Last night, band conditions were superb above 7 MHz. Both the 31 and 25 meter bands seemed crowded with stations; for a moment, it felt like a true solar peak.

This morning, solar flares have dampened down the excitement but I imagine conditions could favorably change at times this weekend, so stay tuned!

I recorded the entire 25M band for a couple of hours yesterday evening and a large portion of the 31 meter band throughout the night. Fortunately, I had just invested in another Western Digital Caviar Green 3 TB SATA drive, so there was ample space to make these (very) large recordings. I think this brings my overall spectrum storage up to 12 TB!?!

I love the fact that these SDR band captures will make for good listening sometime this winter when the sun isn’t being so cooperative. I liken it to radio time travel, but I believe David Goren (of shortwaveology.net) said it best in a comment he posted in “Confessions of an SDRaholic: when 4.5 terabytes is not enough“:

“My approach to recording SDR band captures is like assembling a collection of fine wines. I tend to record captures when there are unusual propagational openings…and while recording a whole swath of frequencies for an hour or so you can still tune around and make discoveries and even record them singly.. And then once the capture is done, you have it as long as you want to keep it.. So, on a static-y summers day I can go to the shelf and pull down “Ye Olde Auroral MW Opening 10/15/11? or “Hot Bolivian evening on 60 meters.” and I can make discoveries to my heart’s content. Since I can listen to an hour’s worth of each frequency it will take a long time to exhaust the potential of any particular capture, esp. with the ability to refilter and change. multiple parameters of reception.”

See? (I tell my wife) I’m simply building my collection of fine wines!

Below, you’ll find some of the stations I logged last night (actually, this morning in UTC).

Logs:

31 meter band beginning 00:00 UTC, 25 OCT 2014

9410 BBC English Nakhon Sawan

9420 ERT Open/VOG Greek

9455 China National Radio 1 Chinese

9470 AIR National Channel Hindi/English (vy wk)

9475 WTWW English

9510 China Radio International Russian

9520 PBS Nei Menggu Chinese AND Radio Romania International Romanian

9565 Radio Tupi/Super Radio Deus e Amor Portuguese (QRM from CRI 9570)

9570 China Radio International English

9586 Super Radio Deus e Amor Portuguese

9590 China Radio International Spanish

9630 Radio Aparecida Portuguese

9645 Radio Bandeirantes Portuguese

9660 Radio Taiwan International Chinese

9665 China National Radio 5 Chinese or possibly KCBS Pyongyang Korean

9690 All India Radio English

9700 Radio Romania International English

9705 All India Radio English

9710 China Radio International Portuguese

9730 Adventist World Radio Manumanaw Karen or possibly 9730 Myanmar Radio Burmese

9740 BBC English (vy weak)

9800 China Radio International Spanish

9810 Radio Havana Cuba Spanish

9820 Radio 9 de Julho Portuguese

9855 Voice of America Tibetan

9860 Voice of Islamic Rep. of Iran Spanish

9870 AIR New Delhi Hindi

9880 Voice of America Chinese (vy weak)

9935 ERT Open, VOG Greek

9965 Radio Cairo Arabic

10000 WWV Ft. Collins

25 meter band beginning 0100 UTC, 25 OCT 2014

11520 EWTN (WEWN) English

11580 SOH Xi Wang Zhi Sheng Chinese/Cantonese

11590 Radio Japan Hindi (vy weak)

11620 China National Radio 5 Chinese

11640 Radio Free Asia Uyghur

11650 China Radio International Chinese

11670 Radio Havana Cuba Spanish

11695 Radio Free Asia Tibetan

11710.7 Radio Cairo Spanish (transmitter noise)

11760 Radio Havana Cuba Spanish

11780 Radio Nacional da Brasilia Portuguese

11825 Bro Stair

11840 Radio Havana Cuba Spanish

11855 Radio Aparecida Portuguese

11870 EWTN (WEWN) Spanish

11905 Sri Lanka BC English/Hindi

11955 Radio Romania International French

12020 VoA Deewa Radio Pashto

12025 UNID

12070 Radio Cairo Spanish (jammed or transmitter noise?)

12105 WTWW Spanish

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