HF DXing

[Alfredo_TParticipant]

I am hearing non-stop music on 5.850 MHz. The programming consists of “Middle Eastern” sounding songs interspersed with occasional English language songs. The signal is fairly strong. This frequency is 50 kHz below the lower edge of the 49 meter band, so I suspect that this is some kind of jammer.

[Alfredo_TParticipant]

The mystery station just identified itself as WRMI Okeechobee, FL.

[jr_techParticipant]

So what is the lower band edge for 49 meter broadcast? I Have set the 49m LBE on my Icom to 5730 kHz, as I found many stations listed in Passport (2009) nearly that low. Many on 5850, including the station in Okeechobee, which was also listed on 5745.

[Alfredo_TParticipant]

I ended up a bit puzzled because one listing I found online yesterday had the band starting at 5900 kHz. My DX-390 does not consider 5850 a 49m frequency. However, the dial on a DX-350 does go down to 5850 kHz. Both of these Radio Shack radios are from the early 1990s. Wikipedia says that the band starts at 5800 kHz.

[jr_techParticipant]

Dxing.com describes the frequencies from 5730 to 5950 as a “jumble of different stations” some of which are broadcast. My Tecsun 880 includes frequencies down to 5700 as 49 meters.

http://www.dxing.com/tuning.htm

[Alfredo_TParticipant]

Yesterday night, around 10 PM, I tried to tune in to WWV/WWVH to set a watch and some clocks. 2.5 MHz was almost completely buried under local noise sources. 5.0, 10.0, and 15.0 MHz occasionally popped up.

I could not find Radio Havana or any of the American time-brokered religious stations. I did find some hams at 3.84 MHz. Mother Nature is not cooperating with the propagation!

[Jeffrey KoppParticipant]

http://www.time.gov

[W7PATParticipant]

Here is the one I use: http://www.hfradio.org/

Another good one: http://www.short-wave.info/

[Alfredo_TParticipant]

I figured that I could have used one of the Internet time servers. I finally was able to use WWVH, but the signal strengths were the worst that I have heard in a long time.

According to http://rigreference.com/ the solar flux index is low, and propagation conditions are poor to fair, at best.

[jr_techParticipant]

Conditions are really odd tonight… right now, I am hearing WWV and or WWVH on 2.5,5,10,15,20 and 25 mHz! Very unusual.

[Alfredo_TParticipant]

I didn’t think to check 25 MHz yesterday. I wasn’t aware that NIST still broadcast on that frequency.

[Alfredo_TParticipant]

Recently, the conditions have been so bad that I can barely hear WWV! The last time that I checked, I could barely receive 10.0 MHz in the morning and 2.5 MHz/5.0 MHz at night. This is a new low!

Surprisingly, mediumwave DX seems to be pretty strong. A few weeks ago, when I was up much longer than I should have been, I heard a 1 kHz heterodyne on KOMO. 999 kHz is a frequency that is used overseas. I checked some other frequencies which were 1 kHz or 2 kHz away from Asian bandplan frequencies (such as 830 kHz), and I heard heterodynes there, too. Perhaps, we’ll get lucky this winter and experience what happened in 2009, when European longwave and Middle Eastern mediumwave stations were heard. We won’t be hearing any Russian longwave, though, as the Russian public broadcaster discontinued all of its longwave activity in 2014.

[chessyduckParticipant]

Try the two Oregon-based web-enabled SDR receivers for MW/MF reception:

Newport
http://kiwisdr.smeter.net:8073/

Crooked River Ranch (Bend area)
http://kk6pr.ddns.net:8075/

Happy DXing

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