As I wrote in this week's Surfin', "During the holidays, I began chasing long and medium wave DX using my Kenwood TS-440S transceiver and an inverted V antenna cut for 40 meters."
The December 23 installment of Surfin' about ultra-light radios sparked my interest to explore the long and medium waves. I began monitoring the bands while cleaning and reorganzing the shack.
I started by listening on the long wave band and logged 33 aeronautical navigation stations sending their IDs in CW. The best DX was ZIY in Georgetown, Grand Cayman on 344 kHz.
After hearing all I could hear long wave wise, I began working my way from one end to the other of the AM broadcast band. After a few days, I logged 72 stations. The best DX was WWL in New Orleans on 870 kHz.
I am building an indoor loop antenna, which I hope to complete this weekend, which I hope will result in new log entries.
By the way, I am indebted to William Hepburn's LW Radio Beacons and The am-dx.com Western Hemisphere List for their lists of LW and MW stations, respectfully, that helped me identify what I heard.
Oh man does this take me back. I did not get heavy into SWL or BCB DX until the late 1960s but boy do I remember Tom Kneitel, K2AES and Electronics Illustrated.
ReplyDeleteAll his stuff on Radio Swan/Radio Americas and "Uncle Toms Corner".
A really neat guy and a sharp whit as well.
I remember a response to a reader question where the reader wanted to know if is set would pick up tha Marine Bans. Toms answer was "If you here it playing The Halls of Montezuma, you can be sure it's The Marine Band".
I was a subscriber to Pop Com when he was editor for a number of years but let it and SWLing go by the board for quite a while when I got my ticket again.
Maybe I'll bet back into it when I get relocated to where I can have an out door antenna up.
WA4CM
Chris