Got a Hankering for CW

Woke of this morning early as the sun was rising and all was quiet. Made my first coffee fired up the radio and start tuning the band. I started with the maritime band and located a CW station on 6390 khz and from there I've dedicate the morning to hunt CW stations and try to get their ID. Previous night I had rolled out a good length of thin stranded wire for an antenna for the Sony ICF-SW7600GR as all my other radio gear and antenna have been packed away ready for us selling up the QTH here in Canberra and moving over to Manchester UK for a while. So it been a good morning so far, lets se how the rest of it goes.

20091107:
          
Time  Khz  RST   Message / Info 

1945 6390  359    AQR 2/4 VVV VVV  - Signal faded in and out 50% copy

2002 6378  479    DE 4XZ VVV - ID itself regularly and variety of other short message followed.  
                              Looking on the web it appears that this is (Israeli Morse Station 4XZ)

2022 7015  259    IK2SND IK2ND TEST - Fairly hard to focus with this operator, and signal fade 
                  did not help.

Trying to listen to CW on 7MHz and it was busy / piled up at times fairly hard for a novice CW listener. 
I'll spend a little more time here and get another coffee and see how I go.

20091108:

After getting bogged down in 7MHz, I had to stop as the washing was being done, and the washing machine kill the reception.   So back up and running let see what afternoon CW we get:

0326  14014 479  CQ TEST UA9MC

MW Band Scanning

G'day All,

Well its been a while since I've done any Shortwave / AM / MW scanning and documented it. I'm always listening with the sony out the back with a hot cuppa coffee and when camping, but I've been slack documenting my encounters. Today while sitting at home, I remembered I had my old SONY XR-5100 AM/FM/SW in car stereo sitting in the cupboard. and thought hey why don't I hook it up to a set of speakers and use it with the Slinky external antenna.

After finding power supply and testing it out to see how compatible or not the antenna impendance matching was going to be from the 50/75ohm slinky, I was quiet pleas with its performance. So waiting for dark to fall, I'm now sitting here with a large scotch, and started at my scanning.

Start down at 531 kHz, Here is my report :) Especially hearing Tasmania's 7BU 558 AM Burnie, it inspired me to document my nights encounters.

BTW I've used the following link [List of radio stations in Australia] for my source of Station ID, but I do try and confirm station ID were possible.

26th August 2009

time	Frequeny (kHz)	Station	SINPO	Description
1102z	549	????	44444
1108z	558	7BU	43344
1144z	576	Radio National - ABC (formerly known as 2FC)	55555	Talking about Monkey brains and 3D.
1147z	594	ABC Western Victoria - ABC	55535	Music - Tambourine Man Covered version by "The Birds". Host starts talking about "Redundancy".
1152z	603	ABC ??	33333	Male talking about storm / wild weather, like an old broadcast or story. - Night Share
1156z	612	4QR - ABC Brisbane	44444	ABC - Talking about Redundancy
1158z	621	3AR - Radio National Network - Radio Electric	44444	Story of little girl in the boat.
1202z	639	Radio 639 and ABC North/West SA	44444	Mostly ABC, but Coffs Habour Radio 639 came in strong for a minute, but ABC won.
1205z	648	ABC New England - Tamworth	55545	ABC news / weather
1207z	666	ABC Canberra	55555	Segemnt on "Global Zero" (Sunday Profile) -
1207z	684	ABC and ???	43444	Segemnt on "Global Zero" (Sunday Profile). Could hear asian singing in background.
1211z	693	3AW - Fairfax Media, 4KQ (possible)	43444	Guys (like commentators) yapping - trivia. Music / singing fading in little.
1215z	702	ABC - Sydney (formerly known as 2BL)	54555	Segemnt on "Global Zero" (Sunday Profile). Fading a little, but came back strong
1217z	729	ABC - Adelaide	54555	Bloke taking about recording sounds.
1220z	738	ABC - Mid North Coast	54555	Segemnt on "Global Zero" (Sunday Profile). Fading a little, but came back strong
1222z	756	ABC - National ?	54555	Talking about some guy and his photography
1223z	765	ABC - National ?	54534	Music, fades a little, but nothing replaces it.
1226z	774	ABC - Mid North Coast	54544	Segemnt on "Global Zero" (Sunday Profile). Fading a little, but came back strong
1227z	792	ABC - National (Brisbane)	54555	Talking about some guy and his photography. bit og static dump.
1227z	810	ABC South East NSW - (Bega / Cooma)	54445	African American in the Space Program - (Speaking Out). There was some fade and music coming in. Static Dumps
1235z	828	ABC Gippsland - (Sale)	54555	African American in the Space Program - (Speaking Out). Static Dumps
1238z	836	ABC - National (Canberra)	55555	Still talking about sound/photography and the concious.
1240z	873	2GB - Macquarie Radio Network	55544	Music, a bit of fading
1243z	883	3YB - Part Of The Ace Radio Network 4BH - Fairfax Media (Easy Listening)	53333	Fading in both Stations, but could hear 4BH music and 3YB classical singing or similar. 4BH has just come in strong and clear.
1243z	891	ABC Adelaide - ABC	55555	Some static dumps
1250z	900	7AD - Grant Broadcasters (id)	54434	7AD ID and Music clear. When fades you can hear some form of electrical humm and other station (???)
1254z	918	2XL (Cooma) (ID)	54434	2XL identified, fading, Another station coming in
1256z	936	ABC Hobart - ABC ABC NewsRadio - (Brisbane)	54434	Both equal signal and doubling over each other
1256z	954	2UE (ID) - Fairfax Media - News / Talk	54555	Cherri - Tarrot Reading. Some fade, static dumps.
1303z	963	??	22222	Channel has too many stations at one time. Hard to pull one out
1303z	972	NewsRadio - (Adelaide)	53333	There is another station there during fadeout, but not sure if its 2DU (Dubbo NSW).
1308z	981	2NM (Muswellbrook)	53333	Music, fading a bit, news comin in.

