[HCDX] Logs from the past afternoon and evening

[aurel chiochiu <acq@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Report from:
Bogdan Alexandru Chiochiu
4190 Edward Higgins
Pierrefonds, Quebec, Canada
H8Y 3M9
(514) 685-0714
Equipmnent:
Sanyo MCD-S830 with internal ferrite bar antenna
Sangean CST-818 with long-wire in our interior yard
Also DXing in the car on my father's Mazda Protégé's 2002 car radio in St.-Laurent and Notre Dame de Grâce

Merry Xmas to all of you !

Yesturday, I was able to initiate someone at the DX hobby. Believe it or not, it was a girl ! She came from Russia and she is very interested in geography, other cultures, music et al just like me. Even though, the reception of one of my best SW catches this season, the Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran was only fair, she REALLY enjoyed the Koran singing. We did other things too, but we spent quite a lot of time DXing. When we conduced her at her QTH (at her home - hi!), we listened to a Kylie Minogue CD (I love dance music) when WSCR was overpowering Rebelde-670 and to Rebelde when it was dominant on the car-radio's unfriendly omnidirectionnal whip. 

I'm only aware of two female DXers right now, Lynn Howerman which was keeping the members count of IRCA (International Radio Club of America - we correspondent a tiny bit when I was an IRCAer in 2001) and Ottania, a LatinMWDXer who never contributed so far. This is clearly a 99.99999 % male's hobby, so it was a great highlight. She is very friendly and I'll see her tomorrow at 3 PM too. It's extremely rare to find a girl like this. The only things she didn't really tolerate were the overload coming from the extremely huge local signal on 1570 kHz and occasional TV noises from the neighborhood that the Sangean's lngwire picked.

A lowlight was that she don't have really much in the way of languages skill; she couldn't understand a peep of Spanish, not even the words very close to French like BueNo (BoN). She wanted to take Spanish classes though.

Into the logs now:

MW:

Foreign DX (times in UTC):

530 TURKS AND CAICOS,   Radio Visión Cristiana Internacional, South Caicos DEC 25 0403 - Great cumbia melodies, but they talked about the birth of a masochist in the lyrics unfortunately. Almost excellent in the car-radio with CIAO barely noticed. (Chiochiu-StL*QC)

555 ST KITTS,   ZIZ, Basseterre DEC 25 0156 - Soca music; poor. (Chiochiu-P*QC)

585 SPAIN,   Radio Nacional de España, Madrid DEC 25 0402 - Briefly audible at a poor level with AC song. (Chiochiu-QC)

600 CUBA,   CMKV, Radio Rebelde, Urbano Norris DEC 25 0502 - Salsa music. Good at this time w/ growl, but completly burried and inaudible due to WICC and other domestics all the evening on both the Sanyo MCD-S830 barefoot and the car radio's whip ! (Chiochiu-P*QC)

670 CUBA,   CMBA, Radio Rebelde, Arroyo Arrenas DEC 25 0106 - Unmelodic Spanish rap. Very strong w/ some pretty minor WFAN and CINF splatter, in WSCR null ! (Chiochiu-P*QC) + DEC 25 0335 - Salsa music as well as Crazy Fog's ramke of Harold Faltermeyer 80's breakdance classic, Axel F. Very good over / under WSCR The Score (Chiochiu-NdG*QC)

710 CUBA,   several poss., Radio Rebelde DEC 25 0116 - "La Camisa Negra" by Colombian superstar Juanes. Very good, but in mix with WOR, //670. Both were sos trong, that they covered completly the already minor local splatter. (Chiochiu-P*QC)

750 VENEZUELA,   YVKS, RCR, Caracas, DF DEC 25 0052 - Greetings to the "oyentes de Radio Caracas Radio" followed by talk about a possible economical crisis. Pretty good for 6 or 7 minutes and slowly faded down in strenght. WSB almost completly nulled and a minor 20 kHz het from local CKAC. The girl was glad I translated to her what I could understand from the YVKS's talk-show. Also heard later after 0200 with Xmas mx at pretty poor levels. (Chiochiu-P*QC)

760 COLOMBIA,   HJAJ, RCN Cadena Basíca, Barranquilla DEC 25 0046 - Spanish at poor levels. Too much chat with her in order to make out any details and tuned quickly away. (Chiochiu-P*QC)

