It's certainly good short-range tropo here now with Heart Essex on 96.3 giving Eagle Radio some real grief (and just now had RDS with a PS name of Heart_SX), Southend Radio on 105.1, KM FM 107.9 and of course, BBC Essex good on 95.3. Wrotham has been up to 48 dBf on 91.3 (normally around 27-28 dBf).

Congrats on the move adc. Where in the New Forest will you be moving to?

Looking at Fordingbridge. Still just about commutable to work in Guildford. Should be an interesting new world of DXing, away from the influence of the London stations.

Wow that's quite a long journey adc. But yes that will be an interesting place to DX from. I look forward to reading your reports from there.

Interesting that the distances from Whitchurch to Fordingbridge and Farnborough are about the same as the crow flies although in different directions.

Not much going on here near Bristol. Only two stations BBC R Surrey from Guildford coming in above R Bristol from Bath on 104.6 and Wave from Chillerton Down on 105.2 clear but mono only. Other stations which I normally hear with a slight lift are barely audible.
Congratulation on the move adc and hope you get improved DX conditions in the New Forest.

Had an old FM dipole lying around, so I cut it down to Band III size and have been experimenting with it outside. Picking up a surprising amount of local multiplexes today in Mid Staffordshire.

Derbyshire (with no bubbling)
Nottingham (with only slight bubbling)
Birmingham
Wolverhampton & Shropshire
North East Wales & West Cheshire
Liverpool (for a brief spell)

As part of that I've found the FunKids DAB+ test on NE Wales & W Cheshire. Sounds a bit metallic to me so could probably do with a bit more than 64kbps. It's nearly there though, and much better than mono 64kbps plain DAB!

With my makeshift band III dipole in the loft I seem to be managing to hang onto Nottinghamshire DAB most of the time. On FM Smooth from Waltham and BBC Nottingham/Trent FM from Mapperley Ridge have all always been noisy stereo at best here. Just goes to show the benefit of the digital SFN being able to add two weak signals together I guess!

Thinking about it, MXR North West would've been the reason neither was available before!

At some point last week I had a hissy stereo signal from the Belgian Radio 2 on my new hi-fi, which is a big improvement on my old one. My old system sometimes struggled to even get a stereo signal from local stations!

On and off for the last several days I've heard some French and Dutch stations, sometimes quite strongly, as well as the BBC and Classic FM on lots of frequencies.

Well there was some short-range tropo here yesterday evening towards Kent and Essex, strong enough to bring in listenable signals from Southend Radio 105.1 and KM FM on 107.9. Nothing exciting yet though. Hopefully conditions will improve over the weekend.

Egem was about here on 95.7, 98.6 and 102.1 yesterday evening. I was on the other side of town where signals are very different as you're very shielded from London

Despite the Hepburn maps suggesting the lift peaking today (and maybe tomorrow) conditions have actually declined from last night when there was a slight enhancement. So everything is back to normal, despite an area of green stretching between central England and Belgium/Holland.

Very disappointing.

Certainly a good week for tropo and after last nights lull conditions are still above normal again particularly to the South East.

As the high pressure declines next week should hopefully continue with the good condx.

Hi all.

I've stumbled across this thread as I too have noticed the "beeps" which are still being broadcast on 91.9 FM @ 12/09/2014.

Can anyone recommend a site / method of trying to nail down what they are? No real reason, but I have a theory and it's driving me mad not knowing...

Having spent some time listening, I've established that "normally" you hear one high-pitch beep or tone, roughly once a second. At times, this stops and after a short length of silence (not timed it exactly, but it feels like 30 seconds / 60 seconds), you get a single low-tone beep.

This low-tone single beep will then be repeated, including the silence gap OR at some point, instead of this low-tone single beep, you hear five quick high-pitch beeps, followed then by the single high-pitch beep every second.

I've always been fascinated by things like "Numbers" Stations, the Conet Project, and odd sounds you can pick up on the radio, and so this intrigues me greatly.

My theory is that this is some sort of "tracking" signal like you sometimes see naturalists using where-by they fit a radio collar to a Grizzy Bear or some other animal, then follow its movements by using a directional Ariel.

I get the impression that the continuous beeps are some sort of "moving" or "all OK" transmission, and the pauses and low-tones are some sort of indication of a loss of signal / non-moving condition. The five-beeps after single low-tone appears to be a "re-established" / "moving again" indication.

I've listened to this signal for a number of days and heard solid periods of low-tone beeps and pauses, solid long periods of the continuous once a second beeps and everything in-between.

Anyone want to speculate / suggest a way of researching this? I did stumble across Gun Dog collars that emit tones in the field, but nothing that made me think "That's it..."

Given that Grizzly Bears aren't that prevalent in darkest Chelmsford, Essex, I'd love to get to the bottom of this.

My next thought would be to try tuning into 91.9 at different locations, moving further out from where I can currently hear the signal, to see if it gets stronger / weaker and narrow down whether it's a local broadcast etc. I've tried researching the tone patterns on the 'Net and the frequency, but come up blank.

Thanks for any input.

Regards
Last edited by James UK : 13-09-2014 at 15:58

Dutch stations such as Q Music, Radio 10, 100% NL and Radio538 are enhanced tonight, most to noise free and I even got RDS from 538 102.7 a few minutes ago!