Well I got just under half way through the band scan. I'm knackered andof to bed. But from the above you can see a stack of ABC News, National Capital City and Regional Stations. Some music stations. But Hey I could hear stations from south (Tassie) and to the north (Brisbane, QLD).

Night All

Mark

The Muppets Show

There is not much I need to say, if you grew up with the Muppets Show you know why I loved it. Starting witht the intro which always seemed to be different, but heres one I found and still piss myself with laughter The Muppets Show Intro

The muppets had many, many special guests, and covered many many songs. Here are some I found and its great to see them again:

1. 12 days of Christmas - Muppets & John Denver

2. Ghostriders in the sky - Johnny Cash & The Muppets Show

3. The Muppet Show - Sax and Violence

4. Wild Thing - Animal

5. The Muppets Sleep Tonight

6. Muppets - She Drives me crazy

7. Muppets - You Don't Want My Love

8. Muppets - To Morrow

9. Muppets Tonight - Dancin' With Myself

10. Muppets Tonight - Dancin' in the Dark

11. Paula Abdul on "Muppets Tonight" - Opposites Attract (Edited)

12. Sandra Bullock The Muppets

13. The Muppets - Never On Sunday

14. Muppets Tonight - Muppets Tonight's Greatest 'Hits'

15. Muppets Tonight - She Blinded Me With Science

16. The Muppet Show - Why Can't We Be Friends

17. John Denver - Muppets Christmas - The Peace Of Christmas Day

18. John Denver - Muppets Christmas - Silent Night

19. The Muppet Show - El Condor Pasa

20. The Muppet Show - Scarborough Fair

21. The Muppet Show - Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover

22. Staying Alive - The muppets show

23. The Muppet Show - The Devil Went Down to Georgia

24. The Muppet Show - You're No Good

25. The Muppet Show - Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah

26. The Muppet Show - Julie Andrews

27. Elton John's "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" on The Muppet Show

28. Kokomo - The Muppets

29. Leo Sayer & The muppets - When i need you

30. Leo Sayer & the muppets - The Show Must Go On

31. The Muppets with Kylie Minogue - Especially for You

32. Copa Cabana- by Liza Manelli (Muppet Show Segment)

33. John Cleese on The Muppet Show

34. Shirley Bassey Muppet Show

35. The Muppet Show - Bob Hope.

36. Joan Baez at the Muppet Show
- Part 1 Intro
- Part 2 - Honest Lullaby
- Part 3 - Joan is imitating Marlon Brando as the Godfather
- Part 4 - The night they drove old Dixie Down
- Part 5 - Will the circle be unbroken

