Kongsfjord - 70°43'N 29°21'E
KONG31 - October 16 to 25, 2015
Participants:
Bjarne Mjelde, OJ Sagdahl, Arnstein Bue, Tore Johnny Bråtveit
Receiver summary:
Bjarne: NetSDR, CloudIQ, 2 x Perseus SDR
OJS: 2 x Perseus SDR
Arnstein: 2 x Perseus SDR
Tore Johnny: Excalibur G31DDC, 2 x Excalibur Pro G33DDC
Weblog
25-OCT-2015 @
04:00 UTC
Then it is time to go ... Yesterday did not bring
anything exciting from any part of the world, but this morning North American
signals were back. Faint and not many exciting stations yet - but it
looks/sounds promising. We will be packing and leaving soon, but our SDRs are
staying, with many TBs of disks plus internet connection, so the fun goes on.
It's nice to listen from home as well, but nothing beats being here! We will be
back!!!
Read more about the KONG-expedition (and more) in Bjarne's blog.
24-OCT-2015 @
07:00 UTC
We love protons ... not!!!
The last two nights
the band has been virtually dead beacuse of the increased proton level. However,
in
addition to listening to recordings we also have events of social character
going on, so we do not complain - protons or not. We are having a good time!
22-OCT-2015 @
09:00 UTC
Yesterday afternoon gave nothing new but TJ had a good time finding nice Aussies
on his recordings from September. None of the others kept their daytime
recordings for September so TJ is playing alone ... He is even on the track of
some Indonesians!
We had a power outage just
after midnight local time, and when power came back it blew the fuse on the
circuit where the radios are connected, so everything was dark and quiet the we
came in at 5 am local time. Power was easily restored, but the cause of the
blown fuse is of some concern. Almost all the equipment is connected to timed,
sequential power distributors, turning on one piece of equipment at a time, just
to avoid the heavy load of all the equipment starting up when power is restored.
We will need to spend some time on investigating this.
When power came back there
were quite a few signals to hear, lasting up to 09:00 UTC. Sample stations are
KDCO-CO 1340, KTOP-KS 1490.
On 1440 Kiribati is surfacing - as usual ...
21-OCT-2015 @
06:00 UTC
More uneventfullness ... few
but good New Zealand signals yesterday, and nothing to talk about during the
night. One glimpse of light though: 5TAB Radio TAB from Adelaide, SA came up
with a reasonable signal on 1539 kHz yesterday afternoon. Quite a surprise, but
knowing this TJ soon realized that this was the station he had heard on 25
September as well. Only 5 kW and none of the other SA stations heard at the same
time, but looking at the spectrum 1539 is an "open" frequency with few strong
signals from Asia.
Now we are just waiting (hoping) for some North
American signals to come back as well as another great New Zealand opening - we
would manage well with some other Pacific as well, like Tuvalu 621. Will today
be the day?
20-OCT-2015 @ 05:00 UTC
Unfortunately the last 24 hours have been quite uneventful. Nothing exciting
from the Pacific during the day, and only regular Asia in the afternoon. North
American signals surfaced around 23:00 UTC but the signals were weak and
scattered and so far nothing new has been found. It was a big difference in
signal level between the 310-degree (left YAS-log) and 340-degree (right
YAS-log) antenna, but the lower noise level on the 340 made signals quite
audible anyway. But as you can see, there was a lot more to be heard on the
310-degree antenna today. You can see the live YAS-logs from the Kongsfjord
antennas on these URLs:
310:
http://www.kongsfjord.no/yas/k1/z.gif
340:
http://www.kongsfjord.no/yas/k2/z.gif
19-OCT-2015 @
09:00 UTC
I am listening to Kiribati on 1440 AM as I am writing this. Reasonably good and
steady signal - the only other signals audible in the band are BBC 693 and 810
and some Alaska. It means that the conditions are not that bad and the 50-degree
antenna is working well! It worked very well yesterday as well when we had a
very intense and well-placed opening towards New Zealand at 10:00 UTC. We were
monitoring 1035 and heard the signal increase in strength and clarity as we
approached the top of the hour. For about 5 minutes around the top of the hour
the signal was very nice, and so was several other New Zealand frequencies.
