Re: [HCDX] XEBAL 1470

I am Rocco Cotroneo and I am also writing on behalf of Andrea Lawendel and Enrico Oliva. The three of us have spent the last week in my countryside house in Liguria, Northern Italy, in a sort of oldtime friends meeting and dxped. I usually live in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from where I am actively dxing too; Enrico and Andrea live in Milan. We have listened together to XEBAL and other interesting stations on Mw, lately. I posted a second message on this list, following yours, about exceptional conditions underway here: a small unknown Peruvian was heard on 1390 and Formula Mexico, the one you mention, on 1470.

It's not easy to answer to such a nasty message, but I'll try to do it. Let me stress a few points.

*****I would argue that this claimed Italian
logging either is a severe mis-interpretation, a bad April joke or a result
of a total lack of DX-experince. Come on boys!

On a personal level there is not much I can say. I am not used anymore to such a low level of rudeness and unfairness. Last time I entered a discussion on a faked tip I was 20, now I'm 42. I did good April jokes in my life, but never regarding dxing. I simply think it's not funny enough and too easy.

You are not obliged to know who we are. Many people in this list have known us for decades. Let me just stress that we started mw transatlantic dxing in mid Seventies. You may be proud to know that I know your name since 1975, the first time I saw it in Nordic bulletins I used to read or subscribe. I personally live in Latin America since 1998 and travel the continent as a correspondent for Corriere della Sera, the leading Italian newspaper. And listening to enough radio there to fully satisfy my exotic hunger...

Let me tell you also that all our receptions are recorded, as long as it may be significant nowadays with all this sort of technology gadgets around. A few minutes have been digitalized into RealAudio and are fully available.

***** First, the mentioned dates were extremely poor towards
the Western Hemisphere all over Scandinavia that should be in a much more
favourable situation to receive signals over the Atlantic compared to Italy.

Of course it is. My friend, if dx conditions in Finland and Italy were the same, we would not have spent the last three decades waiting for a 500w Mexican or Peruvian to get here. Simply this is not the case, you lucky boys. We are still here trying to understand how this was possible. I don't have the faintest idea, you know ?
On the contrary, I know very well how Mw dxing is like in many places in Scandinavia. A few years ago I spent a unforgettable week in Ivalo, Finland : it's just to sit there in front of a 50 free channels situation and wait for new id's from US daytimes. Cool, indeed. Total lack of Dx-experience? Yes, Jan. Please come here in Central or Southern Europe one day and try. My house in Liguria is fully available for you. Come here and spend a whole night dribbling interferences and searching for faint voices in the middle of 500kw pests. Do you know that nowadays we have only two fully free channels on the band, 1390 and 1470?

**** Very typically - and
almost exclusively - rare trans-atlantic catches during springtime is
received exactly during the grayline period.

Jan, as far as Italy and Southern Europe is concerned it's a little bit difficult to talk of "very typically". You know? There are less than a dozen serious mw dxers in Italy: half of them live in great cities and can listen only four or five times a year, in some other places!!! Can you imagine how rich and reliable are our statistics? My present logbook is ten years old now. Regarding rare stuff, from this location, I (we) had a bunch of Portorican and Uruguayan a few years ago, two Peruvian, one Bolivian... Never heard Mexico before. That's all. I can almost hear your sound laughing from the cold. We know our limits better than you, boy. That's why it's fun.

I have two full C90 tapes on 1470 and 1390. We had XEBAL (heard in two different nights) after WWNN Florida. Florida is extremely rare here too. We had Espacial on 1390 and, on 1470 again, Formula mixed with WMTW Maine. I'll send them to you, my friend. I want to have a serious opinion on how is possible to mix these signals with a good audio software or, alternatively, where in the emisphere I may have travelled to make such a funny recording.