Report from Dxpedition in Zion, Pa USA
Dec 28 - Dec 29, 2009


Zion is located in a broad valley in the middle of Pennsylvania

All times in UTC

Attending:
Don Moore (host)
Brett Saylor
Dave Valko

Antennas:
6' BBL @45 deg
780' terminated BOG @45 deg
900' terminated BOG @90 deg
300' unterminated BOG @120 deg
315' unterm BOG @170 deg



Radios:
Perseus (2)
SDR-IQ
NRD-535
Drake R-8


Dave Valko, Don Moore and Brett Saylor

Logs:


153 Algeria Chaine 1 - 2345-2349 UTC Talk by man in Arabic.

162 France Inter, France - 2228 UTC Talk between a man and a woman in French

177 Deutschlandradio Kultur, Germany - 2229 UTC Light jazz music

183 Europe 1, Germany - 2229 UTC  Talk by a man in French

189 Rikisútvarpid RAS 2, Iceland - 2247 UTC Heard throughout the evening with a very strong signal, Christmas and popular music, little beacon interference.

198 BBC Radio 4, UK - 0151 UTC Talk by a woman in English.

207 Deutschlandfunk - 2345-2349 UTC Talk in German.

216 Radio Monte Carlo, France - 0543 UTC French talk by a man.

225 Polskie Radio, Poland - 2345-2349 UTC Presumed w/ talk by woman. Better at 0517 on the 900 BOG, not as good at 0534 on the 780' BOG.

234 Radio Luxembourg, Luxembourg - 0542 UTC Talk in French by a man

252 RTE, Ireland and Alger Chaine, Algeria - 0558 UTC Talk on both stations

261 Radio Rossi, Russia (presumed) - 0536 UTC Russian talk by a man

270 Cesky Rozhlas 1, Czech Republic - 0517-0521 UTC Presumed w/ vocal mx by woman with a Celtic type sound. Only on this time slot which was recorded with the 900' BOG. Only a carrier fifteen minutes later on the recording done on the 780' BOG.

530 Radio Enciclopedia, Cuba - 0400 UTC Top of hour ID

531 Radio Nacional, Spain - 0157 UTC Spanish talk // 558. No sign of Faroes. Later noted briefly fading up over Faroes at 0335, again //558.

531 Kringvarp Faroya, Faroe Islands (presumed) - 0316  UTC Non-stop music such as "What is Love", possibly Faith Hill at 0340 and Mambo #5" at 0347.  According to the schedule its supposed to be basically 24 hr nonstop music, which fits what we heard.

549 Alger Chaine, Algeria - 2224, 0200, 0330 UTC Arabic vocal music

558 Radio Nacional, Spain - 0330 UTC Spanish talk at weak but steady level much of evening. // 585, 531

576 UNID - 0320-0402 UTC Very weak with talk heard during occasional audio peak. Definitely not Spanish. Could be German. Best at 0323-0326.

585  Radio Nacional, Spain - 0330 UTC Spanish talk at weak but steady level much of evening. // 558, 531

594 UNID - 0320-0402 UTC When faded up there was very weak talk, mostly by man. Unable to tell language. Five pips leading to TOH at 0400.

639  Radio Nacional, Spain - 0330 UTC Faded up from noise for about three minutes // 585.

684  Radio Nacional, Spain - 0333 UTC Faded up from noise for about two minutes // 585.

693 BBC Radio 5, UK - 2227, 0200 UTC Talk by a man in English, BBC ID (at 19 seconds in on recording)

693 Vo Russia, Germany - 2254 UTC Man talking in Russian

711 UNID - 2128  Talk by man, possibly French.

738 Radio Nacional, Spain - 2133 Talk // 855

747 Radio 5, Netherlands - 0059 UTC Instrumental music.

756 Deutschlandfunk, Germany - 2146 UTC Pop music, trumpet at 0059.  1422 wasn't strong enough to //.

765 Radio Suisse Romande Option Musique, Switzerland (presumed) - 0256 UTC Music e.g., Simon and Garfunkel "I am a Rock".

