LEM96 DXpedition Report
March 2-9th 1996

LEM96 was timed to coincide with top conditions of the month on AM. The timing proved to be right, although a persistent flare caused some trouble.

However, North American AM stations were audible daily around 0000-0600 UTC, occasionally even past midday local time (1000 UTC), when the sun was high up. On some evenings North American stations were logged already from around 2230 UTC, before sunset in North America, and a few daytime stations were identified.

Conditions toward Latin America were poorer than usual. A nice opening toward Mexico was noted in the morning of Friday, March 8th. Asian AM stations were heard around 1200-1600 UTC, before and after local sunset in Finland. In the first days of the DXpedition the conditions were poor, with hardly any stations from the Far East, and only stations from Iran and India audible around sunset.

During the final days conditions improved and especially Korean stations were a pleasant surprise coming strongly with local station identifications. Also quite a few Japanese stations of NHK-2 network were identified with local station identifications before their close-down after 1500 UTC.

My best catches were U.S. stations KLNG Council Bluffs IA 1560 kHz (100 watts), WCNW Fairfield OH 1560 kHz (daytimer) and Mexicans like XEVW Acámbaro GJ 1160 kHz, XEAJ Saltillo CO 1330 kHz and XEXO Cd. Mante TM 1390 kHz. For a comprehensive list of what we heard, see the LEM96 DXpedition log. For some logging guidelines, check out notes on the log. Here's a description of our equipment and of the Lemmenjoki QTH.