final cx session with Romania on the band. My DX equipments on fire in Toivio Pirkkala were Sony XDR-receiver with the genius Polish software XDR-GTK and a 5-element Triax FM-yagi with rotator on the roofing top.

A Hungarian voice on 107,2 MHz faded away and soon I noted the very first Romanian station of this session on 107,6 at 1739 UTC: commercial break going on and after 40 seconds a clear Pro FM id, then more spots. Will be most fascinating to check the minidisk and possibly find some track with local origin from the ads.


Few days later I had headphones on beside my Sony JB920 –minidisk deck and the 107,6 track really gave nice local identity for Pro FM: A hotel-restaurant and another firm from Oradea! Quick look to the map: Oradea is located close to the border of Hungary and it´s officially bilingual while 25 % speak Hungarian. As a 10th biggest city in the country with population almost like in Tampere Oradea (Nagyvárad in Hungarian) is not as well-known as Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvár) which takes the major tourist streams in Romanian Transylvania.

Putting then the station to OnLine Log I noticed that JTK has caught the same commercial break in Helsinki 3 minutes later when Pro FM already had faded to zero in Pirkkala, and that station is underlined and marked with plus. So if earlier loggings will not appear later on, my sudden reception of Pro FM Oradea local break was luckily the very first in Finland. After many years I even enjoyed to send a reception report to a FM-station and quickly got brief e-mail verification from the vanzari (sales) department. So my first FM FFF QSL came true, at least at the moment.

Little bit later on I got to know that the honour of the first catch in Finland with “+” in statics any more does not go to the chronologically first listener, but according to new rules to the quickest OnLineLog logger. Sounds little bit confusing although of course the total change in FM DXing environment due to the SDR mass recordings, in good and bad, and possible “shirking” of own loggings and “screening” of others loggings must be considered somehow. Perhaps could be also valued that live catches could be treated in a different way in statistics, i.e. should there be some reasonable period of time to check live recordings to ensure the identification and for instance the local status of reception rather than rush it right away as a raw material in the OLL? Perhaps this would be a more fair deal, especially to not so experienced FM-DXers. Luckily one particular log entry is not as important to me as the listening itself, even though concerning my first potential plus-logging on FM. On the other hand, naturally if there are statistics, there must be some rules and rules should be as equitable and practical as possible. Not so easy task in our time as in many ways seems that only change is permanent. :-)

73 JVH

Jan-Feb 2014 QSLs: Some Asia and CLM-VEN

Last September-October after nice Far-East conditions I sent about a dozen reports to Japan and still some QSLs are coming slowly but steadily:

JOJB NHK2 Kanazawa daini hoso 1386
Nice full data QSL and promo material for snail-mail report. New WRTH has messed up the addresses of NHK2 stations, but you can find local addresses from NHK regional web sites. Correct address for this one is: 14-1 Ohtemachi, Kanazawa City, Ishikawa 920-8644, Japan.
JOUR NBC Radio, Nagasaki 1233
After 4 months stylish japanese QSL-card and short letter addressed "To whom it may concern".
JOWF STV Radio, Sapporo 1440 and

JOWL STV Radio, Asahikawa 1197
Very friendly letter and full data QSL from STV Radio Technical Section signed by Yoshiaki Amano. He verified my both reports to JOWF and JOWL. I was especially happy to hear 3kW JOWL 1197 in Tampere on the 20th of October 2013.

Verifications from Chinese stations are pretty hard to get. In January I sent 15 reception reports to China with letters in Chinese and CD and I am still waiting for my first verification. Meanwhile I have been lucky to receive two e-mail verfications.

Anhui Jingji Guangbo, Hefei 864
Nice e-mail in Chinese verified my report of Anhui Economic Broadcasting Channel. V/s remembered my last year report to Anhui Agricultural Radio. Anhui RGD seems to be one of the very few chinese stations to have listener service and a person appointed to handle reception reports.
Zhengzhou Jingji Guangbo, Zhengzhou 1458
I wrote short report to guestbook found from the station website and was lucky to receive two emails. They even made an article about my reception report on their webpage. This 1458 channel is not listed on WRTH 2014 and other Zhengzhou fq 792 is also missing.

