Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Ultralight DXing with the Sony SRF-M37V


Fellow dxer Vince Stevens visited us on Sunday evening (11 January), during our annual holiday at Noordhoek (20 km south of Cape Town). He kindly presented me with a Sony SRF59, aligned by Gary DeBock and a Sony SRF-M37V. These radios are part of a generous collective contribution of ultralights from dxers John Bryant, Guy Atkins & Gary DeBock. Thanks again guys !

Right from the beginning of briefly trying out the Sonys during that first evening, I relized that, despite their size, these are very capable receivers ! The barefoot reception of numerous African MW stations from Botswana, Lesotho and Mozambique via the SRF59 was a real surprise. The SRF-M37V has a nice feel about it and produced my first barefoot ultralight TI reception of Radio Mayotte on 1458 kHz and CNR1 on 1134 kHz !

The following morning Vince and I headed down the road for what turned out to be an interesting dxpedition.

I decided to use the SRF M37V and simply wrapped a few turns of the near end of the 220 metre BOG around the set.

The results were quite astonishing with strong peaks from the USA and a few Canadian stations across the dial !

Highlights included :

680 WRKO Boston MA

690 CINF Montreal QC

730 CKAC Montreal QC (personal first)

800 CKLW Windsor ON

830 WCRN Worcester MA (personal first)

900 CHML Hamilton ON

The following morning (13 January), I deceided to visit the same location in order to have a go at possible barefoot reception with the M37V.

The main "reference" receiver was an ICOM R71 which I conncected to a 220 BOG directed towards North America.

It was a real surprise to receive my first TA signals from the USA on the barefoot M37V, during some serious propagation peaks !

1100 WTAM Cleveland OH

1140 WRVA Richmond VA

1500 WFED Washington DC

1510 WLAC Nashville TN

1530 WCKY Cincinatti OH

I also heard a "flutter" from CHML on 900 kHz but could not quite resolve the audio.

Another highlight during a brief listen that evening (13 January) was the barefoot reception of Taiwan on 1503 kHz.

More loggings to follow as time permits.

1 comment:

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