A couple of observations for you.
Number one, times are best expressed in UTC and 24 hour format, this is a near universal radio convention. Broadcast schedules are pretty much always published in UTC. If you say Central Time you assume everyone knows what that is and is willing to convert it to something useful to them…say the UTC that printed schedules will be in. In most cases people will just ignore such a post rather than convert back and forth. In some cases people in other countries will not understand what you mean by Central Time. UTC is the same for everyone, and does not change through the year. And IF you use UTC, don’t forget to also express the date in UTC, for example 1100 PM for you might be 0500 UTC, but it will be 0500 the next day on the calendar, and some broadcast schedules are day specific.
Number two, frequencies for short wave broadcast stations are most often in even 5 kHz steps (there are exceptions, but they are a small percentage). It is best with SW BC stations to assume the nearest 5 kHz step until you can confirm otherwise. Your 1134 PM 7273 kHz Arabic posting would be 0534 UTC, and that most likely means you had the 7275 kHz broadcast of RTV Tunisia, in Arabic. Your 6174 kHz listing is harder to resolve, unless you heard an announcement of "China Radio International" I suspect it was not that. Regardless, confirm the freq, and do NOT just peak the sound by ear for an AM station, that will not always give you the honest center frequency. If you have a radio that is USB/LSB capable you can select either of them and "zero beat" the carrier. If you have a radio with a BFO knob that technique might not be accurate.
Number three (OK, this one is a nit pick
), what is "5 by 9 exactly"? The RST scale is not related to the S meter on your radio, so S9 on the meter is not necessarily the "9" in 5 x 9, 59, or 5 and 9, regardless of how you express the term. The second digit in the RST usage is a relative number, from 1 to 9, with the 1 being the weakest and the 9 being the strongest. Yes I know it is very common these days to say something like "59 +20 dB", and places like Wikipedia say this is normal (but not the amateur radio specific wiki), however this was not the intent of the RST scale. In the intended usage this would mean the stations was “perfectly readable” and a “very strong signal, plus 20 dB”. Not everyone’s S meter is calibrated to the same scale, and on some radios the very strongest station might only push an S7 on the meter, that station would still be "5 and 9". Remember that not all radios even have an “S meter”, and not all signal strength meters are calibrated in S units, some are simple 0 to 10 scales or something similar. This was particularly true when the RST system was developed.
Topic: Running Log From Tonight (Read 3956 times)
