Via ONDA (Office Nationale des Airports) in Morocco I received an email to QSL my reception of NDB CDS-345 Daouarat. This beacon is located south of Casablanca. Mr. Fouad Naji, Chef de Division NAV, encouraged the passion of a DX-er, which is nice. I sent my report to communication@onda.ma .
I’m looking for a neat way to document my NDB QSLs other than just printing the emails. The example above is what I’m currently thinking about. The relevant info, email, company logo and the signature recorded by Pskov. What do you think? Comments are more than welcome!
Nothing beats getting a real QSL card in your mailbox. Ideally with nice stamps on it. So getting two QSLs from Radio Carpathia made me very happy yesterday. Thank you Luca!
I still see a lot of reports of “Nuuk Radio” and “Cape Farewell” radio in the NAVTEX community. That is for NAVTEX stations with letters M and W. I sent a report for Nuuk (W in Area IV) and Simiutaq (M in Area IV) to Bo Mogensen at Tusass, for my reception of these stations.
He made me aware that there are only three stations left, and that my information is outdated. Call sign M is for Simituaq, broadcasting for regions 5,6 ,7 and 8. Call sign W is for Igdlutaligssuaq (Kook Island), with messages for regions 8,9 ,10, 11. Call sign I (in Area XVIII) is Upernavik, covering regions 11,12,13 and 14…
If you see this map the obvious question is “who covers the East Coast”? But that is done by Grindavik (regions 3,4,5) and Saudanes Radio (regions 1,2,3) from Iceland.
When he sent my QSL for CFGO “TSN 1200” in November last year, Rick Furniss, station engineer, wrote that their sister station CFRA 580 Ottawa should be an easier catch. Main reason is that the antenna direction is a bit more favorable for Europe.
Well, it turned out to be a bit of an effort. On 576 kHz Bulgarian National Radio is present with 270 kW. What is worse, they are exactly on the back of my loop antenna, so that doesn’t help. Radio Nacional Espana is present with powerful transmitters on 576 and 585. They are more on the “null” of the antenna, but use a close to 10 kHz bandwith if you ask me. If any of these stations plays music 580 is done for. And finally, propagation conditions in December were not that good…
CFRA 580 Ottawa antenna at sunset (photo Rick Furniss)
But this week I managed to pick up CFRA 580 in audible quality, with commercials for Ottawa and Ontario. Within a day I had my QSL from Rick. He told me they were operating on 30 kW (night). I also got a photo of the CFRA antennas at sunset made when Rick was inspecting newly installed tower flashers. And a photo of the studio that morning with Patrica Boal at the mic for her show “Ottawa at work” with producer Cory in the back.
CFRA studio when my QSL was sent: Patricia Boal at the mic for her show “Ottawa at Work”
As far as Rick knows I’m the only DX-er that now has both CFGO and CFRA from Ottawa confirmed. To be honest, that would surpise me, but thanks to Rick for the QSLs!
Another long wave icon is gone. The longwave transmitter of Danmarks Radio in Kalundborg on 243 kHz was taken off the air on December 31st. Sadly that is the third big longwave station gone that I posted about on this blog. On January 1st, 2023 the RTL Beidweiler transmitter on 234 kHz was taken off the air. And RTE Summerhill on 252 (formerly Atlantic 252) left the theater in April.
eQSL Danmarks Radio Kalundborg 243 kHz
Fortunately Mr. Jens Seeberg, former engineer at the station, was so kind to award my reception report with a nice QSL card. The photo was taken by him and a colleague engineer making a tour by airplane. I sent my report to jseeberg@post3.tele.dk
The site in Kalundborg was opened in 1927. At some point in time the transmitter had an output of 300 kW. In recent years operations were already trimmed down to 50 kW, and transmissions confined to shipping weather forecast and news bulletins.
The first Radio Caroline North broadcast of 2024 is between 13th-14th January, live from our radio ship Ross Revenge.
You’ll hear some great music from the 60s to early 90s – plus a chance to win some goodies from our Web Shop, courtesy of Leslie Salter from Hull.
Listen on 648 AM across England, The Netherlands, Belgium and beyond, on 1368 AM in the North/North-West courtesy of our friends at Manx Radio, worldwide online here via our Caroline North Player, on smart speakers and the Radio Caroline app.
