Tag Archives: ELAD

North American and European medium wave signals into Oxford, UK

Hi there, I’ve been rather preoccupied of late, initially with the brilliant Tecsun PL-310ET and latterly with the even more brilliant Eton Satellit. However, in the background (as always), I’ve been trying to catch transatlantic medium wave DX. My listening schedule is broadly based on shortwave DXing during daylight hours – when I’m not at work of course, typically a Friday afternoon or at weekends – and always with a portable. Evenings usually start off with a tune around the tropical bands, followed by setting up the Elad FDM DUO to run some medium wave spectrum recordings overnight. In the past few days though, my daylight DXing has been bolstered by my NooElec RTL-SDR and ‘Ham it up’ upconverter. I bought the device over a year ago and after some initial exceitement, it quickly became quite obvious that I needed a reciever with a bit more ‘oomph’! However, it’s actually proving very useful to view signals on a spectrum, even when I’m conducting most or all of my listening on a different (i.e. higher performing) receiver. Ultimately, the RTL-SDR is always going to be a compromise, with relatively limited sensitivity, but because by it’s very nature it has excellent selectivity, overall it’s a reasonable performer. My particular RTL-SDR performs quite well if a decent antenna is employed with it, such as a longwire or the Wellbrook ALA1530 active loop.

Anyway, back to the medium wave DX. In the past month or two, I’ve copied a number of stations from North America, with really nice signals, including WRCR Rampano – New York, WFED Federal News Radio – Washington DC, WENE – Endicott and WUNR – Brookline from Newton, Mass. I’ve also recorded a lovely interval signal from RAI Radio 1, Milano and further European signals from Magyar Radio, Budapest and Radio Slovenija 1, from Ljubljana. During the past 18 months or so of DXing, I have been mostly ignoring signals coming into Oxford from the continent. However, that changed a little after I stumbled across the RAI Radio 1 interval signal, which complete with the rather rousing Italian National Anthem, inspired me to dig out some more European DX. I’m actually finding European DX quite rewarding, particularly because it feels new again – not surprising since I haven’t listened to Europeans on medium wave for any length of time since the 1980s. I hope you enjoy the reception videos – embedded video and text links follow below and I wish you all the very best DX.

Click here to watch on YouTube

Click here to watch on youtube

Click here to watch on YouTube

Clint Gouveia is the author of this post and a regular contributor to the SWLing Post. Clint actively publishes videos of his shortwave radio excursions on his YouTube channel: Oxford Shortwave Log. Clint is based in Oxfordshire, England.

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The new Elad FDM-S3 SDR: screenshot of the entire FM broadcast band

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Click to enlarge.

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Rafman, who shares this tip via the Elad Yahoo Group where Elad engineer Franco writes:

Today I can show new hardware capabilities of FDM-S3:

24.576 MHz I/Q stream and you can see the whole 88-108MHz FM Band sampled.

The FDM-S3 is equipped of USB-3 controller…

Here a screenshot:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/uxlfi…/FDM-S3_FM_BAND_24MHZ_1.png
new info will come in next weeks.

73, Franco IU3ADL

Wow–the entire FM broadcast band! I bet recording that would burn through a 1 TB hard drive in no time! Can’t wait to try it!

As SWLing Post readers know, I love the FDM-S2. Very happy to hear the FDM-S3 is in the works.

We’ll post updates from Elad as they’re released. Follow the tag: FDM-S3

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A quick view of my shack in Oxford, UK & recent transatlantic medium wave DX

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Someone recently described my shack in Oxford as ‘an impressive mess’…. and that really is just about the most positive comment I’ve ever received regarding my listening post! So, my apologies for displaying the mess in public, but in response to having been asked many times by subscribers to Oxford Shortwave Log to ‘share my shack’, here it is, well most of it at least, in all it’s unadulterated glory.

The primary reason however for this post is to share my most recent transatlantic medium wave catches using the brilliant Elad FDM DUO and Wellbrook ALA1530 magnetic loop antenna. This excellent combination continues to pull in really nice DX, although not so much very recently as propagation has been fairly rubbish. However, since early to mid December, the dynamic duo have managed to pull in a number of transatlantic medium wave signals, including Radio Rebelde, Cuba on (670 and 710 kHz), KVNS Texas, CHIN Radio, Toronto, WFED Washington DC, WWNN Health and Wealth Radio, Pompano Beach, Florida, and huge signals from WMEX Boston and WWKB Buffalo, New York. Embedded reception videos and text links follow below and in the mean time, I wish you all great DX!

