Mid August AM DX

[radiofan]

Since I started DXing in the mid 1960s, I've always heard that summer is NOT the time to DX.

Around 11 last night I scanned the dial, and there was a lot of noise on most frequencies and even regulars like KGO, KEX, KFBK and a few others were not their usual selves.

I figured it was the sunspot activity and the coming meteor shower that's scheduled for tonight.

Today I talked to a friend who's been hitting the dials for almost 50 years. He was totally blown away by what he heard. At around 2 AM there was something on almost every frequency. He remembered the
odd winter night years ago that was similar, but never in the middle of August when there was sunspot and other activity in the sky.

It might be worth checking out the AM dial sometime after midnight tonight!

Just thinking back, the one and only time I heard CKLW and a few other eastern US stations was in August of 1970.

[Toomas Losin]

Since I started DXing in the mid 1960s, I've always heard that summer is NOT the time to DX.

Other than some exceptional moments, that's been true so far.

Around 11 last night I scanned the dial, and there was a lot of noise on most frequencies and even regulars like KGO, KEX, KFBK and a few others were not their usual selves.

For a couple of months I've had a static-like noise above 1610 making it irritating to check XEPE 1700 or look for carriers on 1674 or 1701. The Papua New Guinea NDB on 1725 hasn't been detectable at all, being hopelessly lost in the noise, although conditions haven't favoured it anyway.

KFBK is being interfered with by IBOC from KKXA 1520, sometimes badly. On the other side of 1520 the IBOC hash has been interfering with 1503 kHz, making South Pacific DX difficult.

It might be worth checking out the AM dial sometime after midnight tonight!

I hope so! I found yesterday to be quite bland.

Around midnight, 529 was doing a faint aviation weather report and there was a weak carrier on 1017 (Tonga?). No hint of anything spectacular to come, but I wasn't checking North American frequencies.

Just before 5 AM (12:00 UTC) Radio Rossii on 279 was listenable (a DXer would call it listenable, no one else would!) with a clearly audible ID at least once plus time pips on the hour. The only other excitement of the morning was hearing the NDB DUT (Dutch Harbor) on 283 kHz at the same time as Radio Rossii thanks to the wide bandwidth setting I was using. Russia was also audible on 180 and 153 but only very faintly, and not listenable.

Trans-Pacific DX may be opening up, in general, but yesterday/this morning there wasn't much of interest from the usual suspects. Bland!

[Anotherwpgguy]

One of these arrives at my QTH in a few more days.

I'll have to have a high-zoot computer built up for it to run at lickety-split speeds, so I'll have it ready to go in a few weeks.

Check it out .... http://www.flex-radio.com/FLEX-3000_Current.pdf