Month: November 2022

Lithuania

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Extended airtimes for “Radio Pravda 1557 AM” Lithuania.
Signal from Lithuania is audible now at 15:43 UTC already.
Clear ID “наше лента – коротка и ясна” 3x ID at 15:45 UTC; in the week before, it was 1700-2100 UTC, now 1530-2130 (that makes RTI from Kouhu almost impossible at winters).

Horst (2022-11-08)

New Zealand

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Local IDs on New Zealand’s Gold Sport.

Gold Sport radio stations in New Zealand are described in the Pacific Asian Log as a “network of oldies stations. Website:
https://www.gold.co.nz/
Stations may have 2 minutes of local ads before the hourly news, and local weather at 2-3 minutes after the hour. Otherwise, the stations simulcast.” Until recently, the
local ads and weather might be the only chance to identify an individual station in the network.
Not a big problem for DXers who are happy to log parallels, as most
Gold Sport stations are on discrete channels; if you can parallel Gold Sport on 1521 with the one on 1557, then you know you’re hearing Tauranga and Hawera
respectively. 1503 is the only channel with two Gold Sport stations on it, in Wellington and in Christchurch, so still a bit of problem there, unless you’re logging
exact frequencies to the Hertz and beyond.

However, in late July of 2022, Steve Babcock heard a unique ID on 1503: “Wellington’s Gold Sport fifteen-oh-three” intoned by a man between songs. So, do
the other Gold Sport stations also have unique ID’s now? Jeroen Bet investigated, using New Zealand-based Kiwi SDRs, and found that Christchurch’s Gold Sport
station identified as “Canterbury’s Sport fifteen-oh-three.” According to Theo Donnelly, these IDs tend to not be city IDs, but regional IDs, as New Zealand is
divided up into “regions” not states or counties, and Christchurch is in Canterbury region; Theo had also heard 792 with “Waikato’s Gold Sport 7-92″ (see
https://www.nz-tourism.com/list-of-new-zealand-regions/
for a list of the regions with their towns). So, even though Wellington-1503 identifies as “Wellington”, it’s probably serving the Wellington region, not just the city.

Using the Kiwi SDRs in New Zealand, it was found that indeed the Gold Sport stations were identifying by region… mostly. Samples include:

“Nelson’s Gold Sport 5-49”, “Otago’s Gold Sport 6-93”, “Wanganui’s Gold Sport 10-62”, “Rotorua’s Gold Sport 13-50”, “Taranaki’s Gold Sport 15-57”.

But… not always: “Tauranga’s Gold Sport 15-21” from the city in the Bay of Plenty region, and “Gold Sport 11-25” with no city or region at all, despite the fact
that at the same time, 1503 was identifying as “Canterbury’s Gold Sport 15-oh-3”.

This leads us to when these IDs are like[ly] to be heard. The network tends to identify between songs played, but usually with phrases like “Music that stands
the test of time, Gold”, but every two or three songs, they seem to be using the local ID instead.

So, if you hear a local ID on one station, that will likely be your
opportunity to hear the local ID on other stations in the network when playing back your SDR recording. These are low powered, so if your SDR recording was
made in North America, it will likely have been at a DXpedition on the west coast.
Nick Hall-Patch, IRCA DX Monitor Nov 12, published November 7 via WOR iog (2022-11-08)

United States

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Seven Mountains Media aquires Western PA duo.

C93″ 92.7 WCCR-FM and Country “94.1 The Goat” 1300 WWCH/94.1 W231DR Clarion PA from Clarion County Broadcasting Corp.

Both stations have been owned by members of the Hearst family (unrelated to the national television operator and former newspaper baron) since sign-on, with WWCH launching in 1960 and the FM added in 1985. Bill Hearst acquired the company from his parents in 1978.

The sale terms were missing from the FCC filing. WCCR-FM and WWCH will join Seven Mountains’ 101.3 WKFT Strattanville in serving the Clarion area along Interstate 80. WKFT simulcasts “Bigfoot Country” 102.1 WIFT Du Bois.
https://radioinsight.com/headlines/244895/seven-mountains-media-acquires-western-pa-duo/

Lance Venta, RadioInsight (2022-11-07)

Space

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Sunspot Explodes Creating Huge Solar Flare, Radio Blackouts.
The Sun spat out a large solar flare from a sunspot early on Monday, leading to temporary radio blackouts in the Pacific Ocean.
Sunspot AR3141 exploded with an M5-class solar flare, which is fairly powerful, at 00:11 UTC (around 7 p.m. ET on Sunday).

“It’s alive! The Sun is up from its nap! An M5.2 flare came from AR3141 at the beginning of Nov. 7 at 00:11 UTC. Bring it on AR3141!! The radio blackout was over the Pacific,” wrote the The Sun Today: Solar Facts and Space Weather Facebook page in a post.