My DX-highlight of the winter was a short but intense opening to CLM-VEN-PNR on the 21st of January. Especially the stations from Medellín were coming with full force. Peculiarly no stations from Bogota were audible.

YVOF Radio Trujillo, Trujillo 1280
Surprise station from 21.1 superb opening. Nice email letter with photo of station's pick-up in front of antenna mast, but no v/s name mentioned.
HJAZ Frecuencia Bolivariana, Monteria 1160
This one received many reports from Finland after the 21st of January. Coordinador Mario Sanchez Arteaga was still nice enough to verify my report with email. Thanks to HK for helping with this one.
HJNL La Cariñosa, Manizales 1450
Very nice signal and local announcements on 21st of January. Director Jaime Sanchez quickly verified my report. Thanks to TIK for v/s-info.
HJNT Radio Huellas, Cali 1470
Nice e-mail letter from Pedro Arturo Suarez. This same station HJNT (with different name Radio Total) was my very first MW-station from South America heard way back in the end of 1980's.
YVNE Radio Uno, Caracas 1340
E-mail verification letter from three directors of the station.
HJDU Emisora Cultural Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín 1410
Great looking formal PDF-letter with University's official letterhead signed by Directora.

This winter I have heard only one new North American station for me:
WXRL Lancaster NY 1300 verified my audio clip with nice letter and congratulated Finnish Olympic Hockey Team after sending USA team back home without medals.

Also one WPAS verification:
St. Joseph Church, Miltown Malbay Parish, Miltown Malbay, Diocese of Killaloe, Co Clare 27731 kHz. E-mail from Parish Secretary. This small 2200 people parish on the West Coast of Ireland has 2 churches.

Jouni (JKZ at sdxl.org)

February loggins from Sahalahti QTH

Yhteenvetoloki Kangasalan Sahalahden kuulumisista helmikuulta 2014 on luettavissa täältä:

http://www.kaapeli.fi/~jmantyla/SahaDX.htm

January loggings from new Sahalahti QTH

Here are the first loggings from my new QTH in Sahalahti, Kangasala, Finland  (some 180 km  north from Helsinki, 40 km east from Tampere). My receiver is an Icom IC-R8500 and the antenna is an 810 meter Beverage directed towards 307 degrees, that is from Sahalahti towards Chicago. Another Perseus SDR is waiting for better conditions... Full loggings and some information about my QTH is available at: http://www.kaapeli.fi/~jmantyla/SahaDX.htm

