Russian Sporadic-E (8.07.2015)

On 8th July I observed a fair Sporadic-E opening from Russia. Both OIRT and CCIR band was full of strong signals. I got almost all stations from the capital of Russia – Moscow. The MUF reached over 108MHz.

I took my RTL-SDR dongle to check the OIRT spectrum and I recorded some I/Q samples of top hour IDs at 2.4 MHz bandwidth. Interesting view – look at the latency and deviation. Each Radio Rossii TX has different settings.

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Sporadic-E signal levels

The Sporadic-E is the strongest available propagation mode. An ionized “cloud” acts like a metal reflector, that allows signal to skip over a huge distance. It is possible to receive many stations with just a small portable radio and a telescopic antenna. With better equipment, when the frequency is clear, it is also possible to receive stations that transmit at extremely low power, like 50W, with full RDS and stereo! So, the signal level must be really strong, but how strong?

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Sporadic-E: Finland, Norway, Sweden, Russia

An excellent opening to Scandinavia took place on Sunday morning. Probably one of the best I have ever seen in this direction. This time I used 2x 9-el K6STI for reception in vertical polarization instead of Körner 19.3 in H. Full log of almost 200 identified stations is available on FMLIST.

Update – only three days have passed since a massive opening from Scandinavia and the CCIR band was again full of signals from Finland. I received lots of local stations, not only YLEs as usually. Some stations from Russia, Norway and Sweden also came in. Full log is available on FMLIST and contains almost 200 identified stations, including few unlisted transmitters. Antenna: Körner 19.3 H

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RDS na OIRT

Odbiór stacji z RDS na OIRT jest od dawna przedmiotem zainteresowania wielu DX-erów. Sam standard nie przewiduje zastosowania w paśmie 65-74MHz. Przykładowo funkcja automatycznego przełączania częstotliwości (ang. AF – Alternative Frequency) numeruje częstotliwości na paśmie UKF od 87,6 do 107,9 MHz z krokiem 100kHz. Oczywiście nie przeszkadza to tunerom pokrywającym zarówno zakres CCIR, jak i OIRT w możliwości dekodowania podnośnej 57kHz na dowolnej częstotliwości.

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