(photo courtesy Russian MWV website)
DEAR READERS: I'd forgotten I had this article written up. Here 'tis, over two months late. That said, DX conditions have still been poor over the past two months, so much of what I say here still applies. Plus, the new battery issue I encountered is probably informative -- batteries can be bad out of the box! Ya learn something new every day.
Peace, C.C.
I am still in a funk over losing my cat, and dealing with a bunch of different stuff here at home, but I have managed to tune the Shortwave bands -- usually in the morning hours, when Asia comes in -- and the MW band at night when I'm in my writing Den, or later at night when I am ready to hit the hay.
I am also working on finishing an article on the latest Solar Cycle, and how mediocre it is -- something I've held off on publishing for several months, in the event that the Solar Cycle somehow begins delivering the DX that it's supposed to be delivering (hint: so far, it really hasn't). There have been a few bright spots where there have been mornings and afternoons with some DX on the SW, and MW at night has picked up slightly, but it's also had swaths of 3-4 days where there are mediocre conditions, too.
That article will be posted by mid-October.
That said, the past few days here in mid-September SW and MW have been mediocre at best, abysmal at worst. I tune my DX-394 + wire antenna during the mornings and often during the evenings, and I use my Superadios, Sangean PR-D5, or Sangean PR-D4W for MW DXing at night (and -- on rare occasions, my trusty Panasonic RF-B45), all with a milk crate loop.
The last couple weeks have been pretty mediocre on both the SW bands and the MW band. Sometimes the most interesting catch I've had is the Desert Whooper on 4096 kHz, a small, low power beacon transmitting 'whoop' noises and some CW out of an undisclosed location in Desert California.
This particular morning (the 17th of September) was an example. As I was sipping my coffee, waking up, and tuning my DX-394, I heard mostly static. The 30 Meter Ham Band was dead, no Pinneberg military RTTY on 10100 kHz, no NAU USN RTTY at 10153, no CW and not even any FT8. WWVH on 10000 kHz was in the mud, and WWV was non-existent. The 20 Meter Ham band was dead except for very weak FT8 noises around 14075-14075, and the 40 Meter Ham band was nothing but static, except for a local (WA-OR-BC) net high up in the band, and even then I could only hear the two strongest stations.
The 31 Meter Band, which is a good SW broadcast band for Asia during the mornings, was nothing but static.
Except for Madagascar.
Lo and behold, 9885 kHz had not just a carrier, but audio! Pop music! The signal was weak, but quite audible in the static, and fairly readable. Then I heard some talk by a woman in Russian, and then a man talking in Russian, ID'ing the station as 'KNLS', which is a Christian station that operates out of Anchor Point, Alaska, usually beaming programs in Russian to Siberia and Chinese and English to Asia.
But KNLS also has a station in the Southern Hemisphere, that broadcasts to Russia and other regions of Western Eurasia from Madagascar.
This is the station I was listening to: the MWV New Life Station being transmitted from Mahajanga, a small city in NW Madagascar, not too far from the Indian Ocean coast!
MWV New Life Station seems to be the KNLS service to Western Russia, while KNLS proper serves Siberia. Both stations play a lot of pop music that ranges from 80's pop to 2010's pop. This morning I heard a pop-R&B track sung by a young woman I had never heard before, and then Harry Styles' 2017 hit Sign Of The Times.
After some more talk in Russian, they played some choral music, which was quite good.
I was able to record some of the Harry Styles' track and the choral music on my phone.
It was very odd hearing Madagascar on my DX-394 -- a very capable radio -- and not hearing anything else except very weak carriers with no audio, or static. But it is what it is: that station in Madagascar truly gets out!
What is really cool, at least for me, is that Madagascar is the closest large, populated land mass to the Antipodes of my home region -- it's on the opposite side of the world from here.
The real Antipodes of Seattle, of course, is near Kerguelen Island in the Southern Indian Ocean, but there are no radio stations on Kerguelen (aside from possibly a local, low power FM for the French scientific and military station there). Madagascar, maybe 1800 miles to the north of Kerguelen, shall suffice. :-)
Like I've said before, both here and elsewhere, when concerning the somewhat disappointing Solar Cycle, there are always some surprises, and this was one of them. To not hear much of anything slamming my radio out of Asia, and no Morse Code or sideband on an early Fall morning when the SW bands should be hopping with signals, only to hear Madagascar beaming a broadcast to European Russia, is just proof that even when conditions are down sometimes you get surprises.
