Author: Peter Reuderink (Page 1 of 48)

QSL WXRF WAPA Radio Guayama 1590 kHz

March 23, 2025 / Peter Reuderink / 0 Comments

A QSL for WXRF WAPA Radio Guayama, Puerto Rico on 1590 kHz. The station is part of the WAPA Radio network. My report to admin@borinquenradio was answered within a day with a brief email reply from ING Jorge Blanco, vice president of WAPA Radio. I heard this station while staying on the island Curacao (721 km distance).

QSL email for WXRF WAPA Radio 1590 kHz, Guayama, Puerto Rico

WXRF is part of the WAPA Radio network which operates 7 AM and 7 FM stations across the island of Puerto Rico. It is interesting to see that the email address still reads WBQN which was the call sign of the station on 680 AM which I QSL-ed last year (see below). At the time the network was branded Borinquen Radio, with “Borinquen” referring to the native name for Puerto Rico.

Things have changed over the past year. WBQN on 680 AM, the most powerful station of the network, has its old call sign WAPA back since October 2024. And the network is now called WAPA Radio network. WAPA refers to original owners, the Asociación de Productores de Azúcar, or Puerto Rico Sugar Grower’s Association.
The WBQN call sign now belongs to the station on 1580 kHz by the way.

Call sign swap request. Funny thing is that it is not the Ponce 1260 AM station, but the smaller station in Aguadilla/Morovis on 1580 kHz that got the WBQN call sign.

2024 QSL emails for 680 kHz San Juan, which carried the WBQN call sign at the time.

QSL LPAM Radio Redhill 1431 kHz

March 21, 2025 / Peter Reuderink / 1 Comment

Radio Redhill is a Hospital Radio station broadcasting on 1431 kHz with 1 Watt only from East Surrey Hospital in Redhill, south of London, United Kingdom. That’s a distance of 360 kms.

I did hear Radio Redhill in the first two months of the year almost on a daily basis, around 04:00 – 06:00 h UTC. But never really strong, just not above the realitively high noise level at my location. Sometimes I could pick up “Redhill”. In the end I decided to wrote down two song titles I recognized, made a MP3 recording, and sent my report to: studio(at)radioredhill.co.uk. Three days later, Ian, station engineer sent me a kind email to confirm my report:

Hello Peter.

Thank you for your reception report.

I can confirm the music you identified was played at that time:

March 14th

04:42 The Carpenters – Goodbye to Love
…..
04:02 Buddy Holly – Peggy Sue

We transmit with 1 watt of power so it is always interesting to receive reception reports from all over Europe. Sweden and Norway are the furthest we have had reports from.

Thank you for your email.

Ian

Station Engineer.

Radio Redhill started in 1974. My guess is that it was a typical “radio by wire” station that you have or had at many hospitals. In 2000 AM broadcasts started, and since 2022 the station is active on 100.4 MHz. You can learn more about the history of this hospital radio station on their website.

QSL NDB HA-348 Vopnafjörður/Hofsa

March 20, 2025 / Peter Reuderink / 0 Comments

The other beacon verified on the QSL I recently got from Isavia is NDB HA Vopnafjörður Airport. Vopnafjörður is a small village in the north east of Iceland. Its Airport has slightly over 500 movements per year. Regular flights are carried out by Norlandair to Akureyri Airport in the north of Iceland 5 times a week. From there people can connect to other airports on Iceland including Reykjavik and seasonally to a number of Airports in mainland Europe.

QSL for NDB HL Vestmannaeyjar and NBD HA Vopnafjörður

The NDB HA is located in Hof (or Hofsa), a little hamlet about 15 kilometers SW of the airport.

Vopnafjörður Airport and Terminal Building

QSL NDB HL-345 Vestmannaeyjar/Helgafjell

March 19, 2025 / Peter Reuderink / 0 Comments

Vestmannaeyjar Airport is the first airport in Iceland constructed without foreign or military assistance. It is located on the main island of the Vestmannaeyjar Archipelago (the Westman Islands). With the construction of a nearby ferry terminal at Landeyjahöfn sailing times to the mainland reduced from 3 hours to 30 minutes. This resulted in a drop in demand for scheduled flights. Today there are only government sponsored flights to Reykjavik in winter (probably because shipping and road conditions might not be optimal).

My reception of NDB HL serving this airport on 345 kHz was confirmed (together with NDB-HA which is for another post) by Hjalti Geir Guðmundsson from Isavia, the operators of the airports in Iceland

There is a second beacon NDB VM on 375 kHz serving the airport as well. In hindsight I should have added that one to this report as it is one of the most regular received beacons from Iceland here in The Netherlands.

Diamond certificate for the SWL Contest 2025

March 18, 2025 / Peter Reuderink / 4 Comments

For the SWL contest 2025 that ran during the months of January and February 2025 there was the possibility to do MW only. After I had spent the summer months scanning the SW bands for the SWL Contest 2024 I decided to go for this MW only version. My goal was to log 250+ stations to obtain the Diamond Certificate.

There are 121 European frequencies (spaced 9 kHz) between 530 and 1610 kHz. So an average of two stations per frequency would bring me to 242. Now the problem is that some frequencies don’t carry a single European MW station. Who would have believed that 40 years ago. And there are some frequencies that are dominated by a strong local station.

So it was immediately obvious that I needed to catch at least 3 European stations on some frequencies. An whatever I fell short had to be compensated for by non European stations, particularly Transatlantic ones on a 10 kHz spacing.