Click to watch on YouTube

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Transatlantic medium wave DX: 3 Canadian stations rarely heard in Oxford, UK

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Hi there, I thought I’d share with you, three recent catches from Canada that I had not previously heard here in Oxford, UK, over the past 18 months of DXing. The first is VOWR, a religous station in Saint John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador. At the time of reception their TX power was 2.5 kW, thus a really pleasing catch. 800 kHz is such a difficult channel to DX in Europe due to heavy adjacent channel QRM, but the brilliant selectivity of the Elad FDM DUO operating via the FDM-SW2 software performed really well, producing mostlyy intelligble audio on LSB with an audio bandwidth filter of 2.1 kHz. Below is an embedded video and text link.

MW DX with 200 m Beverage: VOWR 800 kHz, St. John’s, N&L, first reception, with ID

The next reception video is CHHA ‘Voces Latinas’ from Toronto on 1600 kHz. This was the biggest surprise because this channel at the start of the X-band is dominated by The Caribbean Beacon, Anguilla. In fact, I would go so far as to say I’ve never heard anything else but Anguilla on 1600 kHz. The only difference in this reception is that it occurred relatively late in the morning for me – around 7:45 am. To catch CHHA for the first time, with a very clear ID was great, I hope to hear them again soon. Below is an embedded video and text link.

Medium wave DX: CHHA Voces Latinas, 1610 kHz, Toronto, first reception

Finally, a reception video of CBC Radio 1, transmitting on 1140 kHz. CBC are very often herad at my shack in Oxford, in fact, I see at least one carrier, usually with audio most evenings/mornings and often multiple signals are present across 600, 750 and 1400 KHz. However, their transmission from Sydney, Nova Scotia had never been copied previously and so this was a pleasing catch. Below is an embedded video and text link.

Medium wave DX: CBC Radio 1, 1140 khz, Sydney, Nova Scotia, first reception

Thanks for reading/watching/listening and I wish you all great DX!

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Medium wave SDR spectrum with over 20 transatlantic signals: a quick tour

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Tour of a medium wave spectrum with over 20 transatlantic signals

Hi there, I thought some of the readers of SWLing Post might be interested in a review of a MW spectrum with multiple transatlantic signals – all with audio. This is one of the recordings I took with the 200 metre Beverage antenna and although I haven’t properly counted, I believe it generated about 50 catches that were either personal firsts or best-ever receptions. You will note that this video is nearly 20 minutes long, whilst the recording is only just over 5 minutes, thus to capture the signals listed below and demonstrate audio to you, it was necessary to effectively ‘rewind’ a few times. I haven’t annotated the video, however, the stations I’ve paused on to demonstrate audio are listed below. There are actually more catches in this spectrum, but hopefully the video will give you a good idea of propagation on the morning of 10/10/16 and the effectiveness of the Beverage/Elad FDM DUO combination. Also note, I didn’t have time to fully optimise the demodulation settings, so for example, I haven’t used AM SYNC in this demonstration. Individual videos of all catches, with optimised settings appear on my YouTube channel Oxford Shortwave Log. I hope you enjoy it! Recorded in Oxford UK on 10/10/16 at 02:00 hrs UTC. Thanks for watching and I wish you all great DX!

590 kHz VOCM Saint John’s
600 kHz CBNA Saint Anthony
620 kHz CKCM Grand Falls-Windsor
660 kHz WFAN New York
710 kHz WOR New York
730 kHz CKAK Montreal
750 kHz CBC Radio 1 Bonavista Bay
790 kHz WAXY (presumed)
800 kHz VOWR
970 kHz WBGG
1010 kHz CFRB Toronto
1030 kHz WBZ Boston
1130 kHz WBBR New York
1190 kHz WLIB New York
1280 WADO New York
1390 WEGP Presque Isle
1400 kHz CBC Radio 1 Gander
1440 kHz WRED Westbrook
1510 kHz WMEX Boston
1520 kHz WWKB Buffalo
1570 kHz XERF La Poderosa, Mexico
1580 kHz HJQT Verdad Radio 1580 kHz, Bogotá, Colombia
1610 kHz Caribbean Beacon, Anguilla
1660 kHz WGIT Puerto Rico

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Oxford Shortwave Log: transatlantic MW DX catches with 200 metre Beverage – part 2

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Hi there, here is the second set of reception videos for my transatlantic MW DX catches using the 200 metre Beverage antenna. Most of the signals originate from the United States and Canada, however, there is also a catch from Mexico – XERF La Ponderosa – which is a personal first and another from Bogotá, Colombia – Verdad Radio. I hope you enjoy them. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you would like further details regarding the Beverage design and/or construction. in the meantime, thank you for watching/listening and I wish you all great DX!