780 VENEZUELA,   YVNM, Radio Coro, Falcon DEC 25 0046 - Gaitas, joropos and salsa. The signal was somewhat fair at best and suffered some minor to moderate local splatter depending on wherever 20 kHz away CJAD had correspondent with a poorer modulation or in-studio talk. (Chiochiu-P*QC)

890 CUBA,   CMDZ, Radio Progreso, Chambas DEC 25 0003 - with apparent Fiel Castro speach about the necessity of the Cubans to work. Probably the speach promoted yesturday around 6 AM EST. Very loud. DEC 25 0130 - Ritmos pgm - changed between this, CKOI 96.9 and a CD at very fast levels. At 0144, as reported on LatinMWDX and MWDX, they abruptly switched their tx off for about 2, then back at 0146. When I listened to Ritmos, I heard some great salsa romantica and a song about "Sanitago de Cuba". Almost excellent peaks, some fadings in and out. SIO 443 due to the fadings (would have been SIO 453 without WCBS next door on adjacent 880). Slightly distorted audio. When I recheck a bit before midnight after I conduced her at home, they had romantic AC SS mx. (Chiochiu-P*QC)

1134 CROATIA,   Hrvatski Radio, Zadar DEC 25 0133 - Croatian pop song VERY briefly at a good level, then faded out to slight splash from residual WBBR-1130. If I waited for them to fade in, i could perphaps gather some long period of good peaks, but I mostly concentrated on the Latins which were more stable and at easy listening levels both for her and for me. (Chiochiu-P*QC)

Domestic DX (times in EST):

570 WMCA, NYC, NY DEC 24 2058 - Ad w/ mention of New Jersey, several IDs afterwards. Almost excellent, way over the usual WSYR Syracruse pest which was barely noticed and completly unreadable. A third station here very occasionally as well and I thought I heard the Cuban Reloj Morse code IDs. Only the second time here this season and the best of the two showings by a wide margin. (Chiochiu-P*QC)

1610 CJWI "CPAM radiounion.com", Montreal, QC DEC 24 2220 - a local, but I thought it was important to tip other DXers that they are having Spanish tropical music programming at this time, instead of usual Haitian programming. ¡ Salsa romantica y merengue ! At this late time, there was way much less CFAV-1570 splatter, probably the blockbuster skywave signals on 1590 and 1600 kHz were blocking the splatter. (Chiochiu-car-QC)

Shortwave DX (times in UTC, obviously):
Keep in mind that the car radio do not receive SW:

6010 IRAN,   Voice Of The Islamic Republic Of Iran, english service, site ? DEC 24 1925 - piano music, "This is The Voice Of The Islamic Republic Of Iran", into a recitation of the Holy Koran (which the chick really loved, surprisngly since aside from being very unusual music, the reception was only fair). New country ! My best daytime DX on 49 meters ! (Chiochiu-QC)

5980 TURKEY,   Voice Of Turkey, Ankara DEC 24 1951 - TT pops, announcements in TT with Pink Floyd's Time theme between the apparent items. Mention of "Turchiai". Time pips, ID with the same word mentioned, followed by nx. SIO 343 (Chiochiu-QC)

Many other signals were noted. It was nice to hear RHC-6000 before 3 PM EST (2000 UTC). We also listened to Africa Numéro Un 9580 kHz quite a bit with soukous and zouk-love, but this is more SWLing rather than DXing.

Aside from being able to share my wonderful with an undestandable person, the truly amazing day-time receptions on 49 meters, the occasional TAs I wasn't really chassing, another highlight these days was the fact I received an interesting message from Rachel Baughn, the editor of Monitoring Times, about the possibility of using my article on Venezuelan AM DX, though he didn't know whearver he will use it for sure and when.

I went to bed late last night, in spite of waking very early, so missed any Mexican MW and SW DX. But, I'll trade collective DXing with Mexico anytime !!! 

A big thanks to Saul Chernos who helped with my 1700 kHz unID. WEUV is indeed an excellent catche ! It's my second most distant X-band station after WDHP-1620 in the US Virgin Islands !

Before I left and wish all of you Happy Holydays, I wonder if any of you got the chance to listen to the sound samples of Latin music I posted on the LatinMWDX site. If you think they occupe too much of the available space, please, let me know !

We are leaving for NYC in two days ! I can't wait for that too !...

Seasons Greetings and Happy Celebrations !!!!
Be the good DX stuff with you !
Bogdan Chiochiu 


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