About 25 stations were
noted, and even OJ - with 60 NZL stations logged so far
- got a few new ones. Following this the band went dead, and then the normal
Asians came back.
Here are the stations positively identifed so far:
657
Star, Wellington/Tauranga. Easy now that Murmask is gone.
756
RNZ National, Auckland.
792
R Sport, Hamilton, Waikato. Also //1089, 1125, 1332 a
little later.
819
RNZ National, Tauranga, Bay of Plenty. Best of the RNZs at
this TOTH.
828
Trackside R, Palmerston North.
837
RNZ National, Kaitaia/Whangarei.
918
RNZ National, Timaru/New Plymouth.
945
Newstalk ZB, Gisborne, Poverty Bay.
954
Trackside R, Hamilton.
1008
Newstalk ZB, Tauranga, Bay of Plenty. Very good signal!
1026
Newstalk ZB, Kaitaia/Whangarei.
1035
Newstalk ZB, Wellington. Best signal of all - ALQ (Armchair
Listening Quality).
1053
Newstalk ZB, New Plymouth, Taranaki.
1080
Newstalk ZB, Auckland.
1107
R Live, Tauranga/Rotorua. Fantastic signal and it sounds
like both stations are audible - with a slight delay!
1143
RNZ National, Hamilton, Waikato.
1161
Te Upoko o Te Ika, Wellington.
1188
RNZ National, Rotorua, Bay of Plenty.
1278
Newstalk ZB, Napier-Hastings.
1296
Newstalk ZB, Hamilton, Waikato.
1413
Newstalk ZB, South Waikato Tokoroa.
During the night, the band was very quiet, with weak
but clear signals. Nothing exciting found yet, and we don’t expect much either.
We are more interested if yesterday’s kiwi-stunt will repeat itself. That would
have been cool! Stay tuned!
18-OCT-2015 @
05:00 UTC
The conditions are not
improving, but they are not deteriorating either … Yesterday did not give much
more from North America than what was mentioned in yesterday’s log. Already at
09:00 UTC Kiribati came up on 1440 kHz, and was quite good around 09:30 UTC. On
1017 kHz it was most likely Tonga that was surfacing at the same time, but the
signal was too weak to say for sure. Very weak traces of Guam (567), New Zealand
(1035) and Australia (1548 + X-band) in addition to very strong signals from
Japan in the afternoon.
Fortunately, we have
recordings from the period between KONG30 and KONG31 to work on, and there is
quite a lot of interest from the last days of September and a few days in the
beginning of October. Last night’s big find was WBXR Hazel Green AL 1140 that
had a decent signal when closing for the day on 27 September. Late September and
late October (and even late November) are naturally good periods for catching
daytimers, and it’s always some fun to be found.
Right now the North American
signals have started to weaken and we are waiting for the Pacific signals to
enter. The AM-radio situation in the Pacific is improving and a number of new
targets have been identified for this season – the most obvious one is Tuvalu on
621 kHz. Being prepared – as always – we have the Tuvalu flag hanging on the
wall behind the dinner table!
17-OCT-2015 @
04:00 UTC
KONG31 has started! 3/4 of the KONG-crew arrived
Friday afternoon after a 3h00 drive from Kirkenes - Bjarne was already on site.
Having monitored the conditions since KONG30 in September we knew that there was
little to hear at the moment, thus significant room for improvement! We were
positively surprised to hear good signals from some New Zealand stations @ 12:00
UTC (1008, 1026, 1035, 1170) as well as Guam on 567 a little later.
Now @ 04:00 UTC there is a dip with few signals audible, but they are coming back. DX clearly best on the 340-degree antenna, and between 02:00 and 03:00 we had some good signals and reasonably interesting stations, like KAIR-KS 1470.
See more about the current action at Veines in Bjarne's blog.