LEM83 DXpedition Report
January 14-21, 1995

This time I was off to Lapland with Juha Vehmas, whom I had known since the early 80's, when we both lived in Tampere and took part in the activities of the local DX association. We had high hopes for the season's last DXpedition, even though we arrived in Lemmenjoki pretty tired after driving the entire way in a snowstorm.

I was equipped with a JRC NRD-535D and an NRD-525, while Juha used another NRD-525 and a Yaesu FRG-7700. After Juha got used to the NRD, he hardly touched his Yeasu anymore... The antennae were more limited than usually in Lemmenjoki. As the season was ending, some antennae had already been taken out of service, and we took down several more - so in the end we had roughly half the normal amount of antennae in use.

During the first couple of days we heard quite a few Latin American stations, and the conditions kept improving steadily. On Monday, January 16th, North American stations came booming, and we had nice catches from Iowa. The grand surprise came on Monday evening at 2253 UTC, when I heard WCNB Connersville IN on 1580 kHz. The signal was audible for less than a minute, but I managed to hear their identification (simulcasting with WIFE-FM) and a local commercial spot. Chief Engineer Mike Peacock later confirmed their power as 4.6 watts - not an easy record to break. More on this in the article What 4.6 watts can do. You can also listen to Mike's recorded letter to me.

The next morning we heard a bunch of new stations from Mexico City, and of course, dozens of U.S. stations. On January 18th a minor magnetic storm changed the scene, and after this the spotlight turned to Asia. On January 19th conditions to Japan were exceptionally good, and by the end of our DXpedition, conditions to North America were once again excellent.

For a detailed list of what we heard, see the LEM83 DXpedition log. For some logging guidelines, check out notes on the log. You can also view the Lemmenjoki QTH.