We’d love to hear from you during the broadcast via memories@radiocaroline.co.uk and remember, it’s the only email address that gets you straight through to our ‘North’ broadcasters.
From Christmas to New Year I participated in the Coordinated Listening Event CLE299 organized by the NDB list group. I like CLE’s as they give you a bit of insight in the performance of your equipment. The goal for this event was to:
Choose a bearing (antenna direction); both forward and back bearing counts.
In any country crossed by your bearing log up to maximum 10 NDBs.
There is obviously a bit of strategy involved in this one. Initially I thought I should go for the former Yugoslavian republics, as Croatia in particular brought me many stations in the past. But that would have given me only Scotland and England on the back bearing. So in the end I went for 117/297 degrees as this added Ireland and North Ireland to the list. Targets in the direction South East were Germany, Austria and Czechia, Hungary, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey. In addition to The Netherlands I was allowed to count the North Sea as a “country” as well.
My results during CLE299: 94 stations along the 117/297 bearing.
Most of the 94 beacons I logged are shown in the picture above. With 2284 kilometers Izmir/Cigli (CIG) was the most distant beacon heading SE. It is the first NDB I received from Turkey ever!!!Benbecula (BBA) on the Outer Hebrides towards the NW is 985 kilometers from my QTH.
NDBs per country: IRL (7), NIR (2), SCT (10), ENG (10), XOE (2), HOL (1), DEU (10), AUT (10), CZE (9), HNG (5), SRB (10), ROU (10), BUL(7), TUR (1)
Zuid West Brabant is a low power medium wave station from Heerle. A little village between Bergen op Zoom and Roosendaal in the province Noord-Brabant in The Netherlands. With 100 Watt they are active on weekends. Within a day I got their QSL via zuidwestbrabant@hotmail.com.
eQSL from LPAM station Zuid West Brabant AM from Heerle on 1467 kHz
Funny detail: I happened to come across this station while listening via a KiwiSDR in the North of Scotland. At 970 kilometers distance reception was still quite good. Nevertheless I switched to my home QTH, only 80 kilometers away from Heerle.
A QSL for NDB PEP on 297 kHz from Prilep, North Macedonia. My 2nd QSL from this country. The beacon is located 1733 kms from my QTH. The Cyrillic text on the email translates as “keep up the good work”!
email QSL for NDB PEP on 297 kHz from North Macedonia
Asfalttelegrafen was on air from December 23rd until January 5th. I tried a couple of times around Christmas, but I couldn’t get a decent signal here in Woerden. Tracking some KiwiSDRs I learned that the signal reached the German coast, but then it quickly deteriorated.
On January 4th however I was lucky however. And although a strong noise source on 1495.25 kHz forced me to notch everything between 1000 and 1500 Hz I could recognize the various titles played and picked up a clear ID (at 24 secs in the clip).
A day later I received a lengthy and detailed email QSL from Torleif Roos, who is DXer and HAM operator as well. Asfalttelegrafen is located in Ludvika, Sweden, 1097 km from my QTH. I noticed the name is sometimes also spelled as Asfaltstelegrafen.
eQSL from Asfaltstelegrafen, Ludvika, Sweden
The station got its name from “Asfalttelegrafen”, a program on the Swedish National Radio 3rd program on FM around 1975. In the late Sunday nights before midnight it brought rock music. Unfortunately private individuals can’t obtain a permanent license in Sweden, so Torleif has to apply for a 14 day license every time he want’s to broadcast. More information can be found on the radio sweden international website.
The transmitter is a 1 kW Hercules. It is connected to a “L” antenna, 48.5 meters long above an earthplane created by 16 cables of 50 meters each. Broadcast times were 20:00 – 03:55 h UTC, which is the window created when Radio Moldova is not in the air. During those hours the frequency is empty in Europe, with the next station being in Iran.
BDXC : SWL 2262 PRe VERON : NL 14228 If you want to get in touch, just leave a message on one of my posts. Please note that I don't publish email addresses of verifiers which are not part of the public domain. So if you don't see the QSL address, just leave a message and I'll get back to you.
Feel free to copy anything on this weblog. I try to provide accurate information, but if I'm wrong: don't blame me! A link back to my site is appreciated when you copy info.
