DX-pedition to Lista, October 23-26, 2008

The first – and probably the only – DX-pedition of this season for my part took place on October 23-26. The QTH was again Lista on the south western coast of Norway. Lista is located between Kristiansand and Stavanger on the coast, some 6 hours drive from the Norwegian capital Oslo as can be seen on this Google Map.

My DX buddies this time were Torgeir Nyen and Tore Johnny Bråtveit – Torgeir travelling from Oslo while Tore Johnny travelled all the way from Melhus south of Trondheim. Being able to spend some days just on the radio hobby with other DX-ers is always enjoyable even if we don’t hear anything interesting. This time we were even blessed with good DX conditions making this my best DX-pedition to Lista since February 2006 (and possibly even beating the February 2006 DX-pedition).

As usual, we used a 800 metre long antenna towards the East Coast of North America / Florida / Cuba and another antenna towards the West Coast. The signals were generally better on the East Coast antenna (not a surprise), and I only used the West Coast antenna to grab some of the big stations in Alberta and Manitoba.

Conditions definitely favoured the East Coast of North America and were especially good towards Florida. We hardly heard any South American stations, it felt like there was a big wall somewhere in the Caribbean which simply kept stations from Venezuela and Colombia out. Well, we didn’t complain! 🙂

Some of the highlights: 540 WFLF Pine Hills FL, 560 WQAM Miami FL, 580 WDBO Orlando FL, 920 WGHQ Kingston NY, 960 WSVU North Palm Beach FL, 980 WCAP Lowell MA, 980 WAAV Leland NC, 1060 WIXC Titusville FL, 1070 WFLI Lookout Mountain TN, 1310 WYND DeLand FL, 1320 WARL Attleboro MA, 1350 WEZS Laconia NH, 1440 WPRD Winter Park FL, 1440 WLWI Montgomery AL, 1470 WLMC Georgetown SC and 900 Radio Satélite in La Ceiba, Honduras.

A number of U.S. daytimers were also noted: 760 WCHP Champlain NY, 1470 WBTX Broadway VA, 1500 WFIF Milford CT (huge signal at times), 1510 WWBC Cocoa FL, 1520 WIZZ Greenfield MA and WNSH Beverly MA.

Neither 580 WDBO, 960 WSVU, 1060 WIXC, 1440 WLWI nor 1510 WWBC have been heard in Scandinavia before according to the KOJE master list of North American AM stations.

Update October 25, 2009: Our log is now available as a PDF file (in Norwegian only). The total number of North American stations heard is now 249 and there are still recordings to be checked… 🙂