Wednesday 6 May 2015

A 49m Bandscan


As indicated in an earlier blog, a planned scan of the 49m band was made a few nights ago ... one at 0400Z (10PM local) and another at 1200Z (5AM local). Both had a decidedly different flavor. Frankly I was surprised at the number of broadcasters and especially the number from Asia, China mainly, heard in the morning scan. One information source I found indicates that most of the strong shortwave signals from China are more designed for jamming than for program content.

My initial impression was that many of the more interesting low power targets from Central / South America and Africa may be a thing of the past but I may be wrong. The 'news' page, of the World Wide DX Club, seems to indicate that there are still lots of juicy targets out there if you are willing to put in the time to look for them, as many seem interested in doing. There also seems to be a larger variety of DX targets available in the higher bands such as 25m and 31m.

For the most part, these broadcasters don't fool around with QRP, and their signals are pretty dominant. Conditions of late have not favored Europe or Africa so there may be more activity from these regions than I think.

The following stations were logged with the Perseus SDR along and the 10'x20' loop / Wellbrook preamp, looping E-W, at 0400Z:

5810 EWTN (inSpan) Vandiver, Alabama 500kw
5830 WTWW (rel) Lebanon, TN 100kw
5850 Sun Power Radio (RMI) Okeechobee, FL 100kw
5890 WWCR (rel) Nashville, TN 100kw
5910 NHK Radio Japan Issoudun, France 100kw
5920 WHRI (rel) s/off Cypress Creek, SC 250kw
5920 Radio Romania Galbeni 300kw
5935 WWCR (rel) Nashville, TN 100kw
5970 Radio Italia (in Portuguese) Belo Horizonte, Brazil 10kw
5980 Channel Africa s/off Meyerton, SA 250kw
5985 NHK World Radio Japan (in Span) Okeechobee, FL 100kw
6000 Radio Habana Cuba Titan Quivican 250kw
6020 Radio Gaucha s/off Porto Alegre, Brazil 10kw
6030 Radio Marti Greenville, NC 250kw
6040 Radio RB2 (in Portuguese) Curibata, PR 10kw
6050 unid  / weak
6060 Radio Habana Cuba La Habana 100kw
6070 CFRX Toronto, ON 1kw
6090 Caribbean Beacon (rel) Anguilla 100kw
6125 Deutsche Welle s/off Manama, Bahrain 250kw
6160 CKZU Vancouver, BC 500w
6165 Radio Habana Cuba La Habana 100kw
6175 Voice of Vietnam Cypress Creek, SC 250kw
6180 Radio Nacional Brazilia Brasilia 250kw
6185 XEPPM Radio Educacion Mexico City 1kw


These stations were logged at 1200Z, using the same system:

5830 WTWW Tennessee 250kw
5875 BBC Nakhon Sawan (Thailand) 250kw
5915 China Radio Int'l Hohhot 100kw
5925 Voice of Vietnam 2 Hanoi 50kw
5935 PBS Xizang Lhasa-Baiding 100kw //6110
5955 China Radio Int'l Beijing 150kw
5970 PBS Gannan Hezuo 15kw
5975 CNR 8 Beijing 100kw
5985 Myanmar Radio Yangon 25kw
5990 unid China Radio Int'l same interval sig as 5915
5995 Taiwan Xing Xing Kuanyin sign-on 10kw
6000 CNR 1 Beijing 100kw
6003 VOH Korea (S) 100kw
6015 KBS Hanminjok Bangsung 1 Hwaseong (S. Korea) 100kw
6020 weak / poss Radio Victoria Lima with time pips 3kw
6030 CNR 1 Beijing 100kw
6040 weak w/eastern music/ poss Air Jeypore India 50kw
6050 weak / poss RTM Malaysia 10kw
6055 weak w/continuous music / unid
6060 Radio Argentina Exterior General Pacheco 100kw
6065 CNR 2 Beijing 150kw
6070 Voice of Korea / in Japanese Kanggye 10kw
6080 PBS Hulun Buir Hailar (Mongolia) 10kw
6090 NHK World Radio Japan Ibaragi-Koga-Yamata 300kw
6095 KBS World Radio Kimjae (S.Korea) 250kw
6100 Radio Serbia Bijeljina 250kw
6105 Radio Taiwan Int'l Kouhu 100kw
6110 Voice of America / chinese Udon Thani (Thailand) 250kw
6110 PBS Xizang Lhasa-Baiding 100kw //5935
6115 Voice of Strait Fuzhou (PRC) 50kw
6125 CNR 1 Beijing 100kw
6155 CNR 2 Beijing 150kw
6160 CKZU Vancouver 500w / relay CBU AM
6165 Voice of Vietnam 4 Hanoi 50kw
6175 CNR 1 Beijing 100kw
6180 CNR unid but time pips match other CNRs
6180 Radio Taiwan Woofferton 250kw
6195 BBC Kranji (Singapore) 125kw
6200 Voice of Jinling Manjing (Singapore) 100kw
6280.14 Unid with music / poss SOH Xi Wang Zhi Sheng Tanshui (Taiwan) 100 watts
6365 Hand sent keyer CW with callups 7CJ 7CB 7FB QTC into nr/ltr groups
6389 similar to above but nr/ltr groups
6400 Pyongyang Kanggye (N. Korea) 50kw
6501 USCG NMO Honolulu with wx bdcst
6518 Voice of the People Kyonggi-do-Koyang (S. Korea) 50kw
6518 N. Korean jammer Kujang 250kw
6600 Voice of the People Kyonggi-do-Koyang (S. Korea) 50kw
6600 N. Korean jammer Kujang 250kw
6679 Honolulu Radio w/ aviation Volmet
6754 Trenton Volmet wx bdcst


The number of broadcasters using remote sites is also surprising. It seems that the relaying of program content for others is big business and for many countries, much cheaper than running their own 250kw stations.

Some links that I have found very useful for identifying SW BC stations:

http://www.geocities.jp/binewsjp/ic/bia15.txt

http://www.short-wave.info/

http://www.shortwaveschedule.com/

4 comments:

Vasily Ivanenko said...

Not bad Steve. I recall my logs from the 1970-80s that went on for many sheets

VE7BDQ said...

Nice to have all those stations identified .. I find 49 meter band is good listening 24/7

John

Anonymous said...

Steve - that's a great bandscan & thanks for the comprehensive listing. 49M is pretty tame compared to one time, so I don't do much DXing here. However, I love jazz & Latin music (salsa, cumbia, samba etc) plus a somewhat different coverage of news & public affairs that don't often get covered by 'mainstream media.' That makes 49M one of my favourite SWL bands when DX condx are boring or non-existent. 49M pre-sets on my radios: Ch. Africa 5.980; R. Habana 6.0 & 6.165; R. Gaucha 6.020; & R. Nacional Brasil 6.180. Looking at the listings, there isn't much of interest to tempt me into early mornings scanning 49

73 Mike VE7SKA

Steve McDonald said...

Mike - I don't think I've done any serious listening around 49m since I was a kid ... other than a lot of aero stuff before I had any TX gear set up on the island. I know from the aero catches that propagation can be fantastic down there when condx are good. I should take another look in the Fall, armed with a list of any 'exotics' that might still be left ... can't help noting how much has changed with regard to SWBC DXing over the years, definitely not like the good old days.