In total I received 258 stations from 43 ITU countries. Listening on the right moment helped me to identify individual Spanish stations on the same frequency which run network programs (RNE, COPE, SER) most part of the day. To a certain extent this applied to local Romanian stations as well.

Conditions to Canada and the northern states of the US were quite poor given high solar activity. But to my big suprise I was able to receive quite a few stations from Central and South America. Radio Santa Rosa from Lima, Peru at 10525 kms from my QTH was the most distant station. But I also managed to receive TWR Benin, Akashvani from India, the Russian Service “Radio Kitaya” of China Radio International and the VOA from Thailand (which probably is no longer given cost cuttings by the Trump administration). The map below gives an idea of the stations I heard from outside Europe:

Stations I received in the first months of the year from outside Europe

Below you can download the full list (PDF) of all the logs I received. It might be a useful guide for those who are starting with Medium Wave DX, particularly if you live in or close to the Netherlands. And in a few years from now one might wonder what happened to all these medium wave stations.
All receptions made with ICOM R8600, SDR Console, and NTi Megaloop FX antenna. A big thank you to Frank F0DUW for organizing!

MW Contest 2025 Download

QSL NDB EAG-399 Logroño/Agoncillo

March 13, 2025 / Peter Reuderink / 0 Comments

My reception of NDB EAG on 399 kHz for Logroño/Agoncillo airport in Spain was confirmed by Enaire. They couldn’t add the typical data sheet they usually provide with a verification as the beacon is owned by the military. This goes back to the fact that Agoncillo was designated to be a military airfield, although there were always commerical and private flights as well. (for more information check the history website). From the 1996 onwards the local government really made an effort to turn Agoncilla airport into Logroño’s airport.

NDB EAG-399 with Logroño-Agoncillo airport in the background

The NDB EAG can be spotted easily on Google Maps, to the south east of the runway. On the picture above you see the transmitterbuilding between the two masts supporting the dipole. In the back you see the control tower to the left and the new terminal building to the right. The roof of the terminal building seems to feature 5 “wine barrels” which I guess is a reference to the Rioja region of which Logroño is the capital.

Logroño-Agoncillo terminal building featuring 5 wine barrels.

QSL VOWR St. John’s 800 kHz

March 11, 2025 / Peter Reuderink / 0 Comments

VOWR St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada is a station that can be heard regularly in The Netherlands with a fair to good signal. Overnight their schedule features “Music for Relaxation” : non-stop oldies with now and then a VOWR station ID. Ron LeDrew, manager of VOWR was so kind to confirm my report with a brief email reply.

There are only 3 stations that carry a call sign that doesn’t start with a “C”: VOCM, VOAR and VOWR. These stations were founded before Newfoundland joined the Canadian Confederation in 1949. The ITU prefix VO was originally assigned to Newfoundland and remains in use by radio amateurs. With this QSL from VOWR my set is complete!

VOWR was started in 1924 by Reverend Joseph G. Joyce from the Wesley Methodist Church to allow people that couldn’t make it to church to listen to the services. Soon afterwards they added more general programs, but today a fair bit of their schedule still has a religious background. On their excellent website you can learn a lot about this historic station.

QSL NDB GRA-412 Granada

March 8, 2025 / Peter Reuderink / 0 Comments

Via Enaire (informacion@enaire.es) I received a QSL for my reception of NDB GRA on 412 kHz. This beacon serves the Aeropuerto Federica García Lorca Granada-Jaën in the south of Spain. The airport is named after the Spanish poet Garcia Lorca who was murdered in 1936 by Nationalist Forces in the Spanish Civil War

A slightly better picture from Google Maps of this beacon:

And a picture of the terminal building. There are direct flights to various locations in Spain and Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Terminal building Federico Garcïa Lorca airport Granada/Jaën

QSL NDB TON-335 Torralba de Aragon

March 6, 2025 / Peter Reuderink / 2 Comments

Enaire was again so kind to confirm my reception of a few NDBs. I got a QSL for NDB TON Torralba de Aragon on 335 kHz. As usual with a nice information sheet:

Unfortunately it wasn’t clear to me from the information provided what the purpose of this beacon was. Torralba de Aragon is a small village, 115 inhabitants just south of the Pyrenees. There is a nearby airstrip, but on Ourairports.com the function is described as “terminal area navigation”. So my guess is that the beacon supports navigation at Zaragoza Airport.

Back to Torralba De Aragon, just because I like what this hobby brings us. Torralba is a small village but it has a beautiful church. I learned that the tower is built in Mudéjar style. The Mudéjars were the Muslims who remained in the former areas of Al-Andalus after the Christian Reconquista in the Middle Ages and were allowed to practice their religion to a limited degree. Mudéjar art is valuable in that it represents peaceful co-existence between Muslims and Christians during the medieval era. The things you learn triggered by a beacon sending – / — / -.

QSL Radio Santa Fe Bogota 1070 AM

March 4, 2025 / Peter Reuderink / 0 Comments

I got a confirmation from Radio Santa Fe for a reception from Curacao some time ago, but it is so much nicer to get a QSL for a reception from my home QTH. It is also my first MW QSL from Columbia at my home QTH!

Bianca Bernal confirmed my report and she is most likely family of Hernando Bernal who founded one of the first commercial radio stations in Colombia. She enclosed a nice picutre of the Radio Santa Fe office and their web app: