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Atmospherics (merged) (Part 3)


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Old 21-01-2014, 18:20
Hybrid tellies
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It sounds like a short wave station on the 49m or 6Mhz band breaking through on the VCR 6 MHz intercarrier sound stage. Use to hear this quite often on television sets of old.
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Old 21-01-2014, 18:54
Jason100
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It sounds like a short wave station on the 49m or 6Mhz band breaking through on the VCR 6 MHz intercarrier sound stage. Use to hear this quite often on television sets of old.

Is there a list of stations that use those band's around that i can see? It's a shame the station didn't stick around long enough so i could get the station name.
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Old 22-01-2014, 00:28
KnobTwiddler
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Is there a list of stations that use those band's around that i can see? It's a shame the station didn't stick around long enough so i could get the station name.
That was defiantly not Shortwave breakthrough because the quality sounded like FM and it was not atmospherics either.

My bet is that it was a local pirate station breaking through, or some kind of a mixing process caused by a strong local transmitter, but what I don't understand is the weather forecast, as that sounded like the BBC TV weather.

Your TV looks like an analogue set so unless the breakthrough was getting directly into the audio stage of the VCR (most likely being picked up on the recording heads), then I don't know how you could hear the TV audio (if that's what it was) because TV sound is all digital now.

There are several African sounding pirates on the FM band, but I don't know how many are from the East London area.
I would check your FM radio without an aerial connected if you can to see if there are any very strong African sounding pirates local to your location.

I checked the FM band and there are several stations playing African music or sound African, so check these frequencies to see if they are strong at your location.

MHz
107.7 - This appears to be a new station
106.0 - I don't think it's this station because the modulation is awful compared to you recording.
104.0 - Reggae station
101.1 - African sounding
95.3 - I don't think it's this station, but it is causing massive interference to a large part of the 144 MHz Amateur band across East London at present
94.0 - African sounding
93.7 - Reggae station
92.7 - African music
92.2 - African music
90.8 - Jamaican station
90.0 - African sounding

If one of these stations are very strong, then it could be your mystery station - Oh and by the way I see that your TV is a Bush, so I'm not surprised that you are getting breakthrough.
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Old 22-01-2014, 06:51
Nick_G
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Very odd. There is African music for the first 15 seconds of the clip and then the rest of it is presumably BBC sound as it is the weather forecast with Alex Deakin. The music almost segues in to the weather, but I've never heard of a pirate broadcasting Alex Deakin before!

Could the music have been part of a news item on a BBC station such as BBC London?
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Old 22-01-2014, 13:59
Jason100
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Thanks for the info and help everyone. I've got the VCR on now and there's not even interference of white snow this afternoon. If the station had stuck around long enough I could have listened out for a station I.D. but it didn't. indeed, the TV in that room is an analogue one!

I'll try the FM band and see if it's one of those station's listed above.
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Old 22-01-2014, 18:02
Jason100
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MHz
107.7 - This appears to be a new station
106.0 - I don't think it's this station because the modulation is awful compared to you recording.
104.0 - Reggae station
101.1 - African sounding
95.3 - I don't think it's this station, but it is causing massive interference to a large part of the 144 MHz Amateur band across East London at present
94.0 - African sounding
93.7 - Reggae station
92.7 - African music
92.2 - African music
90.8 - Jamaican station
90.0 - African sounding
I tried all of these frequencies earlier this afternoon and i got a clear signal on two of them.

94.0 is a station called The Voice of Africa which is a community radio station based in London, it sounded nothing like the one in my video and the other one i had a clear signal on was 92.7 but that seemed to advertise things in the London area too and both of those didn't broadcast a BBC weather forecast!
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Old 25-01-2014, 10:04
Nick_G
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A tune around this morning reveals a tropo to the S/SW with Brest at stereo levels on 89.4 on the Yamaha T-2 as well as Radio 1 from Les Platons on 97.1 at fair/good mono levels. This is a nice surprise. How's your new aerial doing Knobtwiddler?

Listening is limited here recently due to a new noise problem that started about 2 or 3 weeks ago. It's not on 24/7 but is usually on throughout the evenings. It's right across the band and is strong enough to wipe out the weakest signals, make BBC nationals noticeably degraded in quality as well as light up a bar on the Denon tuner. I have tracked down the source and have filled in the relevant form on the RTIS web site. Then it's see what happens next.
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Old 25-01-2014, 10:42
Nick_G
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I was able to get France bleu Breizh Izel in the clear a few minutes ago by de-tuning to 93.05 or thereabouts on the T-2. I think Rowridge is on reduced power at present which is helping. Wrotham is at local strength. Guildford also seems to be off or greatly reduced as I'm getting what is probably North Hessary Tor instead.
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Old 25-01-2014, 13:27
KnobTwiddler
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How's your new aerial doing Knobtwiddler?
It's really difficult here Nick even with the new loop. There are so few frequencies that doesn't have a legal station or pirate on them. OFCOM appear to have given up completely and the result is more pirates and interference than I've heard in a long time.

Because of the extra gain on the loop, I've had to resort to putting a 12dB attenuator in the aerial feeder to stop the local pirates from overloading the front end of the receiver - it's a real pain.

I only have a few FM frequencies that are worth monitoring because of the interference and these are:

87.5 Clear
87.6 Clear
87.7 Clear
87.8 Clear
91.5 Been hearing France Culture from Caen this morning - at times up to stereo level on the loop
93.0 Weak BBC
94.1 Weak BBC
94.2 Weak BBC
94.3 - 108.0 All frequencies have stations or pirate interference

Even with the loop, I'm fighting a losing battle.

I think that I'm just going to concentrate on DAB when I sort out the aerial situation.
I did a test last night comparing the sensitivity of the new Yamaha T-D500 tuner with the Pure Evoke 1 and they work out about the same, so the Yamaha should be as good for DX'ing.

It's a nice tuner and it's very sensitive, but it lacks the selectivity needed for FM DX'ing. I must admit though, that it sounds very nice on DAB (almost FM quality) - I'm just waiting for a good lift to see how how DAB+ sounds.
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Old 25-01-2014, 18:29
Nick_G
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A pity I didn't have the time to go up to Lynch Hill Park this morning in the car as I think Spain would have been a possibility. No tropo now, and the QRM is back

Earlier on (about 4.20 pm) a rather vicious trough went through which would have killed any tropo off. I was at my Dad's at the time in Preston Candover. The rain was torrential and there were some vicious gusts of wind, so much so that they lost power. The temperature dropped about 5C following the passing of the rain. It was 11C with sunshine at lunch time. And there was me thinking that it was supposed to be a nice day.
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Old 25-01-2014, 19:12
catherine91
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Earlier on (about 4.20 pm) a rather vicious trough went through which would have killed any tropo off. I was at my Dad's at the time in Preston Candover. The rain was torrential and there were some vicious gusts of wind, so much so that they lost power. The temperature dropped about 5C following the passing of the rain. It was 11C with sunshine at lunch time. And there was me thinking that it was supposed to be a nice day.
This trough reached us about half an hour later - flickering lights and a big crash of thunder, it was over very quickly though!

Worse to come tomorrow apparently!
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Old 25-01-2014, 19:53
lundavra
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This trough reached us about half an hour later - flickering lights and a big crash of thunder, it was over very quickly though!

Worse to come tomorrow apparently!
So not a good day to stand holding a portable radio that has a telescopic antenna!
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Old 26-01-2014, 20:25
smorris
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I picked up a radio station through my VCR today around 3.30pm.
My best guess is that it's someone messing with a low power transmitter designed to relay TV or radio within their house, or perhaps a pirate testing their link transmitter. The initial audio sounds very much like a West African pirate.

West African stations are known for their poor technical standards, so it could be something to do with one of them.