774 Radio Nacional, Spain - 2151 UTC Talk // 855

783 Radio Miramar, Spain - 2312 UTC Faded up briefly with weak talk // 954 COPE. Voice also matches that in podcast archive on COPE website. Tnx Antonio Madrid of the Asociacion DX Barcelona for help on this. He told me they carry this COPE program at this hour and pointed me to the archive

828 UNID - 2316 UTC Weak man talking faded up for about two minutes.

837 France Info - 2311 UTC Man/woman in French.

855 Radio Nacional, Spain - 2143 UTC Talk by a man in Spanish //954; one of the more steady clear TAs.  

855 UNID - 2228 UTC A second station faded up and was mixing with Spain for about three minutes. Woman talking in what sounds like a Romance language. Maybe Romania?

864 France Bleu, France  - 2316 UTC Popular US and French music, and talk by a man in French.

864 Holy Quran Programme, Egypt (presumed) - 0200 UTC Presumed with Koranic singing

873 AFN, Germany - 2259 UTC "NPR Worldwide" ID by man in English

882 BBC Radio Wales, Wales - 2225 UTC Chris Needs show with music like Michael Jackson

909 Talksport UK - various times from 2148 UTC Clear sports talk by several British announcers.

927 presumed Radio Vlaanderen Info, Belgium - 2159 UTC Rock music and likely ID by man at top of the hour. Good at peaks.

945 France Info, France - 0059 UTC French talk by a man.

954 Cesky Rozhlas, Czech Republic - 2300 UTC signoff Signoff with national anthem.

954 Onda Cero Radio, Spain -  0059 UTC definite SP tlk by M.

963 China Radio International, Pori Finland 2216-2300 UTC CRI German program

972 NDR, Germany - 2216 UTC Soft pop or EZL mx. Man in German.

981 UNID - 2303 UTC Briefly faded up with talk by man. Could be Portguese.

999 poss Voice of Russia, Moldova - 2138, 2300 UTC Presumed with talk by a man in Russian.

999 COPE Spain - 2359 UTC Audio fading up at 23:59:30 with OM anmts in Spanish, mention of "nacional". Pips at hour. Into talk, mostly by YL, probably nx. At least one mention of Madrid. Peaking at 2304.

1008 GrootNieuwsradio, Zeewolde (Flevoland) Holland - 2300 UTC Pop and country music, clear ID.

1062 DR P5, Denmark - 0444 UTC Interval signal, into talk.

1089 Talksport, UK - 2047 UTC Talk by a man in English

1116 SER, Spain - 2207 UTC Talk by a man in Spanish.

1107 Radio Nacional Spain - 2210 UTC man/woman in Spanish

1125 UNID 2135, 2215 UTC 2135 w/ man/woman talking in maybe French. Then at 2215 faded up for about two minutes with Angie by the Rolling Stones. Not // 1107, so not Spain.

1134 Glas Hrvatske, Croatia - various times from 2058 UTC Croatia was in well at various times throughout the evening with  mix of mellow music and talk in a variety of languages including English at 0300. Signals in the S8 range, sometimes covered by KMOX 1120 IBOC but often in the clear.

1143 UNID - 2135, 2210 UTC Weak talk.

1179 Radio Sweden, Sweden - various times from 2101 UTC
Radio Sweden was one of the strongest trans-atlantic station of the evening. Despite being 1 kHz away from 50 kW WHAM in New York, it was usually easy to pick out. Their characteristic interval signal at the top of the hour make it an easy catch. ID's were heard in a variety of languages including Swedish, Russian and English.