January 2014 loggings

EU

549 6.1. 0530 Spirit R. JM
1233 7.1. 2300 R Dechovka. JM

AF

171 18.1. 2100 Medi I, Nador. JM

NA

560 18.1. 0600 WQAM Miami FL. JM
570 16.1. 0645 CFCB Corner Brook NL. JM
580 4.1. 2230 CFRA Ottawa ON. JM
590 25.1. 0535 CJCL Toronto ON. JM
610 16.1. 0604 WIOD Miami FL. JM
640 5.1. 2315 CFMJ Toronto ON. JM
660 19.1. 0458 WFAN New York NY. JM
680 16.1. 0640 CFTR Toronto ON. JM
680 18.1. 0430 WRKO Boston MA. JM
700 19.1. 0545 WLW Cincinnati OH. JM
730 16.1. 0445 CKAC Montreal PQ. JM
750 6.1. 2245 CBGY Bonavista Bay NL. JM
760 19.1. 0540 WJR Detroit MI. JM
770 17.1. 0545 WABC New York NY. JM
780 19.1. 0500 WBBM Chicago IL. JM
790 25.1. 0534 KFGO Fargo ND. JM
800 17.1. 2030 VOWR St. John’s NL. JM
840 19.1. 0606 WHAS Louisville KY. JM
850 14.1. 2300 WEEI Boston MA. JM
860 19.1. 0430 CJBC Toronto ON. JM
870 18.1. 0705 t. WHCU Ithaca NY. JM.
880 6.1. 0546 WCBS New York NY. JM
890 17.1. 0900 WLS Chicago IL. JM
940 17.1. 0359 WINZ Miami FL. JM
970 17.1. 0605 WZAN Portland ME. JM
980 19.1. 0640 WCUB Two Rivers WI. JM
1000 17.1. 0909 WMVP Chicago IL. JM
1010 16.1. 0501 WINS New York NY. JM
1010 23.1. 0605 CFRB Toronto ON. JM
1020 16.1. 0500 KDKA Pittsburgh PA. JM
1040 17.1. 1025 WHO Des Moines IA. JM
1060 17.1. 2050 WQOM Natick MA. JM
1120 17.1. 0945 KMOX St.Louis MO. JM
1130 17.1. 0907 WISN Milwaukee WI. JM
1140 15.1. 0700 WQBA Miami FL. JM
1150 17.1. 0930 WHBY Kimberly WI. JM
1160 17.1. 0900 WYLL Chicago IL. JM
1190 16.1. 2205 WLIB New York NY. JM
1190 17.1. 0905 WOWO Ft. Wayne IN. JM
1200 6.1. 0600 CFGO Ottawa ON. JM
1200 17.1. 2155 WXKS Newton MA. JM
1240 6.1. 2210 CKIM Baie Verte NL. JM
1280 16.1. 0630 CFMB Montreal PQ. JM
1280 17.1. 0860 WNAM Neenah WI. JM
1290 18.1. 0800 CJBK London ON. JM
1300 17.1. 0732 WOOD Grand Rapids MI. JM
1320 20.1. 0605 WILS Lansing MI. JM
1360 18.1. 0400 WDRC Hartford CT. JM
1380 18.1. 0500 WABH Bath NY. JM
1480 17.1. 0830 WGVU Kentwood MI. JM
1540 16.1. 0900 CHIN Toronto ON. JM
1540 16.1. 2207 WDCD Albany NY. JM
1540 6.1. 0658 KXEL Waterloo IA. JM
1550 17.1. 0745 CBEF Windsor ON. JM
1640 19.1. 0400 WTNI Biloxi MS. JM
1680 6.1. 0605 WOKB Winter Garden FL. JM
1700 6.1. 0600 KVNS Brownsville TX. JM

CA

800 6.1. 0430 R Transmundial, Bonaire. JM
870 6.1. 2240 CMBD R Reloj. JM

SA

790 25.1. 0501 YVXM R Minuto, Barquisimeto. JM
1070 6.1. 0655 HJCG R Santa Fe, Bogota. JM
1130 7.1. 2215 YVRR R Ideal, Maiquetia. JM
1190 21.1. 0530 YVZD R Cultural de Tachira, San Cristobal. JM
1200,20v 21.1. 0615 HJIJ La Voz de la Raza, Medellin. JM
1340 21.1. 0556 YVNE R Uno, Caracas. JM
1410 21.1. 0557 HJDU Emisora Cultural Universidad de Antioquia, Medellin. JM
1580 7.1. 0620 HJQZ R Maria, Barranquilla. JM

JM, Jorma Mäntylä

N20 maximum jubilee, first 21 monitoring days

Tampere DX-listeners new dx-cabin with several beverages was installed in Niihama in autumn 1993. Finally in Christmas Eve night December 23rd 1993 first logging from N-cabin was made by VJR: 1458 Sunrise Radio, London 1458 and then R Tropical, Barra do Carças MG 4855.

To honor the N-cabin´s 20 years of history Tampere DX club announced a special listening period among N-activists: Target is to monitor dx-bands especially from December 1st 2013 to Epiphany, January 6th 2014 and to log at least one station daily to the Online Log: http://log.hard-core-dx.com/

During first 21 days, until winter solstice, target is reached, although in the beginning of the month conditions on MW were rather lousy, and during last week even declined. Typically MW band has offered several peaks on TA-frequencies, but signals have been in trouble with noise level and deep fading. Readable audios haven´t been too many and often hard to find.