Frequencies I know of:
90.0 Hot 90
90.2 unid (Naspa Radio?)
91.8 unid
96.4 Surprise
96.5 WBLS
101.1 Naija
103.0 unid
106.0 Power 106
107.7 unid
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Old 27-01-2014, 15:58
Jason100
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My best guess is that it's someone messing with a low power transmitter designed to relay TV or radio within their house, or perhaps a pirate testing their link transmitter. The initial audio sounds very much like a West African pirate.

West African stations are known for their poor technical standards, so it could be something to do with one of them.

Frequencies I know of:
90.0 Hot 90
90.2 unid (Naspa Radio?)
91.8 unid
96.4 Surprise
96.5 WBLS
101.1 Naija
103.0 unid
106.0 Power 106
107.7 unid
I will have a look at these stations and see whether one of them matches my clip.

Since i filmed that little clip, i've had no interference at all. It's like it know's i'm trying to track down the station! Just before the weather forecast sneaks in on my clip a DJ can be heard saying "so look out for the new album books of....." then it segue's to the BBC weather forecast.
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Old 28-01-2014, 13:01
Jason100
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The VCR keeps flickering from white snow to the 'No Signal' sign right now. When it did that last time, that radio station came through the TV! I'll keep you posted.
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Old 03-02-2014, 00:02
ACL777
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WBBR from New York is in tonight at a fair level on 1130khz.
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Old 03-02-2014, 01:52
Zaxx
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WBBR from New York is in tonight at a fair level on 1130khz.
Thanks for that.

Received here in NW England on two different radios just using the internal ferrite rod aerials.
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Old 03-02-2014, 14:53
Hybrid tellies
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WBBR from New York is in tonight at a fair level on 1130khz.
Thanks for the heads up, I have received this in the past on a few different receiver with their built in rod aerials. It should be easier to receive these days as the high powered Croatian transmitter on 1134Khz closes down quite early.
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Old 03-02-2014, 14:55
Hybrid tellies
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A tune around this morning reveals a tropo to the S/SW with Brest at stereo levels on 89.4 on the Yamaha T-2 as well as Radio 1 from Les Platons on 97.1 at fair/good mono levels. This is a nice surprise. How's your new aerial doing Knobtwiddler?

Listening is limited here recently due to a new noise problem that started about 2 or 3 weeks ago. It's not on 24/7 but is usually on throughout the evenings. It's right across the band and is strong enough to wipe out the weakest signals, make BBC nationals noticeably degraded in quality as well as light up a bar on the Denon tuner. I have tracked down the source and have filled in the relevant form on the RTIS web site. Then it's see what happens next.
Any progress in tracking this noise problem yet?
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Old 03-02-2014, 17:07
ACL777
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Thanks for the heads up, I have received this in the past on a few different receiver with their built in rod aerials. It should be easier to receive these days as the high powered Croatian transmitter on 1134Khz closes down quite early.
Yes the only reason I could ID it is because the Croatian transmitter had closed down.
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Old 03-02-2014, 17:11
Mike_ONeill
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Anybody in Crawley picking up 909 or 693 clearly?
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Old 03-02-2014, 17:33
Nick_G
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Any progress in tracking this noise problem yet?
Well I was going to say that it had hopefully gone as I hadn't heard it for the last 5 or 6 days but it is back tonight

I plan to do some changes to my aerial set-up and I will see what happens then. If it's still a problem then I will contact Ofcom.
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Old 14-02-2014, 00:29
ACL777
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Transatlantic Dx coming in at good levels again tonight. The strongest is WBBR 1130khz which is at armchair quality. Caribbean Beacon from Anguilla on 1610khz is in at at a fair level as is Radio Rebelde 1620khz from Cuba.I will probably fall asleep before the South American stations hit.
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Old 14-02-2014, 00:38
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Been checking for Transatlantic DX tonight and there is almost nothing here, although Tuesday night 1130 was strong, as well as 1510 and 930!
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Old 14-02-2014, 10:24
ACL777
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Its strange how reception varies. Given the proximity of our locations I would have thought we would have got similar reception. 1610 and 1620 always comes in with more strength later on and there's no power houses splattering over only the Dutch pirates around there.

Last edited by ACL777 : 14-02-2014 at 10:25. Reason: spelling
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