Late last night I noticed very good reception of the weather broadcast from SQM 529 on Level Island. Checking the usual suspects showed better than normal reception. Japan on 774, 747, and 828 had voice. South Korea on 1566 was nice. I heard what was likely Chinese on 1116 instead of Australian English but it was too faint to identify. There was a stronger than normal carrier on 1089 producing a het with 1090 Seattle. I recorded that one using lower sideband mode and found that a few times it faded up with Chinese audio. I heard time pips at the top of an hour with the expected format but conditions weren't clear enough to hear the voice ID thanks to 1090 being 1 kHz away. A fun evening that I hope will carry on tonight.
My R71a has been showing signs that the cheap trimmer capacitors that Icom used are failing — a well-known problem. I spent a few days replacing them with better parts, plus converting to 12V operation to make the radio run cooler. I wonder what the next failure will be.