To the table below is compiled some solar and MW condition data from these 21 days: Last columns’ remarks are based on the Online Log and on my own subjective observations on the band, mainly in the mornings before local sunrise. Of course especially now in the era of SDR and trawl recordings all loggings are not yet known. On the other hand, because of so lousy conditions, not so many recordings are likely.

My monitoring is made using  N-cabins´ 830 meters beverage directed to Columbia and Venezuela (277°), remote via net. The antenna works well also to Puerto Rico and Newfoundland or Peru, but doubtlessly not so well to La Plata or to inland USA. Conditions ranked by JA are included for comparison, but naturally cx in Southern Norway are often strongly different to those here in Southern Finland, not to mention in Lapland.

73 JVH

PS: Please note that Niihama NA-statistics are now updated by MCK (right top corner in the blog).

Tampere DX-listeners CASA-list now updated

 From the upper right hand side corner of this blog page you´ll now find an updated list of Latin American (CA & SA, including the Caribbean) MW-stations identified and OLL-logged using beverages of Tampere DX Club listening cabin. Niihama is located only some 6 km from the Tampere city centre, but in the middle of the forest. The main listening period in the N-cabin is generally concentrated to the period from October to January, so this update period from January 2013 to early December 2013 contains already some new stations. Of course the current solar phase very near the sunspot maximum and the polarity change of magnetic field affects strongly too, even though this maximum is supposed to be the lowest in 100 years.

113 CA-stations. The most remarkable new station is by JPF logged CMBQ Radio Enciclopedia, La Habana 530, a new TA-frequency as well. This cubano game nicely during January 2013 top NA-conditions. There are now 44 different Cuban stations identified using Niihama DX-cabin beverages, while on the 2nd place is still held by Puerto Rico with 22 stations and the 3rd by Mexico (12). Winter 2011-12 is overwhelmingly number one in amount of loggings by 67 stations, while this MW-period so far by 31 is still already ahead of the previous period.

192 SA-stations. In the updated South American list the most “historical” point is the successful catch of two new MW-countries: Guyana 560 and Paraguay 920. In the country competition Colombia leads Venezuela with basketball numbers 87 – 62. Peru has 13 stations in the list while Ecuador 12. Most embarrassing is that from the huge Brasil there is only 9 stations logged and from Argentina only 6 – and Uruguay is still totally missing from the list: Who will be the first happy fellow catching Uruguay in Niihama (or later from the SDR N-trawl)? – The most powerful SA-period in N-history in clearly 2010-11 by 99 loggnings. The current ongoing period isn´t yet in the midway, so total 53 is not bad, and there is more to come.

CASA-list of Niihama (/N or /Ne in loggnings, e = remote via net) can freely be exploited by every DXers: In addition to N-activists, perhaps this list could somehow be useful also for other beginner or moderate level MW enthusiasts listening in southern Finland in order to get a wide general view to the Latin American MW band, i.e. what kind of stations can be expected when tuning to those most exciting zero ending TA-frequencies.

73 JVH

QSLs from China

China on medium waves is interesting but challenging DX-target. Number of stations is big but for most European DXers language barrier is too high. With the help of Internet and the great sites like Asiawaves and Google Translator it is possible to make small cracks to the language barrier, but QSLing Chinese stations is still a demanding task.

With the help of a friend I managed to get my reception report form translated in Chinese (Mandarin) and in January I sent 12 reception reports to Chinese radio stations. With the letters I enclosed audio CDs of the program I had heard.

So far the reply percentage has been quite low, about 30%. But at least it's not zero. Personally I value these QSLs more than most of those one-liners I use to receive from North American AM stations. Why the reply percentage of Chinese stations is so low? My guess would be it’s partly because of Chinese bureaucracy. As one Chinese v/s put it in his e-mail: "Our broadcast station is part of city's propaganda department which in every city belongs to the Communist Party of China. We do not have a QSL card, that is to say that if we send you a letter, it must be reported to the competent authorities for approval and the result may fail. So just in this email I want tell you that what you hear is our radio and television news broadcast."

So far this year I have received verifications from the following stations:

Anhui Nongcun Guangbo, Hefei 1008. Anhui PBS' Agricultural Channel verified my report with nice formal letter in Chinese and QSL-folder with both English and Chinese verification texts.  Letter was signed by the chief editor's office of Anhui Radio.

