BC-DX 789 05 Jan 2007 Private Verwendung der Meldun

over a year now. But I think it has been on from Juelich, so maybe it has
been switched to Wertachtal.
(Jeff White-FL-USA RMI, dxld)
T-Systems asking for Reception Report from Australia for the relay of
Voice of Croatia on 11610 kHz at 0600-1000 UT.
(Rumen Pankov-BUL, wwdxc BC-DX Aug 3)
BRINGING A RADIO TO SHORTWAVE SITES.
"Has anybody ever visited a a multi-frequency outlet shortwave tx site
with curtain arrays before with a portable SW receiver in hand & noted
signal levels & been able to determine if a shortwave frequency originates
from the site in question?" (dxld)
I did this a couple of times. Key fact: It should be impossible to mistake
locally transmitted signals for distant skywave signals when standing at
or near the station fence. They are strooong, requiring to operate the
attenuator of the ATS 909, otherwise the set will scream out horribly
distorted audio only. Experiences in detail:
DTK Koenigs Wusterhausen: In spring/summer 1993 we parked on the road
south of the station grounds, at a place were the special log-periodic
antenna aiming at Chile and at least one of the rhombics could be spotted
in between all the bushes. I quickly scanned through the shortwave bands
and found one very loud signal, on 6115, Deutsche Welle in German, notable
for typical GDR modulation (bass range below 150 Hz suppressed, no heavy
dynamics compression).
Only years later I learned that indeed only a single transmitter (actually
a 2 x 50 kW pair of Sneg's) was still on air at this time after the other
three 100 kW Sneg pairs had been shut down already in 1991. I did not take
the shortwave radio with me on asimilar trip to DTK Wiederau,
understanding that the shortwave transmitter there had been already shut
down. But this was a mistake; it remained on air until autumn 1993 like
the last remaining Sneg pair at Koenigs Wusterhausen.
DTK Nauen: I still remember how I sat in 1993 or 1994 on a platform
actually meant to observe birds, with the huge Soviet-designed HR 4/8
antennas in front of me. If I recall correct I had local signals on three
frequencies, with no GDR-like audio anymore, thus presumably Optimod 9105A
processing was already in use at this time (at least they had introduced
these units already on the old transmitters where they had to adjust the
level of the produced high-density audio very carefully to avoid any
overmodulation, since otherwise the Komintern transmitters went crazy). I
also remember how I tuned SFB's 1449, too; the last time I heard it before
it had been shut down in autumn 1994.
Next visit to Nauen was in 1999, with the new transmitters in operation
now. The new control room in the Muthesius building also got some small
communications receiver (probably an Icom, but I simply did not care), and
also this semiprofessional receiver had a hard time to pick up distant
skywave signals. Otherwise it was quite interesting to compare the warm,
soft modulation of the still active Funkwerk Koepenick transmitter (shut
down in 2000, now replaced by an ex-Juelich S4001) with the harsh output
of the new S4105 rigs, listening via the mod monitors and decent
loudspeakers.
Most recent visit to Nauen in last year: Snacks were available in front of
the Muthesius building, and a sense of style required me to let the radio
play on 9545 there, not knowing yet that it will not be possible to do
this show again this year (assuming they keep the tradition of an annual
open door day). Checking the conditions in more detail I found that
signals remained very strong within around 3 km of the antennas but
dropped rapidly afterwards; at the Nauen railway station, about 5 km away,