New A08 schedules

Effective Sunday, March 30, 2008, most international radio stations will go into the new A08 schedule. This is for a purpose of replacing their old frequencies for the fall-winter with new ones for spring-summer to meet with the latest propagation. In general, most of them will be shifting to higher frequencies like 25, 19, and even 13 meter bands. It would be a lot of fun to explore the shortwave bands to find new stations on new frequencies. Will see what can be observed :-)

Stop selling / buying QSL cards on the auctions!

I have just sold a couple of old radios and equipments on the Yahoo! Auctions. They were sleeping in a warehouse of my house for a long time, and I just wondered if it would be better for them to be used by other people rather than just sitting in deep of the darkness. I did not feel good about making too much money for them and therefore set up the start-price at only JPY100.- (=USD1.00). This way, the final price would be determined by a competition of bidders without my control. Thus, my old radio has gone to the final bidder at the price of JPY6,000.- (USD60.00).

We are allowed to sell whatever we want UNLESS they are any illegal or prohibited items. HOWEVER, I am not comfortable at all to see a lot of QSL cards actually being sold on the auctions now. This is just ridiculous. What is more unbelievable, uncomfortable, and unacceptable is that there are some silly people bidding for these QSLs with the name of someone else. What a shame! Tell me what that QSL card means.

I understand that the trade can always be completed as long as the seller and the buyer come to an agreement on the price. But, any QSL card issued to a specific person should NOT be used for a purpose of making money. I strongly wish they would realize how shameful they are to do such silly thing and withdraw all the QSL cards from the Internet auctions right away.

Tatarstan Wave QSLs

According to the recent public research conducted to various generations in the metropolitan Tokyo area, far less than a half people were able to give a right answer about the geographic location of Miyazaki. Miyazaki is one of the Japan’s 47 prefectures (like the States of the United States) located in the east coast of the Kyusyu - the south-western island of Japan. They have become popular as a result of electing the well-known comedian as the new governor. My wife and I laughed at this news and the fact that so many people had a hard time answering this easy question.

Now, I just received two QSL cards from the Tatarstan Wave. I asked my wife if she knew where Tatarstan was located. She honestly said that she had never heard of the name. If I were not a shortwave listener, I would have been the same. In fact, I had NEVER known the name of Tatarstan either until I had a chance to hear the Tatarstan Wave a few years ago. Both my wife and I still cannot tell the exact location of their country in the blank map.

Are you laughing at us? Well, you had better not. Guess if you were selected for the same public research in Tokyo about the geographic location of Tatarstan :-)

The latest VOA QSLs

The VOA is now sending us a new series of QSLs with designs (actually, photos) of their transmission sites around the world. The ones I have received so far are the Delano and the Germany. I personally have never seen anything else but am sure they have more in this series. I would like to have one of the Greenville as I used to visit them several times in the past when I was in the United States. Also, I am interested in seeing the one of Sao Tome since nothing comes up to my mind as the image of this mystic country. It must be a lot of fun to actually see how they look like :-)

Radio Slovakia International QSL

The English program of the Radio Slovakia International can be observed with good reception condition at 07:00 UTC on 15460kHz. This is the latest QSL card I just got a few days ago.

My shack

This is a photo of my shack taken in the middle of January, 2008.

I just bought a brand new house last June, and one of the rooms on the 2nd floor has been occupied as my shack :-) My wife agreed that I would use this best room with a large balcony until my 3-year-old daughter becomes in need of a private room (maybe 16 years old after she is graduated from a junior high school). I still have more than 10 years left of the 'official right' to occupy here for my dairy shortwave listening activities, though :-) Maybe I should have bought a larger house with more rooms, so that I would have had the permanent shack just exclusive for me :-(

Anyhow -

At this moment, ONLY four (4) tabletop receivers are sitting on a big desk. This American-size manager desk was purchased when I was in Atlanta several years ago and brought back to Japan with me. It is not easy for us to find this kind of big desk (especially with the deep depth) here in Japan - and as you can see, this is just ideal size for putting several receivers and a desktop PC due to the sufficient depth.

RX-340 of Ten-Tec, AR7030PLUS of AOR, and NRD525 / 545 of JRC are the main receivers in use for my monitoring. I own a lot more and they are sitting on the cabinet but there are too many to be used all the time. I sometimes change the layout of my shack and replace some of them with different ones.

These four (4) receivers are all connected with the latest version of the ALA-1530S+. This active antenna is, of course, intended for an outside use - but I still hesitate to set it up outside of my house. I am satisfied with the performance of this antenna even in an inside use. I added a pole with a base to this antenna, and this allows me to rotate the ring manually to obtain the best angle. This is one of the reasons to use it in my shack.

There are so much other things to mention about my shack - but that's it for today :-)

China Radio International QSL

This is a QSL card of the China Radio International received in the middle of February, 2008. This year is the rat year in the lunar calendar, and the CRI have taken a rat in the design with a Chinese character meaning “happiness” or "good luck". We, Japanese, also use the same letter in the same meaning and this makes us feel a fact that we have a close cultural relationship with China. Through the programs of the China Radio International, we are also able to feel directly how people in China are excited about the Olympic games held in this coming August :-)

Radio Free Asia QSL

Just received a new QSL card from Radio Free Asia today. Same design of the U.S. 41-cent stamp is used at the exact timing of the Chinese new year holidays. A note in small letters on the bottom says "Used with permission". It is so funny that Radio Free Asia applied (to the U.S. Mail) for the use of this design on their QSL card :-)

By the way, I personally have not had a chance to monitor the new medium wave transmission of their Korean service. I am too busy especially in the weekdays to do so :-( Hope I will be able to take some time for the monitoring in this coming weekend.

More lighthouse radio stations

These are QSL cards from the lighthouse radio stations of the Nyudou, the Tappi, and the Hachijyojima. All of them are on the air every hour for approx. a minute on 1670.5kHz, just like other stations. They can be observed well all through the night here in Saitama, Japan. The Japan's lighthouse radios share the same frequency of 1670.5kHz, and transmissions of each station go out in turn.

The Todogasaki lighthouse radio station

Let's go on with more Japanese lighthouse radio stations. This is a QSL card from one of the Todogasaki in Iwate, the northern part of Honsyu - the main Island of Japan. They are on the air at 28 minutes of every hour for approx. one minute. The frequency is 1670.5kHz, and the power is 50 watts.

Weekend Latvia Relay Result

The weekend Latvia relays of last night was unfortunately NOT good at all here in Japan. Observed a kind of strong carrier on 9290kHz at 08:58 UTC but this was NOT one of R.Joystick but the unknown Chinese station. They had occupied this frequency for a while and finally disappeared at 12:00 UTC. Something could be heard on 9290kHz after that, but it was too weak with a lot of noise to be verified in my location. Anyone confirmed SA? According to the schedule, this should have been R.Casablanca at or after 12:00 UTC.

Weekend Latvia relays on 9290kHz

The weekend Latvia relays on 9290kHz will be carried out as follows.

Saturday, March 1, 2008

09:00~10:00 R.Joystick

10:00~11:00 R.Nord Evergreen

11:00~12:00 Latvia Today

12:00~13:00 R.Casablanca

Sunday, March 2, 2008

14:00~15:00 Latvia Today

Wish the propagation condition would be fine so that we will be able to enjoy these programs tonight and tomorrow night here in Japan.