Guangdong Zhujiang Jingji Guangbo, Guangzhou 1062. This Radio Guangdong's Pearl River Economic Channel broadcasts mostly in Cantonese, which makes is even more difficult to identify. Fortunately it uses "eFM"-slogan in English which is relatively easy to make out from otherwise Cantonese program . Guangdong PBS is the largest media network in Southern China. Network Media Director Ding Zhiwen sent me a PDF-letter in Chinese with information about Guangdong PBS’ several radio and TV channels.

Tianjin Jingji Guangbo, Tianjin 1071. Tianjin Economic Radio’s Vice Director verified my report with nice bilingual (Chinese/English) e-mail.  He had listened my CD and told that the program I heard was a medical hotline service program called Jiànkang jiayóu zhàn.

Qiqihar Xinwen Guangbo, Qiqihar 1197. I heard Qiqihar PBS’ News Channel on 28th of February 2013 and it took only few hours to get e-mail reply from the station, after I sent Chinese e-mail to the address found on their website. V/s seemed to be familiar with the concept of DX-verification as he wrote nice full data QSL-letter with both in Chinese and English. Qiqihar is located in Heilongjiang province, North-East China.

JKZ

January 2-3 night: Mixed noisy conditions, Paraguay with clear loud voice

Mostly unclean signals, but new MW-country

During the very first days of year 2013 the cart path to the Niihama DX cabin was covered by wet white layer. Even so thanks to the hard-working use of reverse gear and snow shovel I reached the beverage yard, after a while. So I missed the targeted 22 UTC id´s, but after that conditions was noticed to be remarkable worse than yesterday (and much more worse than next evening). Some NA with some YV-stations. TA stations got through all night long, but signals used to be quite “snotty”, particularly during first hours.

Interesting Latin rhythms was noted on 920 kHz and just on the fading top at 0032 UTC a nice promo was announced for a festival held on January 6th, “…transmite vivo en 920 AM, la radio pública de Paraguay!”. This was the first time I have noted Paraguay on MW and is also FFN (first from Niihama dx cabin). I quickly scanned through other PRG-frequencies: Some prospective signals was noted, but no track or too weak. Only 1480 was a little bit stronger, but later it appeared to be Fajardo PR. Also have to consider that Radio Nacional de Paraguay on 920 kHz has a 100 kW power transmitter.

Otherwise the night was almost lousy although there were all the time plenty of transatlantic 10-spikes on my Perseus dial. But even most dominant frequencies like 1130, 1140 and 1300 appeared noisy and mostly hardly readable. Mixed cx gave me regular ID´s like R Reloj 1020, Notiuno 1280, WOOD MI 1300, 1310News.com, AM radio 1430 and R Vibración 1470. All these observations are based on live listening: Trawl recordings are still totally unexamined. But towards morning hours cx still weakened and noise level increased. Often so generous dawn effect wasn´t noted at all.

248° beverage for Spain and England only?

The nice Paraguayan signal was offered only by 277° (830 m), not by 248° beverage (430 m). Longer wire gives more gain. It´s also remarkable that on the lower MW band the pattern of a beverage beams dozens of degrees aside from the beverage direction itself. And the wire line in the forest naturally isn´t straight, either horizontally or vertically. Real features of an antenna are always case by case, and vary by frequency too. In practice the pattern is significantly different to the theoretical one. For some reason 248° beverage works well with Spanish stations, i.e. stations from directions 220-240°, but nobody has never reported that 248° would beat the old faithful 277° with any Latin American stations. I suppose Radio Nacional from Asunción (250°, 12 000 km) is now the southernmost station in this comparison: Most interesting will be when somebody  first time can compare 248° and 277° beverages with stations from Brazilian east coast, Uruguay or Buenos Aires area (238-245°). And what about UK: According to my minor practice at least some stations from England (mostly 240-255°) were favored by 248° wire?

