Chris Landstrom, who also QSL-ed my reception of the beacons WU and VNA for Umea Airport, was also kind to confirm my reception of the beacon OL for Lycksele, Sweden.
Lycksele Airport is situated around 1590 km from my QTH in what I would call the north of Sweden. It’s a small airport in a sparsely populated area with a daily flight to Stockholm as far as I can tell.
To give you an impression what it means to dig such a signal out of the noise with Pskov software I added the above picture. In the yellow/black panel you see how OL is received… Every line from left to right is a capture of the cyclic signal. As you can see the first minutes/cycles offered a better signal… The aggregate is a clear OL ID.
One of the Norwegian coastal radio stations I heard often in CW during the 80-ies was Rogaland Radio. But I never managed to get a QSL from them. Today they frequently pop up in the DSC log for 2187.5 kHz. So I decided to send a report to Mr. Stian Tveit who is so kind to act as QSL manager at Kystradio Sor in Norway.
It turned out that I not only heard Rogaland Radio but also Bergen Radio… another one that was missing in my collection. Thank you Stian for the QSL!
A very nice, fully detailed eQSL from Mike Radio. Mike Radio is a Free Radio station operating from the province of Gelderland, The Netherlands. For the Gen Z folks: the station is powered by solar energy!
I sent my report to mikeradio(at)live.nl . UKdxer told me than Mike is one of the younger free radio stations in the Netherlands.
My personal opinion is that rules on hobby broadcasting via MW/SW should be relaxed as apparently nobody seems to care about the interference of PV installations on these frequencies…
I received a couple of beacons from the Toulouse area in France. NDBs TW, MUT, TOE and TLF were received in such a good quality that I thought I could share them and ask for a QSL. I sent my report to the responsible person* at Toulouse Blagnac Airport Mr. Jean-Marc Caner.
Jean-Marc confirmed my reception of the beacons TW, MUT and TOE. But TLF is the responsibility of the smaller Francazal Airport in Toulouse which hasn’t replied to my QSL request yet.
There are two other NBDs I received, TLB and TS, which seem to belong to Blagnac Airport as well. So I will give them a try for another QSL. CVU clearly belongs to the local airport of Castres-Mazamet.
Toulouse Blagnac is the 5th largest airport in France. It is also hosts the head office of aircraft manufacturer Airbus, and test flights are conducted from this airport.
* The email address of Mr. J.M. Caner is not public, I can share it on request. Just drop a comment.
The Bouri Oil & Gas field north of the Lybian Coast is considered to be the largest oil producing field in the Mediterranean Sea. And ENI Oil platform DP4 is the biggest platform in the Mediterranean. I was pleased to receive the NDB on this platform, with DP4 as identifier, last weekend.
Having worked in the refining and petrochemical industry for over 30 years, reception of a navigational beacon like this is special. Which also holds for the distance: 1915 kilometers, and the fact their signal was exceptionally strong (see below). I sent an email to ENI hoping they will confirm…
I don’t think that there are many examples of regional stations which target an audience in two countries? But feel free to drop a comment if you know one. Anyway, Radio Seefunk, or better Das Neue Radio Seefunk is tuned into by some 147000 German and 35000 Swiss listeners.
The station started as a local radio for the city of Konstanz under the name Seefunk Radio Bodensee. Today they have 13 transmitters across the south of Baden Württemberg in Germany. Rebranded to Das Neue Radio Seefunk in 2019 they bring music from “Vier Jahrzehnten” (4 decades) targeting an 30+ audience.
I received them while staying near Ulm. Mr. Grunewald was so kind to confirm my report sent to redaktion(at)radio-seefunk.de .
A QSL card from Welle 370 “Das Funkerberg Radio”, from Königs Wusterhausen, Germany. I’m not only very pleased to receive an old school QSL card, but this is also a broadcaster that represents a lot of radio history.
As early as 1911 the “Telegrafentruppe” of the “Deutsches Heeres” (German Army) started radio activities from the Funkerberg, just southeast of Berlin. Initially the antennas were raised using balloons, but between 1913 and 1916 impressive antennas and transmitter facilities were built on this location. Soon the facilities were in use for the distribution of telegrams and weather messages. On 22 December 1920 a “Weihnachtskonzert” was broadcast from this location: the start of the “Rundfunk” in Germany. In 1925 there were already 20 transmitters operating from this location.
After WW2 the transmitters were removed from the Funkerberg, but new equipment was also added, including a new 100 kW LW transmitter. It seems that most of the operations ended in the 90-ies with concern for “electro-smog” being quoted as a reason with only an 800 Watt FM station “Sender KW” remaining.
Today Funkerberg is a Museum, a must do for radio enthusiasts. And Welle 370 is still broadcasting from Funkerberg on 810 kHz (370 meter), albeit with only 8 Watts. Given the presence of Radio Scotland on the same frequency that makes it a bit challenging to receive them in the Netherlands. But fortunately they also broadcast their programs from Nauen (as was my reception) and other relay stations.
Welle 370 has very nice programs made by radio enthusiasts with topics on German radio history. I listened to a student who made a program on the competition between radio and record companies. Please follow them on their website and tune in to their programs!
Another station from Südtirol that I heard during my holiday in the beautiful Ahrntal. Like Radio Holiday the station covers the valleys of Südtirol with multiple low power transmitters. Radio 2000 has 20 of them. Where the valleys are wider as is the case near the capital of Südtirol Bozen (Bolzano) power is a few kilowatts. But the transmitter I received in Luttach has only 200 Watt. If you know the area it is no surprise that Luttach is chosen as location because it is where the river Ahr makes a 90o turn. From Luttach it possible to cover entrance and “Talschluss” of the Tauferer Ahrntal.
I sent my report to info(at)radio2000.it and got a direct reply from Mr. Lukas Thaler.
Not to be confused with Antenne Vorarlberg, Radio Vorarlberg is the regional station of the ORF, the national public broadcaster of Austria. I heard Radio Vorarlberg while staying in Altenstadt near Ulm (Germany). 98.2 MHz is the main transmitter with 50 kW from Bregenz. Other frequencies (with the exception of the 4 kW transmitter at Bludenz) are mostly relays with less than 100 Watts of power.
There is a webform on the site to contact the Vorarlberg station as well as other regional stations. But as I wanted to include a picture I sent my report to kundendienst(at)orf.at which got forwarded to the Vorarlberg team. From them I learned you could als use this address: publikum.vorarlberg(at)orf.at
For the reception of Radio Frieloo on 6290 kHz I received a friendly QSL email from the operator. I sent my report to frieloo(at)outlook.com .
Radio Frieloo is a pirate station operating from the province Gelderland in The Netherlands. The operator told me that he is not often in the air. When it is the case it is mostly to test antenna designs. The transmitter is a R&S with 100 Watt as shown in the picture.