Test transmission of The Disco Palace to Europe on 6015 kHz

[simone]

There will be test transmissions for The Disco Palace to Europe, both on 6015 kHz:

1000-1400 UTC on Wed Mar 17
0700-1100 UTC on Fri Mar 19
Site: Wavre (Belgium)
DRM power : 40 kW
Rhombic antenna 167 degrees

If you can receive these transmissions in Europe or anywhere else please post results and comments here.

Thanks,
Simone

[drmdab]

I think the results from Wavre are quite okay. Some drop-outs, best reception around 1355 UTC with 28 dB SNR!
The change to ISS was a little bit chaotic, needed about 1 minute and caused a longer drop-out...

A nice show, thanks.

[Pirx]

Hi all,
Very poor result.
QRM - AM station at 6010 kHz.

[G4UCJ]

Disco Palace test

17/03/2010 0954 SNR: 22.3dB peaks

On same frequency as TDP radio. Carrier on at 1000:15 (1 second after TDP radio finished) and straight into ID: "The Disco Palace". Lots of breaks due to inferior snr (UK is in a back/side lobe from the Wavre rhombic) for first 15mins, SNR improved after about 15 mins but still had some breaks.

Song: "Going back to my Roots" by Odyssey (1981) at 1021 then Ai No Corrida by Quincy Jones at 1026. Long ID and ann at 1100, including "Playing (disco?) music from the RCA record label".

Having listened to TDPRadio prior to this broadcast I can confirm that the signal from Issoudun was far stronger than the signal from Wavre. I experienced no drop outs from Issoudun but many from Wavre but I think this is due to an unfavourable location here as we are in probably the minimum signal area of the rhombic.

The equipment used is a Racal RA1792 receiver using 16kHz bandwidth and a BFO offset of -6kHz. Antenna was a Wellbrook ALA1530 active loop at 3m AGL. The software used was Dream and driven from an onboard HD sound device.

As far as the UK is concerned I don't think this is the best site/antenna to broadcast from as other tests have been more successful. However, in Europe it could be a different matter.

73
Sean Gilbert, Buckingham, England / IO92MA

[simone]

Dear Ludo,
here are my results from today, sorry for the delay, near Frankfurt signal was not as strong and stable as it usually is from ISS, I also attach a short log from Norway, where I tuned in the last half hour, signal was quite weak, but that´s far off the beam.
Greetings from Norway
Simone

[Juan_CAT]

I monitored this transmission, and I got bad results.

After 10:15, I got 115 frames of audio, and a maximum SNR of 17,1 dB. But minimum SNR was virtually 0 dB in all transmission.

After that, reception started to get worse... (SNR 0 - 6 dB)
I didn't get audio until 12:42 UTC. At 12:42 UTC, I got 505 frames of audio and a maximum SNR of 18,8 dB. At 12:51, there was another raise up to 13,4 dB, but 0% audio. Then, until 13:02 (I went to have lunch), I got SNRs from 0 to 9 dB.

Well, when RTBF (9925 kHz) broadcast, I usually received it excellently, and as far I know, RTBF was broadcast with the same antenna that The Disco Palace (TDP) has used for this tests.

There was two problems:

1. Low shortwave band for the season and part of day.
2. Low power: TDP (40kW) versus RTBF's power (100 kW).

I tried too 15745 kHz's transmission, and I only was able to decode some FAC packets...

[Owdjim]

Some signal got to New Zealand, but not enough for any decoding. Using my DWT & long-wire at my holiday cottage at Marahau, not my usual receivers.

Cheers, Chris

[Sixten]

Hi all.

Propagation is not so good this time in this band and small problem of AM on 6010. Log her is 60min.

[FritzWue]

Not bad, result would be better at greater distance, wrong value in DRMcalc (Issoudun):

[Pirx]

Hi all,
Poor result today.
Problems with AM co-channel interference.
This is my first and second screenshot.

[simone]

Bad results again today, both on the monitoring Rx near Frankfurt and here in Norway.
Simone

[Juan_CAT]

On 19th March was much better (because transmission started earlier). I tuned it at 9:25 GMT, I got sound until 9:35 when it started to cut off.