DeLorenzo's Classic DX

[MidCapeMarc]

HCFA2-540 Radio Tropicana, Guayaquil, Ecuador - What an amazing ID including call letters, frequency, slogan, city, country and continent! Heard on February 12, 1979 at 0700 UTC from West Yarmouth, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Receiver was Hammurlund HQ-100 with SM-1 Space Magnet antenna.

[MidCapeMarc]

Radio Caaguazu-645 Coronel Oviedo, Paraguay was heard on February 19, 1979 at 0836 UTC. Again, reception was from West Yarmouth, MA using the trusty, if not flashy, combination of HQ-100 receiver and Space Magnet antenna. I was unemployed that winter and thus had lots of time to DX.

[MidCapeMarc]

Note the ID (or slogan) "Mundial" (MOON-dee-ow) at 40 seconds into the clip. Again heard from West Yarmouth, MA on December 4, 1978 at 0635 UTC using HQ-100 and SM-1. Another amazing signal. In the 31 years since I have not heard ANY station from Brazil as loud as this.

[MidCapeMarc]

Although approximately 6,000 miles from most points in the Northeastern U.S., the 2 megawatt BSKSA transmitter from Duba is one of the easiest TA's. The best time to get them is around local sunset before 50kw WWKB-1520 in Buffalo becomes too strong. This reception was made on October 12, 2004 at 2300 UTC from South Dennis, Mass. using a JRC NRD-525 receiver and 140 foot broadband loop antenna. There is a top-of-hour ID after the time pips. At 6 seconds after the last pip, you can clearly hear "Ahr-uh-BEE-yuh Sah-ooo-DEE-yuh" (Arabia Saudi).

[MidCapeMarc]

Although not nearly as distant as Paraguay or Brazil, I've always enjoyed this audio clip of HJBL-1160 because of the detailed ID (including call letters - "Ah-chay Ho-ta Bay El-ay") and interesting choice of background music which, I believe, is from George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue." Again, this reception was made from West Yarmouth, MA using the HQ-100 and SM-1. The date was January 29, 1979 at the stations' 0455 UTC signoff.

[MidCapeMarc]

Although coast to coast MW reception has become quite rare, in the early days of the X-Band it was still possible. In 1996 and 1997, the only US station operating on 1630 kHz was KXBT in Vallejo, CA. They of course later moved to 1640 kHz and became KDIA. Here are two audio clips of KXBT-1630 from November of 1996 and 1997 respectively as received at my shack in Auburndale (Newton) Mass. Receiver was the JRC NRD-525 and antenna was the Quantum Loop.

[MidCapeMarc]

Received numerous times during the past ten years, this is one of my favorite TAs. The reason I guess is it's combination of northern latitude and interesting programming. Here are three audio clips of this station, all recorded from South Dennis, MA using the NRD-525 receiver. The first clip was recorded on October 2, 2004 at 0350 UTC and features a female announcer giving a detailed weather forecast in Danish. Clip number 2 "California Dreamin" was recorded a week later on October 9, 2004 at 0354 UTC. The final clip was recorded on October 6, 2005 at 0315 UTC. I really like this song but do not recognize it. If anyone can tell me the name of the song, the artist, and the year it was released, I would be most grateful.

[MidCapeMarc]

Years before Turks & Caicos became such an easy catch on 530 kHz, this was a rarely heard country. On February 28, 1979 during severe Auroral conditions, I stumbled onto a weak signal in English all alone on 1550 kHz. I was rewarded at 2322 UTC with an ID from Radio Turks & Caicos. It was later reported in DX NEWS that this was probably the first known reception of this station in North America. Once again, the location was West Yarmouth, Mass. and the equipment was the HQ-100 receiver and SM-1 antenna.

Moral of the story: To get rare DX, you do not necessarily need high-priced equipment and acres of land for antennas. What you do need is a good location and the combination of skill and luck to be in the right place at the right time.

[MidCapeMarc]

In mid to late May of 2005, this station was widely heard by DXers in Eastern US and I was one of the lucky ones. Rocco Cotroneo in Brazil was kind enough to provide translation of this clip. It was a soccer match between Palmeiras and Sao Paulo and the score was 0-0. The announcer shouts Globo at 5 seconds and again at :12. Due to Auroral conditions, there was no trace of usual dominant WTAM-1100 Cleveland. Reception made from South Dennis at 0053 UTC on May 19, 2005 using the NRD-525 and noise-reduced longwire.

[MidCapeMarc]

In late January 2009, there was an unusual opening to Northern Europe. One rarely heard station (and country!) heard here on Cape Cod almost daily between January 22 and January 31 was Kringvarp Foroya Utvarpid-531 kHz from Akraberg in the Faroe Islands. The Faroe Isalnds are located north of Scotland and belong to Denmark. Here are 2 clips from that time period, both received with the JRC NRD-525 and Conti Super Loop antenna. The first clip was recorded on January 22 at 2055 UTC - 3:55pm local time - and is amazingly loud & clear. There is no ID but the reception was confirmed by the language, Faroese, by several Scandanavian DXers via the Yahoo Group Real DX. The second clip was also recorded on January 22, 5 minutes later at 2100 UTC and includes the top-of-hour announcement. As I mentioned earlier, this reception "window" lasted for 10 days. Who knows when the window will open again.