[HCDX] Latin American MW logs for the evening of MAY 12 (EDT); May 13 (UTC) (yes !)

Hello !

The past night was a very good one for Latin American DX with some semi-auroral conditions. The results aren't too good (i.e.: Caicos-530 only very poor), but this is barely suprising considering the time of the year when even hearing Cuba on 1180 is challenge. The best and the most "listenable" Latin American signal was from Radio Rebelde-Cuba on 1180 kHz, wich seem to be a regular even now in the late spring, with WHAM nulled, here in Montreal. The high-light was getting a very propable reception of Radio Carúpano on 1110 kHz, a station I've never heard during what most people call as "DX season". Into the logs now:

530 TURKS AND CAICOS, Radio Vision Cristiana MAY 13 0151 - Very poor with gospel music. (Chiochiu-QC)

1110t VENEZUELA, YVQT Radio Carúpano, Carúpano, Sucre MAY 13 0313 - Tentative ! Woman in Spanish noted way under a strong WBT-NC. Way too poor and also too much WBT to clearly pick up any words though. If I would have been able to get an ID, this would have been a new one for me and my 2nd station from the YV Sucre state (the first one was YVRZ Dos Mil on 1500 in Cumana noted around sunset on an auroral evening in Sept. '01). (Chiochiu-QC)

1180 CUBA, CMBA Radio Rebelde, Villa-Maria MAY 13 0142 - Fair w/ intense fadings w/ good-quite strong and poor peaks, over / under weak remains of nulled WHAM; sometimes interference from powerlines. Man in SS with mention of "Rebelde" at 9:42 PM. (Chiochiu-QC)

Bogdan Chiochiu from Montreal (Pierrefonds-Est), QC using a Sanyo MCD-S830 rx with it's barefoot antenna

Also heard what sounded like WPRX on 1120 with salsa music and something very weak on 640 mixing with WNNZ and CHGO (Radio Guadeloupe, Union Radio-Venezuela and Radio Progreso-Cuba are all equal possible). I tried to hear Spain-1080 wich Mark Connelly can receive from time to time with WTIC phased, and I nulled out WTIC as much as I could, but couldn't get much of anything. I hoped to get this one along with Portugal-1170 and Madeira or Sao Tomé-1530 since these are even-channel TAs and in the summer adjacent channel skip is much worse due to short-skip signals dominating and D layer absorption wich never cease completly, not even after mid-night (the D layer do not have the time to dissapear 100% because of too much day-light hours), so I tried to find frequency where weak signals partly aborped by the D-layer, in theory, are not absorbed, but couldn't find anything (there was somethign co-channel with WSAI, but most likely WDJZ on late rather than VOA Sao Tome or RDP Madeira, let alone the Vatican).

I also got to do some SWL, on my Sangean 606. I got ranchera and mariacci music on 6185 kHz out of Radio Educacion with some 6190 splash (Radio Havana Cuba in SS) and got a man in SS on 6013 (I had to tune 3 kHz above the frequency to escape from the very badly modulated RHC English service on 6000 kHz) wich was probably XEOI Radio Mil. Radio New Zealand International was huge on 17675 kHz and soemtimes peaking to local-like; they had the classical music program (before the pgm ended, they played two pieces by Shubert, followed by an announcement with mentions of all the frequencies of Radio New Zealand International to the Pacific and mentioned that this one is on until 0500 UTC), then a very short newscast, then a program of 1930's music. WWV was also huge on 20 MHz during the first half of the evening, afterwards they weakened. Just after sunset, RAE was quite strong on 15345 kHz but with a loud growl making listening quite awfull. On 60 meters, around 0153 UTC, Radio Brazil Central was strong on 4985 and begun playing the Michel Brown and Santana song. Radio Tachira had also a decent signal on 4830 kHz and WWV was fair to strong on 5000 kHz. On 90 meters, CHU on 3330 kHz had the only strong signal and on 120 meters I could hear almost nothing (WWV was really extremely weak on 2.5 MHz, but maybe this had something to do with the semi-auroral condx the past ev. ?).

That's it for now !

73 and good DX,

Bogdan