CBU problems provide a DX opportunity!

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CBU problems provide a DX opportunity!

Postby Toomas Losin » Wed Nov 06, 2013 7:49 pm

In addition to what kal noted in another thread, CBU had more problems this morning. When I tuned in around 02:00 PST it was hit or miss: A few minutes without CBU followed by a few minutes with CBU, repeat for a few hours. These mini-outages led to some nice DX!

While CBU was off air there was a French-speaking announcer heard on 690 with an interesting Jazz program. As noted in the other thread, this is likely CBKF Gravelbourg. My expectation/hope would have been to hear XETRA Tijuana again, as I haven't heard that since the days when CBC would sign off at 01:00 local.

However, to my surprise I heard a huge 3 kHz het from 693. The audio paralleled 828, so this was JOAB, a 500 kW monster from Japan. It owned the frequency while CBU was off air. Whenever CBU came back JOAB was gone except for fractional seconds between peaks on CBU sometimes. JOAB finally had a fade-out for a few minutes beginning at 10:48 UTC. I expect it would be as reliable as the NHK stations on 774 and 747 if CBU weren't there!

Moving up to 700 (where I hoped to hear WLW for the first time in decades), KBYR Anchorage was dominant at times with something faint underneath. I heard Alaska-specific commercials and got a TOH ID from KBYR at 11:00 UTC but I never heard anything to ID the other one.

Again there was a huge trans-pacific signal; this time on 702, causing a 2 kHz het. Being busy with 700 I didn't follow up on it but it was likely from China.

I considered listening for Barrow on 680 but found that KNBR was very strong and not likely to fade.

Finishing the night with 690, at 12:30 UTC during a CBU outage I heard French dominant with Mexican-style music beneath. The 3 kHz het from 693 was still there.

The surprise of the morning was having a CBU outage covering the top of the 13:00 UTC hour (05:00 PST). At that time the Spanish was dominant and the outage allowed us here to hear the XETRA-renamed-to-XEWW broadcast of the national anthem and legal ID. All with excellent quality (for DX)! My thanks to CBU for being off-air for those critical minutes!

Looks like CBU finally came back for good at 13:35 (05:35 PST). That may have been at reduced power, as ten minutes later there was a two second outage, after which the audio was stronger possibly due to a power boost.

I am eagerly awaiting the next CBU outage. :-)
Toomas Losin
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