Noisy days on the Arctic shores of Norway

The annual KONG7 DX-pedition was held from Oct 17 to Oct 22, 2002.

Once again, the participants were:

Arnstein Bue: 3 x NRD-525

Rolf Torvik: NRD-535D, Icom R75, Sony ICF-SW77!

Odd-Jørgen Sagdahl: HF-1000A, AR7030+

Bjarne Mjelde: NRD-525, AR7030+, Palstar R30

OJ's HF-1000A tuned to HLAZ 1566 which appear to have a fair signal. Rolf's receivers with a sleeping beauty in the background. Arnstein's impressive 3 x NRD-525

Antennas

The antenna farm was brand new:

200 meters at 314 degrees (roughly the CST area in North America)

330 meters at 333 degrees (towards the MST/PST area)

340 meters at 359 degrees (Alaska, Hawaii)

550 meters at 058 degrees (Japan, Western Pacific)

450 meters at 085 degrees (China, Philippines, Australia, doubling as Latin America on its backlobe)

K9AY loop 11m tall, 32m wide.

Noise!

Unfortunately, KONG7 suffered from noise that seemed to emerge at the start of the period, and end hours before the expedition ended! It now seems evident that the noise coincided with a change of weather. We had northern gale force winds at the beginning – the combination of snow and salty air caused a 22kV power line insulators to produce high-level RFI. This especially affected the Asia wires, with a noise level of around S5 to S9, meaning a signal had to be quite strong to be readable. Although weather improved, the humidity was very high and may have had a negative effect on RFI.

Loran C

We have a Loran C station close by, and it affects DX-ing as well. The noise emerges when several DX-ers with several receivers connect their things, and is probably because we had insufficient grounding of our equipment. The Arctic shores of Norway with its combination of humidity, salinity and temperature changes have often proved to be extremely challenging and requires equipment of higher quality than elsewhere. Good news about the Loran C is that the system is scheduled to be phased out by the end of 2005, making January 2006 the right time for arranging KONG10.

Day by day

Conditions on Oct 17 were promising, with good signals from Asia prior to the arrival of Arnstein, Odd-Jørgen and Rolf. Bjarne logged a low-powered NHK station on 1602 at 1320, and throughout the afternoon Japanese stations were heard with quite good strengths. Then towards the evening signals disappeared, and the night passed without any signals from North America.

Oct 18 passed without any interesting signals. Some Indonesians were heard with good signals on SW though, and we heard some Indian and Pakistani stations on MW.

Oct 19 and 20 improved somewhat. Still no North Americans, but conditions on SW towards Indonesia and Papua New Guinea improved. Six PNG stations heard, among them R. Morobe 3220, R West New Britain 3235 and R Manus 3315. Even better was RPDT2 Manggarai, Ruteng on 2960. On MW mostly SE Asians, but DZAS FEBC 702 was noted with a strong signal on their s/off. We suspect they have had a (temporary?) change of pattern, or was running non-directional, since their main lobe is very distinctly southwards and away from us. Early evening also brought forth FEN Okinawa 648 with a strong and steady signal.

Oct 21, finally some traces of trans-polar signals from North America. Only few signals audible, mostly on the upper part of the MW spectrum, and mostly confined to the Lakes – WLQV-1500 and WAAM-1600 had good signals. Later on the only Hawaiian was heard, KAOI-1110.

Oct 22 was departure day, the guys from the south had to pack their gear at 0600 to reach the plane. North America became audible from 0330 onwards, upper MW only, and mostly easterly. Among those heard were CFMB-1280, WLAM-1470, WGVU-1480, WPTR-1540. Some recordings that were attended to later revealed that there were a couple of really good catches too – WSDS Salem Township MI 1480 was noted with an ID at 0549. Probably not heard in mainland Norway before (and not very usual in Sweden and Finland either). A very interesting UNID station on 1400 took some effort to find out about, but finally disclosed itself as being KJFF Festus MO. Definately the best NA catch of KONG7.

Conclusion

The loggings of WSDS and KJFF say something about the potential of this QTH. Although we have heard many interesting NA stations in Kongsfjord, we are quite certain that we have never been there on occasions when conditions towards North America were really good. Although the beverages are rather short compared to the best Finnish and Swedish Arctic DX sites, the coastal location should outweigh this to an extent. We hope that on a future KONG expedition (preferably the next!), the timing will match with excellent conditions.

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