Rockhampton into Brisbane last night (on FM).
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Nothing at all from Launceston on either 91.7 or 92.5. Just 2MNO on 93.3. I did hear a bit of weak Gippsland on 95.1. This is from my southern facing balcony which has an excellent takeoff in that direction. 102.5 Bega blasting in.
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Nothing overly unusual at the moment, Sydney is a bit weaker than usual, Wollongong is a bit stronger than usual, but still weaker than Sydney.
Nothing much enhanced from the north either.
Last night was pretty good with the storms around though, had a bit of 2VOX coming in through a null of Hit106.9, but it wasnāt easy to listen to as Hit was audible underneath. So no RDS.
Had clear Power 94.9 in a null of Rhema with RDS including song info. This was indoors on the Sangean as it was too warm outside.
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Weird how the ducting is working this morning. The northern tropo is bypassing Sydney, while I canāt get Launceston. Perhaps the most intense part of the duct is between here and Sydney along the coastal ranges. The path between here and Lonny is inland over roughly the Cooma region, which probably is out of the duct. Sydney-Tassie goes roughly over the coastal ranges.
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Big ātableclothā on the mountains near Captains Flat and a strong, cool easterly here. As yet the tropo is pretty minimal, though .
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Noticed tonight a powerful radar jamming nearly the entire MW band & probably up into the SW bands. Nice ID caught of 4HI in behind 2HD as it had a silent period. Watch the spectrum scope light up when the radar comes on (warning watch your volume)
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Lot of activity in SEQ region tonight. Middle Brother on 97.1 (RN) and 98.7 (Classic). Grafton and Coffs were also stronger than usual including Coffs commercials - though the frequencies where a bit of a mess as Rockhampton was also coming in from the other direction.
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Enhancement mostly from the north tonight with MMM 98.7 Mackay the furthest received.
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Early heads up: end of the week and part of next weekend could see some significant tropo along the NSW coast. Itās a classic SE heatwave scenario with a high over the Tasman. Saturday looks to be the best day for it and probably from Sydney northwards. I wouldnāt rule out NZ tropo in this scenario, though I havenāt consulted the Hepburn maps.
Unfortunately Bungendore will be firmly in the hot dry air, though some tropo could extend this way on Friday night/Sat morning. Sunday may see the heat extend all the way to the coast with 40C+ temps in places; this will of course kill the tropo duct.
Here is the Hepburn chart for Saturday afternoon our time; the duct doesnāt look like extending all the way across the Tasman:
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Iāve long wanted to do a full annotated AM bandscan but with stations coming in from potentially across the country (and overseas), Iād need to catch the stations on the hour to catch an ID. It was impractical to do this for the whole band one station at a time using a traditional radio, but with SDR, Iāve now been able to put together a band-wide bandscan by recording a whole block of the spectrum instead of individual stations. Here is the result with over 120 stations, most of them with IDs (or the news theme for the ABC stations):
Note: If you donāt want to hear the ABC News theme over and over, most of the commercial stations are in the upper half of the band.
To identify co-channeled ABC stations from one another, I used the seconds before the news to determine if it was RN, Local Radio or News Radio (based on checking what was on the Sydney frequencies just before the hour), which usually only left one possible option for each frequency. SA stations were also apparent as they were offset by half an hour for the news theme.
Where there was more than one station audible, I listed the strongest one; if they were about equal, then I listed both. A few frequencies had too many stations to discern, so for those ones Iāve just put them down as āmultiple stationsā.
Notes:
- The small frequency marker in the middle of the screen is inaccurate in parts of the video, as I shifted the centre frequency after I started recording.
- Times in the temporal bar are UTC.
- ID/news themes were generally recorded at one of three times 23/11/2020 at 23:00 and 24/11/2020 at 00:00 or 01:00.
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4QN 630 was recently received in Finland
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Another big opening to the north with Rockahmpton plus Yeppoon 91.3, Gladstone commercials on 93.5 and 95.1. Mackay 98.7, 99.5
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Great bandscan and thanks.
567 likely 2BH as that would be on South Australian time, therefore no news. Sounds like the most popular show in āIndiaā.
You can hear 4QN Townsvilleās āMajestic Fanfareā behind 2PB on 630.
Definite time pips on 783, definitely not 8AL or Triple M Albany. Likely Voice Of The Strait China as 909 was in strong.
Interesting you had 4TAB on 891 and not 5AN, which is usually dominant. Well done on 4CC too; usually itās just 3UZ. Perhaps propagation was favouring North Queensland.
I have never heard 4TI on 1062; usually itās Renmark. Definitely 4TI though as āMajestic Fanfareā heard. Well done.
1485: SBS Wollongong (āWelcome To News Hourā¦ā). Also weak Majestic Fanfare. 4HU Hughenden?
1584: Likely 2WA Wilcannia or 7SH St Helens with Majestic Fanfare. Likely 4CC/t on the top with commercial news; itās usually the dominant one in Sydney. Funny how theyāve started the news before the TOH.
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Saturday will be 46 here in Renmark, no doubt thatāll kill off anything tropo in the morning
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Agree even here in Newcastle it will be 36 degrees, parts of Sydney will be low 40s. I generally find tropo is best when daytime temps are high 20s-low 30s, so I donāt think the tropo this weekend will be anything particularly good. Happy to be wrong though!
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Thanks for those clarifications, dxnerd.
Does anyone know how the ABC decides which stations will get the time pips? I notice some of the ABC Local Radio services have them whilst others donāt. I think the bigger cities seem more likely to have them?
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Yeah, definitely China. I can hear some Chinese and the time pips are of the Chinese radio type.
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Tropo will die off Sunday but before the core of the heat heats, there could be opportunities.
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