277° for Latin America and 310° for North America

DX cabins antenna arsenal contains nowadays 4 beverages to the Americas: mentioned 248° and 277°, and also 290° (400 m) and 310° (450 m). All antennas are fed with quality coaxial. All baluns, connectors and groundings are carefully matched and measured by club members’ technical team led by JPF and MDK. But for some unidentified reason the 290° wire has never been number one in my empiric comparisons. Could this have something to do with its´ reversible feature (by switch 110° or 290°)?

Anyway I have always found 277° wire catching best CA and SA signals. And 310° is the one and only with NA. In the interface there is naturally some case by case variation. For instance with Newfoundland (290°) and Cuba (287-295°) stations the best antenna varies: Sometimes 277° gives the strongest and most readable signal, sometimes it´s far too noisy. In general the base noise level of 277° aerial is much higher on the Perseus scale, and very notable also in the head phones. Major source for this is unknown: Perhaps there are some remarkable antenna individual reasons, but maybe even the proximity of the city centre of Tampere affects: extensive urban area just 5 km straight ahead in the pattern beam? Contrarily 310° beam is directed to the lake and on the first 12 km there is only water or sparsely populated shores on the line.

73 JVH   

Jenkkiasemia, coast to coast

TreDXK:n väki on osoittanut aktiivisuuttaan, tällä kertaa kiinnostavien jenkkikelien vallitessa lokakuun lopun ja marraskuun alun päivinä. Miellyttävästi uusia Niihamassa kuultuja asemia on saatu luureihin, mikä auringon aktiivisuuden kasvaessa on erityisen ilahduttavaa. Lokakuun 30. ja 31. päivä JKZ, MDK ja JVH onnistuivat etäyhteydellä napsimaan houkuttelevan tukun jenkkejä. Illalla 30.10. kuuluivat 1270 CJCB Sydnay NS ja 1300 WJDA Quincy, ja aamulla meno vain parani tuoden ääneen uutena asemana 1470 KMNQ Brooklyn Parkin Minnesotasta, sekä muita ei ihan joka aamu kuuluvia asemia, ja keli ylsi aamulla ihan länsirannikolle asti tuoden esim. 1070 KNX:n Los Angelesista ja 1090 KPTX:n Seattlesta. Etänä kuunneltuna kokonaisuudessaan oikein mukava ja perinteistäkin (vai uusperinteistä?) dx-osaamista ja -vainua osoittava saalis!

Toki tuollaiset ilouutiset innoittivat tuoreeltaan muitakin kerholaisia, ja allekirjoittanut (MCK) päätti sännätä paikalle koko seuraavaksi yöksi tallentelemaan kelien antia Perseuksella koko AM-bandin leveydeltä. Keli-indikaattorit tosin osoittivat jo häiriön merkkejä, ja jo 31. päivän illalla näkymät eivät olleet enää otollisimmat, joskin häiriökelit saattaisivat tuoda esiin yllätyksiäkin.

Tulihan jenkkejä kuuluviin, ehkä ei ihan niin aikaisin kuin edellisenä iltana ja aluksi varsin kohisevin signaalein. Tohina bandilla alkoi toden teolla 23UTC tienoilla, pääsuuntana 310-asteisen antennin MI/MN/IA/WI -suunnan asemat, uutena 1590 WGBW Denmark WI. Varsinainen yllätys oli 01UTC hetkellisesti kuuluviin noussut 970 KFBX Fairbanks AK - alaskalaisia ei tuohon aikaan yöstä juurikaan ole kuultu, mutta mitä ilmeisimmin auringonlasku lähetyspaikkakunnalla ehkä jonkun häiriön avustuksella kannatteli signaalin suosiollisesti pohjoisnavan yli. Myöhemmin kelit siirtyivät lännemmäksi tuoden esiin albertalaisia asemia. Aamua kohti kohina voimistui ja keli tuntui yleisesti heikkenevät, joskin tallenteet ovat paljolti vielä käymättä läpi.

Seuranneina päivinä etätarkkailu on jatkunut ja jenkkien napsinta on jatkunut ennen 7.-8. päivän tienoilla ennakoitua suurempaa häiriötä.

MCK