Solar flares are emissions of high-energy electromagnetic radiation, usually X-rays, from the Sun’s surface, often from more active sunspot regions.

“[M5-class flares are] pretty severe. It’s a bit like the ‘Gale force’ scale for earth winds. An M-class flare is 10 times as intense as the next scale down (C-class),” Huw Morgan, head of solar system physics at Aberystwyth University in the United Kingdom, told Newsweek.

Solar flares are sorted into five categories: X-class flares, M-class, C-class, B-class and A-class. A-, B- and C-class flares are generally small and don’t have any effect on the Earth, while M-class flares may lead to radio blackouts and minor geomagnetic storms.

X-class flares are huge, however, and can trigger planet-wide radio blackouts. Within each category, flares are rated by power, increasing by a factor of ten: an M5 storm is 10 times more powerful than an M4 storm, which is 10 times more powerful than an M3.

“However, it’s not just the intensity; it’s also the location of the flare on the Sun, as seen from Earth. So if you have a flare occurring at the right place on the Sun, it can have a more severe effect on Earth,” Morgan said.

The November 7 flare’s radiation ionized gas atoms in the Earth’s atmosphere, leading to the radio blackout in some areas of the Pacific, including parts of Australia and New Zealand.

The intense radiation from the flare causes the ionization of layers in Earth’s atmosphere, leading to X-rays knocking electrons out of the atoms in the atmosphere.

“The most striking feature of solar flares is that they produce intense bursts of X-rays and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light that can then reach Earth at the speed of light. The EUV is absorbed high (100 to 300 km) in Earth’s atmosphere, enhancing the ionosphere and sometimes also the electric currents that flow in the ionosphere,” Mike Hapgood, a space weather scientist at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Space, told Newsweek.

This ionization causes radio waves that interact with electrons to lose energy.

“But the X-rays can penetrate more deeply down to 60-90 km altitude where they produce an extra ionospheric layer that absorbs rather than reflects short-wave (aka high-frequency, 3-30 MHz) radio waves. It’s that absorption that causes the HF (high frequency) radio blackout, blocking HF radio reflections from higher layers that are used for some long-distance radio communications, e.g. by aircraft on routes over the oceans, also military comms,” Hapgood said.

“The blackout is limited to the dayside of the Earth and worst where the Sun is overhead. It typically lasts a few tens of minutes, so can be worked around on, say, long flights. Aircraft don’t use HF for take-off and landing—they would use short-range VHF radio (30-300 MHz) not affected by flares.”

This ionization causes radio waves that interact with electrons to lose energy.

“But the X-rays can penetrate more deeply down to 60-90 km altitude where they produce an extra ionospheric layer that absorbs rather than reflects short-wave (aka high-frequency, 3-30 MHz) radio waves. It’s that absorption that causes the HF (high frequency) radio blackout, blocking HF radio reflections from higher layers that are used for some long-distance radio communications, e.g. by aircraft on routes over the oceans, also military comms,” Hapgood said.

“The blackout is limited to the dayside of the Earth and worst where the Sun is overhead. It typically lasts a few tens of minutes, so can be worked around on, say, long flights. Aircraft don’t use HF for take-off and landing—they would use short-range VHF radio (30-300 MHz) not affected by flares.”
https://www.newsweek.com/solar-flare-sunspot-radio-blackouts-pacific-ocean-1757421?piano_t=1

Mike Terry to WOR iog

Mongolia

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Mongolian Radio is heard in the city of Ulan-Ude (Russia) on three frequencies of long waves.
Reception on 164 kHz (power 250 kW) is possible throughout the day. In the morning and evening, a signal passes at frequencies of 209 and 227 kHz (power 40 kW). At the medium wave frequency of 882 kHz (power 40 kW), the signal is weak only in the late evening with strong interference.

Links to reception recordings:
https://youtu.be/ESAm0DlNYQc
https://youtu.be/NVNaafbis00
https://youtu.be/07o4NFnfgrI

Igor Kolke (2022-11-06)

Saudi Arabia

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Saudi (was UNID) 900kHz.
Now that sunset times are so early, using the Cyprus KiwiSDR we can observe the sign on times of the 900 kHz carrier which has been identified as Saudi’s Riyadh channel.   Carrier starts daily at 1427 UTC and ends at 2257.  A 60 Hz (not 50 Hz) sideband is present on some days.  As noted by others, program audio level is low and often undetectable.

We might assume that this transmission is directed towards countries beyond Saudi’s northwest border.  Hence the strong signal in Europe after dark.

Dave W. (2022-11-06)