A dog is not only a man's best friend. He's also a DXer one. Mine, for example, a two years old hound, decided it was fine to awake me at 02.30 UTC, this morning. At first, I was angry, as probably everyone of you, in my shoes, would have been. Then, after realizing it wasn't so easy to re-gain sleep quickly, I reached the shack. Some interesting remarks ended on the notepad. First of all, tropical bands, even with darkness still there, were silent as desert. Only the usual Rebelde on 5025 kHz showed at his historical spot. However, it was weaker than others signals from the same area (for example, Havana Cuba on 5040 came much stronger). So, even with poor expectations, I drew dial low, in MW, to see if I could snag some of the local Italian stations that seem to pull out like mushrooms lately. Nothing at all: 1512 was silent, and 1566 had whispers from the UK. Only 1368 kHz was litterally blasting at 02.42 UTC. Interestingly enough, for once, Radio Challenger, from Padova (in the north-east of the Country), wasn't relaying US programs, but kids songs, with a "test broadcast" male voice announcement between them. I've read they increased station power, so the crystal clear signal didn't really surprise me. Let's hope, in a near future, I'll also manage to log one of the various Ondamedia Broadcast, Radio Kolbe, and so on, as so far they are one of my most intense reasons of frustration as a BCL. I then pushed the R71 higher, looking for some 40 meters ham DX, and all I found has been a BC signal on 7175 kHz. The Voice of Broad Masses from Asmara, Eritrea, on its usual channel, should have made me angry as an OM, but I was happy instead. First, it was strong like a local FM station, and then, being 3.00 UTC their sign on time, I discovered the "interval signal", with announcements in three different languages. I ended the early morning exploration with a time signal check. 15 MHz was nil, 10 revealed both "Observatorio Nacional" from Brasil, and WWV, in Fort Collins, Colorado. It was quite easy to separate them, by switching to lower side band, at 03.28 UTC, to reveal USA only. Not so strong here, but being quite sporadic I gladly noted the presence (see my previous post "Crossing the pond"). One hour was then to go to the usual morning wake-up time. I went back to bed, but before that I threw a bone to the hound, quietly lying on the couch. It was well deserved!

73,
Chris