The Mighty KBC 9500 kHz 11/3//2012 2359Z

[skeezix]

2356Z 35433 S7 Carrier with no audio.  Carrier S4-S8.
2359Z 35433 S7 ID  "The Mighty KBC"
0000Z 35433 S6 George Thorogood "You Talk Too Much"
0003Z 34433 S6 Strong station on 9490 came up and its USB is interfering a little bit.
0004Z 34433 S6 Blues Dimension "Lovely Adorable Sue"
0006Z 34433 S6 Stevie Wonder "We Can Work It Out"
0009Z 34433 S6 ID
0010Z 34433 S6 The Sands Of Time "Where Did We Go Wrong"
0011Z 34433 S6 Few seconds of no audio. Back to the song.
0013Z 34433 S6 ID
0013Z 34433 S6 R. Dean Taylor "Window Shopping"
0016Z 34433 S6 ID
0016Z 34433 S6 Stereophonics "Dakota"
0021Z 34433 S5 ID
0021Z 33433 S5 Cliff Bennett & The Rebel Rousers "Need Your Loving Tonight"
0023Z 33433 S5 ID
0023Z 33433 S5 Johnnie Allan & The Krazy Kats "Promised Land"
0025Z 33433 S5 ID http://www.kbcradio.eu
0026Z 33433 S5 Donnie Elbert "A LIttle Piece of Leather"
0028Z 33433 S5 CB ad
0029Z 33433 S5 Nazareth "See Me"
0034Z 33433 S5 ID
0034Z 33433 S5 Elvis Presley "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You"
0037Z 23432 S4 ID
0037Z 23432 S4 Eddie Cochran "Jeannie Jeannie Jeannie"
0039Z 23432 S4 ID
0039Z 23432 S4 The Snobs "Buckleshoe Stomp"
0042Z 23432 S4 ID.  KBC signal dropping. 9490 is still very strong and interfering. Also looks like some garbage from their transmitter is also making a mess with The Mighty KBC. KBC signal is S3-S7, avg around S4.
0042Z 23432 S4 Five Man Electrical Band "Signs"
0047Z 23432 S4 ID
0047Z 23432 S4 Earth & Fire "Memories"
0053Z 23432 S4 ID
0053Z 23432 S4 "Hit The Road Jack"
0056Z 23432 S4 Ruffle "Go Mean"
0059Z 23431 S4 Signal is fluttery.
0101Z 23432 S4 ID
0102Z 23432 S4 Dusty Springfield "Summer Is Over"
0105Z 23432 S4 ID
0105Z 23432 S4 The Everly Brothers "Muskrat"
0108Z 23432 S4 ID
0108Z 23432 S4 Huey Lewis & The News "Hip To Be Square"
0112Z 23432 S4 ID
0112Z 33433 S5 The Shadows "Quartermaster's Stores" (signal up a slight bit)
0114Z 33433 S5 ID
0114Z 33433 S5 Foo Fighters "Long Road To Ruin"
0118Z 33433 S5 ID
0118Z 33433 S5 The Motors "Dancing The Night Away"
0121Z 33433 S5 ID
0121Z 33433 S5 Secret Affair "Time For Action"
0124Z 33433 S6 CB ad & ID
0124Z 43433 S7 The Nice "America"
0130Z 43433 S7 ID
0135Z 43433 S7 Johnny Preston "Cradle Of Love"
0138Z 43433 S7 Tommy Quickly "No Other Love"   S4-S8 and still some flutter.
0139Z 33433 S6 ID
0139Z 33433 S6 Ringo Starr "Back Off Boogaloo"
0143Z 23422 S5 ID
0145Z 23422 S5 ID Signal down. Fluttery with deep fades.
0145Z 23422 S5 The Castaways "Liar, Liar"
0149Z 23411 S5 ID (could only understand a few words)
0152Z 23412 S6 ID.
0153Z 23412 S6 The Sir Douglas Quintet "She's About A Mover"
0156Z 23412 S6 ID & signing off
0156Z 23411 S5 Ekseption "A La Turka"
0159Z 23411 S5 Dead carrier
0159Z Off air



_{Perseus SDR + 102' G5RV @ 25'}

[Chanter]

I'm hearing this too, and I'm delighted!  I've been looking forward to this all week, since they had transmitter problems last Saturday - that's what it was, per Ivo Ivanov.  SIO 434 or so here, deep fades interfering.  Still very audible, yay!    