FIRING UP MY REALISTIC DX-398 -- and a new BATTERY ISSUE
With a SIMPLE, EASY Fix!
Just this week -- Monday, to be exact -- I decided to fire up my trusty DX-398, which is probably the best radio I have for SSB and Morse Code reception. My DX-394 comes close, as does my Panasonic RF-B45, but the DX-398 pulls in Sideband signals just a hair better than both of them.
That is, when the signal levels across the band aren't cutting down a couple decibels, only to come back up 10-15 seconds later, as happened to me recently....
I had this happen Monday morning. It was odd -- nothing I'd heard before. Strange dipping and increasing of all noises -- both signals and static. It was like someone was messing around with an RF Gain or Volume control.
At first I thought it was the radio. My antenna is pretty solid -- being indoor, there is no corrosion. And I'd never heard signal levels, across an entire ham band, dip 2-3 db and then go back up maybe 2-3 db just 10-15 seconds later.
For a second I thought it might be the battery connection -- I'd just put in new batteries (Walgreen Alkalines I probably got in the 2010's some time, so they were 'new old-stock' batteries), and maybe I'd not put them in right. I double checked the way the batteries were inserted. They were firmly in place, with no corrosion to be seen anywhere.
Now, I'd had two separate issues with my DX-398 dealing with batteries in the past. One was in 2012 or so when the negative terminal spring weakened where it was soldered to the main PCB board. A good dollop of new solder fixed that. Then last year or so there was a time when the DX-398 would turn itself off after a minute of working, on brand new batteries. That was a bit of corrosion on the positive battery terminal plate -- something that was hard to see, but definitely there. Once I cleaned it, the 398 worked like a charm until the batteries were spent maybe a month or two later.
So this time, when the signal levels on the 10 Meter and 20 Meter bands were wigging like someone was messing with my RF Gain or Volume, I at first thought it was the radio.
At the same time, I realised that it COULD have been propagation -- although that sort of band-wide dipping and increasing of all signals (and static) levels was something I'd never before encountered in all my years of DXing. I'd seen dips and returns in signals, but not the entire band -- static and all.
This was something new. Something was awry.
I rechecked the antenna clip and connector. All was fine.
I took the new, old-stock batteries out of my DX-398 and put them in my trusty Radio Shack 200629 (the batteries in that radio were next to dead). I fired it up. It worked great, until the same thing started happening. Dips in both signals and static. It was almost like what I experienced when my antenna terminal was wonky, though I knew it was 100% secure -- and the DX-398's antenna terminal has always been 100%. And instead of cutting volume and then cutting it back up, like someone hit a switch, in this case it was like someone quickly turning an RF Gain or Volume control.
Same problem, both radios. That meant the problem was external to the radios. Meaning it was the antenna -- or the batteries.
I switched off the 200629 and DX'ed with my DX-394 (which works on AC power), deciding to let the problem sit for a while.
Later that day, the thought occurred to me that maybe the problem was indeed the actual batteries. Maybe they had gone bad in the package, even though they looked clean and normal. I'd heard of such things happening before.
After all, if a battery lowers in juice, all the circuits of a radio will decrease in volume and gain. Usually you don't notice this when your batteries weaken because it's gradual. But if batteries dive for some reason, you'll hear it. And when batteries are old or bad, they might put out 6 Volts for a while and then dip to 4 or 5 Volts, before surging back up to 6 Volts again. And your radio's circuits will be affected. A voltage regulator (in most radios) can only do so much -- it can't create power that isn't there.
Of course, this sort of issue hadn't happened to me before. But it was worth investigating.
So I went to my battery box and pulled out another set of new AA's, this time they were Energizers I probably bought before the Pandemic hit. Maybe they were 5-6 years old, but they were alkaline, so they should still be good.
I popped them into my Radio Shack 200629, Tuesday morning. I DX'ed the bands for over an hour with no glitching, no bizarre dipping of signals whatsoever.
The problem was the batteries. They were old, yes, but they were still in their case. But obviously, they were weak enough to where they were varying in output, and it was messing with the gain and the RF, IF and AF circuits of the radios.
You learn something new every day.
So remember kids, sometimes the issue you may be having with your radio just might be the batteries.
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