37. Muppet Show: Act Naturally

38. Muppet show - Down Memory Lane

39. Muppet Show. Gonzo the Great - My Way (ep 4.11)

40. Kenny Rogers' The http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifGambler on the Muppet Show

41. Johnny Cash @ the Muppets singing with Miss Piggy

42. Alice Cooper & The Muppets - Schools Out

43. Muppets - Don Knotts - What a wonderful world.

44. Muppets sing Jim Croce's "Working at the Carwash Blues"

45. Muppets - Great Moments in Elvis History

46. The Muppet Show - Chanson D'Amour

47. John Denver's "Grandma's Feather Bed" on the Muppet Show

48. The Muppet Show - Surfin' USA

49. The Muppet Show - The Happy Wanderer

50. The Muppet Show - You'll Never Walk Alone

51. The Muppet Show - Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

52. The Muppet Show - In the Navy

53. The Muppet Show - Hound Dog

54. The Muppet Show - Big Spender

55. The Muppet Show - Run Rabbit Run

56. Muppet Show - Floyd Pepper - "Wicked Game"

57. The Muppet Show - The Gnu

58. The Muppet Show - Poison Ivy

59. The Muppet Show - Roger Moore - Talk to the Animals

More Cold / winter Videos

1. Hard Ice Hill

2. John Deere 6530 snow ploughing / snow plowing

3. Train Snow plowing Mp.435.5

4. NB Southern Railway - Plow Extra Jan 2/08

5. Serious snow removal (Rotary)

6. Railroad Jet Powered Snow Remover

7. Truck crashes through barrier on ice/snow

8. Car Snow Ice - (Very Funny)

Cold weather Videos

Going over some of my video links to the left of ships in rough weather, Multiple Train Engines ploughing their way though snow banks that are huge. Well I had to log some more related videos :)

1. Train vs. Snow in Western Iowa

2. Train Pushing Heavy Snow After Storm

3. Who needs rotary snow plows anyways?

4. Bad weather 21-2-2007

5. Crystal Harmony hit by a big wave

Regards
Mark

Johnny and Marching

G'day All,

As I sit here with a little Scotch with 96.7 QBNFM playing in the background just reading and watching information on engine rebuilding and alike, a song came over the airways and I was just taken by it in way I still can't describe :) Anyway the song was called "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye" by Anita Carter. I've not been able to locate a youtube demonstrating of her rendition, however here are two renditions, a slow tempo ( Listen Here ) and fast tempo (Listen Here).

Not sure if it was the slow beat version Anita song, her voice especially for each of her "hurroo, hurroo"

While reading more about these lyrics and the many variations I came across the opposite version "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" - Listen Here. Again many covered version but such as this one - (Listen Here)

Thinks its time for another Scotch :)

Talk with yer all later

Mark

Pittwater to Coffs Habour 2009 Yacht Race

G'day All,

After a fairly terrible time with the 6516 khz frequency for the Syndey to Hobart race, I'm going to see how the we go covering the "28th Pittwater & Coffs Harbour Offshore Series 2009".

I'll be using the Icom R75 located in Canberra, and the Sony ICF-SW7600GR portable radio attached to an inverted V / random length antenna.

The race using Satphone, VHF and HF to provide Position and Safety reports. So ignoring the Sat and VHF side of things here are the following Sked times for HF obtains from the following Racing Instructions:


To make it easier / comfortable to listen to some of these recordings that may have been recording during poor HF conditions, play them with in a mp3 player that has a Graphic Equaliser functionality such as Windows Media Player and set all bar the voice frequencies to off, here is my setting for Windows Media Player:

20090102 2005 Position Report - (Listen Here)

20090103 0005 Safety Report - (Link Here)

20090103 0705 Position Report - (Listen Here - Audio from Sony located in Brisbane)
                                (listen Here - Audio from Icom R75 located in Canberra)

20090103 1405 Position Report - (Link Here)

20090103 2005 Position Report - (Link Here)

(The sked's listed for the 3rd January 2009 above are repeated until end of race).