Been getting HBB & Northants DAB this evening alongside the other East Midlands ensembles I've been receiving this week:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvhC1lbR1eY

Here where the FM band is fairly full, DAB DX is proving quite interesting

Hi Adam,

Yes, I receive the HBB & Northants Ensemble, here in Lincoln. It comes from Sandy Heath TX in Bedfordshire. I believe the frequency is not used anywhere else in England. Try for the Oxford ensemble 10B (I think), or is it 10D?

Cheers,

Chris.

Hi Chris,

I think I was receiving the Northamptonshire version on 10C. Before Moorland Radio on 103.7, Geddington BBC Northampton on 103.6 used to be a regular here! I think during the scan my radio paused on 10D (Herts, Beds & Bucks) - maybe it ignored the stations as a duplicate of 10C though.

Unfortunately Oxford is co-channel with Derbyshire on 10B. Again though, on FM 95.2 (plus 99.1/89.5 etc) is a sure sign of the start of an enhancement here usually.

Hi Adam,

Oh yes, I seem to remember 10C stations being the same and therefore not loading.

I forgot about the new Derby ensemble.

Last year I received this on 8B from Denmark. At the time, I was using a 5 element loft-mounted antenna, directed towards Emley Moor (North West of here), so not even in the correct direction for Denmark. See link..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND9hE687unY

Cheers,

Chris.

For DAB DXing would I have to do an autoscan to receive the distant muxes, thereby losing my presets?

Hi Catherine,

Different makes of DAB radio have different search properties. Have a look at your radio's menu and see if there is an option for manual tuning. You may see tuning by Ensemble (Multiplex) from 5A - 13D etc.
My Roberts radio is able to manual tune, without having to re-load any presets

Best of luck,

Chris.

Ah yes, my new hi-fi does have a manual tuning option - I'll have to revisit the instructions.

Thanks!

Small so far but Wrotham is up at about 44 dB (normally 27-28 dB) and Lille is stabilising and reaching RDS levels on 103.7. The London stations are also up a bit.

Maybe this will improve overnight.

Picked up a few things last night which don't usually come through. Nothing from Europe apart from a few very faded French sounding stations on 91.5 & 99.5.

Here's a list of everything I managed to pick up on the Eton E3 last night using the telescopic aerial so it's mainly a few extra BBC Nationals which came in. Included everything here but the London stations etc are obviously always receivable here in South Hertfordshire.

87.5 Pirate
87.9 Pirate
88.1 BBC R2
88.5 BBC R2
88.8 BBC R2
89.1 BBC R2
89.5 BBC R2
89.7 BBC R2
89.9 BBC R2
90.1 BBC R2
90.3 BBC R3
90.4 BBC 3CR
90.7 BBC R3
91 BBC R3
91.3 BBC R3
91.7 BBC R3
91.9 BBC R3
92.1 BBC 3CR
92.5 BBC R4
92.6 VERULAM
92.9 BBC R4
93.2 BBC R4
93.5 BBC R4
93.7 Pirate
93.9 BBC R4
94.1 BBC R4
94.5 BBC R4
94.6 BBC Berks
94.9 BBC London
95.2 BBC Oxford
95.4 BBC Berks
95.5 BBC 3CR
95.8 Capital
96 BBC CAMB
96.1 BBC Solent
96.4 EAGLE
96.6 Heart
96.9 Heart
97.3 LBC
97.6 Heart
98.2 RADIO 1
98.5 RADIO 1
98.8 RADIO 1
99.1 RADIO 1
99.3 RADIO 1
99.7 Pirate
100 KISS 100
100.3 Classic
100.6 Classic
100.9 Classic
101.3 Classic
101.5 Classic
101.9 Classic
102 Pirate
102.2 Smooth
102.6 Heart
102.9 Heart
103.1 Heart
103.3 London Greek
103.5 BBC Essex
103.6 BANG Radio
103.8 BBC 3CR
104 BBC SURREY
104.1 BBC BERKS
104.4 BBC BERKS
104.6 BBC SURREY
104.9 XFM
105.2 Wave 105
105.4 Magic
105.6 Kiss
105.8 Absolute
106 Jack
106.2 Heart
106.4 Kiss
106.6 Time
106.9 BOB
107.1 Capital Xtra
107.3 Reprezent
107.6 VIBE1076
107.8 Jackie

Good to hear Wave 105 again, completely wiping out Release FM.

Some nice out-of-season E-skip about for the last couple of hours, mainly from the Balkans, with Croatia, Serbia, Hungary and Italy positively IDed so far. I managed to get full RDS on RTS Beograd 1 on 94.5 and 95.3 at one point which was a nice surprise.

Still trying to hang on as I type.

I have altered my aerials again I have put my Antiference FM 3 vertical mainly for Ireland and it has made a vast difference to the dipole I was using.

http://s593.photobucket.com/user/rad...tml?sort=3&o=0

I have been receiving UK RAW 87.5 London pirate nearly every day for the past few weeks and I uploaded a video which was rather noisy so I have uploaded another video which is better quality received on 17/09/14.

http://youtu.be/UmvONU08-_Y

Andy