mercoledì 13 marzo 2019

Fine RSG 3320 reception local evenings in California

The RSG via Meyerton, South Africa on 3320 has been very strong and clear reception the past two local evenings here in the N. Mojave Desert--and DF bearings made via the loopstick antenna atop my Benmar Navigator 555A point roughly 70 deg. azimuth bearing quite clearly (the relatively easy DF-nulls indicating low-angle skip too). This has been between 0100 to past 0400 UT - both 12 and 13 March.  Last night the huge QRN crashes buried them and the good music and announcements in Afrikans - a really interesting-sounding language that (to me) if I'm not fully paying attention, it sounds like a strange dialect of English until I concentrate and see it sounds much Dutch-like, of course.  

If I turn back on the radio(s) left on the 3320 RSG the evening before by pre-dawn here, it then is the DPRK's KCBS with a lot of choral-marshall music and strident ranting (not usually // 2850 lately).

Back some years ago, I really enjoyed the very-strong gray-line (at local Hawaiian evenings) antipodal reception of the SABC 4880 when I was in Hawaii in the late 80s (Botswana on 4820 also).  Great DJs/music in EE on the SABC and a lot of local pop-music with African flavors too! Perfectly listenable on my various portables with whips as I lava-hiked and walked or just watched the surf. 

I think I DX while walking more than at home, these days, weather permitting-hi.  Away from man-made noise, a humble telescoping-whip has a superior S/N ratio and thus reception "way out there" in the wide open can be remarkable. Conversely, SW reception on portable radios INSIDE my PseudoFaraday-Shield house with just a whip is nearly hopeless, unless super strong.

73 - Steve McGreevy - 13 March 2019 - Keeler, CA - n. Mojave
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N6NKS - www.auroralchorus.com (via WOR io group)