Does anyone else get the warm fuzzies whenever KBC goes multilingual?  We just never get that over here, and I wish we did.  

Edited to add: There's a loud, constant whistle on this frequency that's driving me mad!  No idea if that's Radio Republica's transmission on 9490 interfering, but whatever it is, it's blotting things out and generally really annoying! 

[refmo]

Outstanding S9+10 signal here.  'Cradle of Love' by Johnny Preston @ 0137z

[Chanter]

I e-mailed them letting them know I was hearing them - this was before the signal fell into the bottom of the lake, though I stayed tuned in - and they answered!  Apparently, they're going to be continuing transmissions to North America at the weekends through the winter.  Yay!  Skeezix, I thought you'd especially appreciate hearing that.  I know you and I were the ones definitely looking for KBC last week when they had transmitter problems. 

That loud annoying whistle was Radio Republica's signal, apparently; it quit when 9490 signed off.  Unfortunately, that was only a minute or two before KBC went too!  Darnit! 

[skeezix]

I e-mailed them letting them know I was hearing them - this was before the signal fell into the bottom of the lake, though I stayed tuned in - and they answered!  Apparently, they're going to be continuing transmissions to North America at the weekends through the winter.  Yay!  Skeezix, I thought you'd especially appreciate hearing that.  I know you and I were the ones definitely looking for KBC last week when they had transmitter problems. 

That loud annoying whistle was Radio Republica's signal, apparently; it quit when 9490 signed off.  Unfortunately, that was only a minute or two before KBC went too!  Darnit! 

Very happy to hear they'll be back. I heard them reading some items of interest, but it was too weak and missed almost all of it. And was waiting last week for the transmission that never came. But, that's the way it goes. They're making it up by showing up all winter. 

It was indeed R Republica's stupid signal and could clearly see the spurs in the SDR waterfall. They came on clean, but after a couple of minutes, the spurs showed up and stayed until they dropped carrier.

During the mess, switched to sync-AM/USB and brought the filter in to 3.5 kHz and that cleared out the noise. Unfortunately, most of the signal too. After Republica went off, put it back to sync-AM/DSB and 11 kHz and it sounded fine, although weak.

Hopefully it was just poor conditions last night that would explain the weaker signal than last time. I'll definitely be around next weekend for them.

[ulx2]

Interesting news from The Mighty KBC (via open_dx mailing list):

The Mighty KBC will test to the USA on Sunday 11 November 2012 00.00 -
02.00 UTC on 9450 kHz!
 
Please join the Mighty KBC for a test of a digital text sent via a
shortwave broadcast transmitter. This will take place during the next
transmission to North America, Sunday 0000-0200 UTC, at approximately
0130 and just before the end of the broadcast at 0200.
 
All you need is a basic shortwave receiver (no SSB mode is necessary),
and a basic personal computer. Using a patch cord, you will feed the
audio out of the earphone jack (or line out) of your radio into the
microphone jack of your PC. If you don't have a patch cord, you can
try placing the speaker of your radio close to the built-in microphone
of a laptop PC.
 
You will also need software. There are several freeware or shareware
programs used by the amateur radio community that decode digital text
modes. One is FLDIGI, available from http://www.w1hkj.com .
 
After installing FLDIGI, pull down the Configure menu, then click
Sound Card, and select the soundcard your PC is using.
 
You might also have to adjust your audio settings. In Windows 7, left
click twice on the speaker icon in the lower right of PC display, then
click Options, then click Properties, then click Recording, then click
the input that works. Other operating systems will have different
procedures. A good way to test your audio settings is to try to decode
the radio amateurs using the PSK31 mode on 14070 kHz.
 
For the test digital text transmissions on Sunday, The Mighty KBC will
be using the QPSK125 mode. On your software, your cursor should be
centered on 1500 Hertz, where you will see the "waterfall" of the
QPSK125 signal. You can decode the transmission while you receive it,
or record the transmission and decode from the recording. The latter
will give you more opportunities to perfect the technique.
 
The test to be transmitted will be a formatted html file. Copy it from
<html> to (and including) </html>, and paste it to a text editor (such
as Notepad in Windows). Save the file, using any file name, with the
suffix .htm or .html. Then open the file in any web browser. If all
goes well, this might be the first time you receive a shortwave radio
broadcast in color!
 
In the future, an app will be developed to make this process simpler!