wrote:
....
Yes, thanks - and here is "normal" English translation, edited
by some american user:
http://www.radioscanner.ru/receivers...n1103_eng.html .
IRIS has done a great job - very detailed review, not just a
compilation. There are, as I understand, other his publications
on modifications made by IRIS and other users (not by the
factory) in Degen 1003, but this requires knowledge of Russian.


Get and use Firefox / Seamonkey browser and
load the Foxlingo extension.

Or paste the Russian site into Google and let
them provide a "Translate this page?" button.

By the way, Russia World should be below you
on Main Street in the Bosa Towers. Go in and have a chat.

Dan Say, - thanks for the link to Ontario Dx website. Now that I
knew where and when to look for, and got rid of AC adapter on SW
- using batteries instead, as my friends suggested, and stepped
out to the
balcony - I think SW works fine for my particular location.
Yesterday late evening Radio Australia was more-less where it
should.

And also RNZI which booms in on a summer evening.

The 'blanks' in the ODXA.on.ca World English Survey
are usually when they broadcast either their vernacular
(Chinese, Swedish, Japanese, etc.) to North America
or the Spanish language. Get thee to a Spanish language
class in the new year.

I really have a terrible apartment - it was miracle to get any
reception at all in the room. The exterior walls, as it turned
out, are covered with metal sheets (wet weather protection), and
the window and balcony is facing North, towards Rocky Mountains
some dozen miles away. And between those mountains and me there
is an electrical Skytrain viaduct, railway terminal at Main Str
(I'm at Main and 2nd), plus freight rail-yard, railway engine
depot or some engine repair facilities few hundred meters away.
Cars and trolley-buses are probably generating more noise than
rail yard, though.

The metal isn't that think and you can 'induce'
an antenna on your side with a sheet of aluminum
foil on the wall and a thin wire off it.
Same with foil on the windows or that sticky tape
foil window alarm.
The metal was another of the infamous Brad Holmes
"artist lofts" idea of selling under-furnished
apartments for too much money too little fitting,
but creating instant 'street-cred' with industrial
sheet metal cladding.

See the book lists in the back of the ODXA "Listening
in" sample issue and think about ordering some.

Go to both Com-west on 8171 South Main and also
Burnaby Radio (4257 East Hastings) and brows their
shelves on antenna books. As a receiver only you
don't need thick wire antennas.

See from the ODXA.on.ca book lists what your public
library has of of the same titles.
Burnaby Public used to have a lot of
'ham' and radio books pushed by local entusiasts.
You have equal borrowing privileges with them.
www.bpl.burnaby.bc.ca/
www.vpl.vancouver.bc.ca/

Those are NOT the Rocky mountains which are 400 kilometres
to the east, but the start of the Coast Range of mountains,
what the Americans call the Cascades.
http://www.bivouac.com/default.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categor...itish_Columbia

Mountains don't affect you in the middle of of the Fraser
Valley as you are too far away (8 km from a 1000 metre
"mountain" and most signals won't come that nothern way (and
1000/8000= is a pretty low mountain unlike Mayo in the
Yukon where you don't see the sun), for a signal from the sky
to be blocked by them. Besides if you have your azimuth
map you can see that sometimes you'll get long path radio
from around the world.

If you are are at Main and 2nd then you have welding and
light machine shops causing arcing as do the trolley buses
on wet days. How is it on dry days if you have them, and
what about after 6 when many businesses close down?
Check the signals when you come home from late-night xmas
partying at 4 in the morning. (Europe is having lunch
and sending signals to the rising East Coast), but signals
don't stop there but arrive after a few attenuating
skips to Second and Main.

Make a long wire with such things as a PVC pipe or hockey stick
Example :
http://www.hard-core-dx.com/nordicdx...al/broom3.html
http://www.hard-core-dx.com/nordicdx.../northant.html
It's not easy to get long continuous wire in town. See what
R P Electronic Components Ltd. 2060 Rosser Ave Burnaby has.
They have a web site.

Learn about loop antennas and their breadth and directionality.
And loops don't have to "round" but more like a spider web
of spiral wire
http://www.hard-core-dx.com/nordicdx...inducloop.html
http://www.hard-core-dx.com/nordicdx.../reducin1.html

The word "hidden" antenna often means for apartments, e.g.
http://www.hard-core-dx.com/nordicdx...den/index.html
but have you gotten permission to go on the roof and thead
a long wire across its expanse, with a small feed line down?
2 two by fours each stuck in one of those decorative cement
breeze blocks for stability and some scarecrow flashes hanging
from the wire to keep humans from tripping into it.

What area of the balcony can see the southern sky? What
neighbour wouldn't mind a stick on one corner of their
south-facing (east- or west-) balcony out-of-the-way and a wire
to your balcony? And think in three dimensions: a neighbour
above, below, to the east to the west.

However since you say that you got a good signal from
RAustralia, the problem of only being able to see north
is moot.

Here's a thought about noise sources
http://www.hard-core-dx.com/nordicdx...noise_pol.html



Btw, I was wrong about Kaito 1103 tuning to AM 1040 when dialing
140 - it is, as I understand, really 140, i.e. Long Wave channel
of the same station.

There is only a weather long wave.
Everything else is a harmonic. Useful but unintentional
See the range of Canuck freqencies for Long Wave
at Industry Canada Spectrum Search pages by : Geographical Area
http://sd.ic.gc.ca/pls/eng_alpha/web...raphical_input
More generally
Spectrum Direct®: Main Menu
URL: http://sd.ic.gc.ca/engdoc/main.jsp#Radio

There is an FCC version of the same thing as you have found
that you can get 30 Canadian AM stations easily and 100
US stations, being so close to the border.

have fun with Xmas loggings
You are logging your hits aren't
you in UTC-DAY and UTC-Time?
--
-\_,-~-\___...__._._._._._._._._._._._.
For real Dxing,
see]http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~vz6g-iwt/index.html