1206 France Bleu, France  - various times 2300-0415 UTC
In the clear at  times with French talk by a man and woman.

1215 Absolute Radio, UK/Voice of Russia, Kaliningrad - various times from 2050 UTC Absolute Radio and Kaliningrad were heard here at various times throughout the evening, sometimes both at once. Signals were often S8-S9+ levels. Absolute was identifiable by the British DJs in English with rock music, while Kaliningrad relays Voice of Russia or Russian International Radio programming in Russian and German.

1269 Deutschlandfunk, Germany - 0011 UTC Heard // 6190 with talk by a man in German.

1394.8 Trans World Radio, Albania 2109-2145 UTC Easy to spot off-frequency, heard with likely Polish program (per EMGW)

1431 Radio Sawa, Djibouti (tentative) - 2122 UTC Strong signal with music

1422 Deutschlandfunk, Germany - 2322, 0448 UTC Talk by a man in German, music, English pop song @2331; 100% on peak.

1467 Trans World Radio, France - various times 2300 - 0100 UTC  talk by man, woman,  soft instrumental music.

1503 UNID  - 2324 UTC Steady carrier with audio occasionally fading up. Soft vocal mx at 2324. Bits of talk hrd might be Spanish, but way too weak to be certain.

1521 Saudi Arabia - 2155 UTC Detected Arabic talk in WWKB's upper sideband. Strong, but hard to separate from the 1520 station.

1575 Radio Farda, UAE (tentative) - 0012 UTC Pop music, not a good signal

1710  Boston pirates (presumed) - 0143 UTC Lively Latin music and talk in Spanish dominant, occasional peaks by a French/Haitian station.

1715-1717  European pirates (tentative) - 0100 UTC Looked for Radio Borderhunter on 1715 kHz; we could see the carrier sign-on at 0100 UTC but couldn't recover any audio. While tuning in the area, picked up a possible pirate on 1717 kHz with brief bits of audio in a language that could have been Greek.


Don Moore:
A big thank you to Brett for bringing most of the equipment we needed. Even though I was the host, I actually drove the farthest to get there, about 1000 km from Iowa and wasn't able to bring along much. (And, thank you to my parents, who were the real hosts!)

It was great to get together with Dave and Brett for a DX session again. After we set up I pulled up my log books (which I scanned into jpg files a few years ago) and looked up the first such DX session I haad attended. It was exactly 31 years ago to the day (Dec 28 1978) when I went to Doug Wicks' house in Mineral Point, PA with Brett and Jeff O'Donnell. The other three and Dave had already met a few times earlier that year. About a dozen such communal listening sessions followed in the next few years, usually at Doug's place. We were later joined by Brian Cartwright and Ed Berzonsky. The last TMIDXA listening get-together I was to would have been 1981. The fact that three of us are still actively DXing after all these years must say something about us, but I'm not sure that it's complimentary, hi!


Dave Valko:
I took the Perseus and NRD-535D.  We put out antennas of 780' at 45°, 900' at 90°, 300' at 120°, and 315' at 170°.  Brett brought tons of adapters and coax lead-ins.  It was a good thing too because we needed it.  Was getting a bit too much noise on the SW bands and propagation didn't seem all that great anyway, so  I ended up listening to the MW band almost exclusively.  Don played the role of host excellently.  Good conversation, good eats.   It certainly was cold taking up the antennas in the morning.  At least we didn't have wade through snow.  Enjoyed getting together with a couple of the old TMIDXA guys again.


Brett Saylor:
I jumped at the chance to have an overnight DX session with Dave and Don at Don's parent's house over the Christmas break. It was nice for once to only have to drive 20 minutes for a DXpedition! Due to great propagation this winter we've been able to hear countries on medium wave that I only ever dreamt would be audible here in Pennsylvania. Don's QTH allowed us to lay a variety of beverage on the ground (BOG) antennas but the EuroBOG (45 degrees) gave the most consistent results. It was good to be DXing again with some old friends in a familiar setting.



Don and Brett setting up


Laying the antenna wires


Looking out at 90 degrees


6-foot broadband loop