Japan on 891 this morning

[Toomas Losin]

I was hoping that the recent turmoil in the ionosphere would lead to some Australian signals being heard but no such luck. However, the NHK station on 891 kHz, JOHK, was heard beginning around 12:50 UTC.

This was about twenty minutes before sunrise began to stop CJDC from interfering. For the next ninety-plus minutes JOHK was fading in and out with at times surprising clarity for a 20 kW station. Two nice sets of NHK top of the hour time pips were heard at 13:00 and 14:00 plus an "NHK" was heard in the speech after the 13:00 pips. There was an excellent fade-in at 14:23 that lasted a few minutes with Hokkaido mentioned a few times. Its final fade-out was just after 14:30.

Pretty nice for a 20 kW station; its regularly heard NHK siblings are at the 300 - 500 kW level!

[Eldon-Mr.CFAY]

Greetings,
Congratulations Toomas on hearing Japan on 891 khz. in Greater Vancouver, well done!!! Especially with CJDC 890 quite dominant out there . I can null CJDCto get WLS 890 Chicago quite often. Once in awhile Utah is there on 890 too. But Dawson Creek----CJDC 890 is the most regular one on 890. Great to read about you hearing Japan. Sounded like the reception was fairly decent too. Keep it up. I have been hearing several stations on 1200 here in the Cobourg, Ontario area including WOAI San Antonio with Coast to Coast AM and WCHB 1200 Taylor, Michigan (near Detroit) with Jazz music programming all night. They are urban talk in the daytime. WCHB is fairly high power too. On 780 I think I finally heard WXME Monticello, Maine which is owned by WBCQ Allan Weiner of Pirate Radio Fame!!! I tentatively got WXME 780 with garbled audio and country music a few nights ago about an hour before sunset Ontario time and usual powerhouse WBBM 780 Chicago was way down in the mud with signal strength, after sunset they boomed in as usual. Only problem I did not get a definite station Id. out of WXME but it directioned towards Maine from Cobourg, Ontario. I will try to get a definite Id out of them. WXME 780 has a classic country music format and is 5000 watts day and 60 watts night. Used to be a daytimer when they were on 710 AM for many years under several different call signs including WREM....

Anyway best of the fall Dx to you. Keep us posted on what you are hearing, thanks Toomas!

73s Eldon

[Toomas Losin]

Thanks, Eldon. Last night I went to bed very late and was surprised by a 1 kHz het when I tuned to 820 to see if anything could be heard under KGNW. That was just before 02:00 PDT, which is shortly after sunrise in Japan. That signal on 819 kHz was likely North Korea but the standouts were the Japanese stations with offered some very good reception.

At around 09:10 UTC (02:10 PDT) JOUB 774 was at the "I wish I understood the language so I could enjoy the show" level. I could hear it faintly on the PL-390 indoors as well.

[jon]

Pretty nice for a 20 kW station; its regularly heard NHK siblings are at the 300 - 500 kW level!

Power isn't everything. Up into the '70s, 1YZ was generally the first New Zealander heard on the West Coast. And they only ran 10,000 watts.

At the time, I assumed it was the frequency (860) being so clear of other stations after midnight Sunday nights, after the CBC stopped running all night. But I was surprised more recently to find that it had been the first New Zealander for West Coast DX'ers back around 1960, too, when 1YZ was on 800.

As they say, all transmitter sites are not created equal.

[Toomas Losin]

I was impressed by hearing 4BC Brisbane. It's 6.3 kW at night and even if it ran day power by mistake it would only be 17 kW. Hearing that was a great lesson that power isn't everything; location, water path, a cooperating ionosphere, all are important.