The wonderful world of listening to the radio
I received an email to QSL Del Tracks (sometimes referred to as Deltracks) on 6270 kHz. Del Tracks is a Free Radio station from The Netherlands. I heard them last weekend with the slogan “Del Tracks, your Classic Rock Station! Do you remember where you were in 1984?” I sent my report to deltracks@outlook.com .
Last weekend I received Baken 16 (Dutch for Beacon 16) on 6385 kHz. This Free Radio station is named after the popular program “Baken 16” which was broadcast by Radio Mi Amigo on weekdays, lunch time, from August 1976 unit October 1978. The program was presented by Marc Jacobs. In 1979 the show featured on Radio Caroline for a few months (source: Radiopedia).
There is a nice nostalgic video on YouTube with fragments from the 500th Baken 16 show.
As a Free Radio station from The Netherlands the name Baken 16 lives on. The transmitter is a Rohde & Schwarz SK010 (100W) connected to an inverted V.
I received this e QSL from SAQ Grimeton, Sweden, for the reception of their UN-day transmission. The event took place on October 24th, at 15:00 UTC on the usual 17.2 kHz. I struggled to get a readable signal at my home QTH this time. So I used the Twente SDR as an alternative. Funny thing is that contrary to my expectations their previous transmission around noon mid summer resulted in a much better signal.
René L’Baum, PE0RL, sent me a comprehensive email to QSL my reception of Album AM on 846 kHz. Album AM is one of many LPAM stations that are active in The Netherlands. The station is located in Uden, 66 kilometer from my QTH.
Compared to a few other stations at comparable distance their signal is very strong, almost always better than SINPO44444 (in the evening hours there might be some interference from Irish pirate Radio North). That is so strong that I was wondering whether they started up a relay at Linschoten (only 3 km away) as Album AM bought the right to broadcast from this location/frequency as well. But if I understood René correctly that was not the case.
Contrary to some other LPAM stations who try to bring a program to a local audience, René is mainly interested in being received over the longest distance possible. So far René has received reception reports from 14 countries. Recently he organized a DX event, transmitting with a little offset to the 846 kHz frequency to avoid Radio North. The most distant report came from Murom, 300 km east of Moscow (2410 km). Listening from a car with simple receivers and a small (23 cm) loop antenna, the morse ID “Album AM” was picked up on the hour.
I think it is very well possible that René will organize future DX events, so suggest you monitor his website albumam.nl !
On Saturday, November 11, a new program from Radio Igloo will be broadcast.
The West Coast DX club will have a listening camp in a cabin in the woods north of Gothenburg next weekend.
The DX club and Radio Igloo will broadcast a program with our own favorite music. There will be a mix of many different styles of music. Our best program to date – at least we think so.
For the first time, the program will be broadcast simultaneously from three different transmitters, from different locations in Central Europe and on different frequencies.
It has become possible thanks to our radio-friends in Central Europe. It will be interesting to see how it will work.
The program will be broadcast on Saturday 11 November at 19–20 Central European Time (18–19 UTC) on 4945, 5840 and 6380 kHz.(or on a free frequency nearby).
The program will be rebroadcast the following day at 15-16 CET but then only on 6380 kHz
We appreciate reports on our program, preferably with an audio clip and with comments on the content of the program.
Correct reports will be answered with a new e-QSL. Send your reports to radioigloo@gmail.com
The English desk of Radio Romania was so kind to send me a QSL for my reception of Marosvásárhelyi Rádió on1323 kHz. And even seem to promise a real QSL, so let’s see… I heard them starting their daily transmission with interval signals on chimes or metallophone. This was followed by the Romanian National Anthem at 03:54 h UTC.
Marosvásárhelyi Rádió is a regional radio station broadcasting from Târgu Mureș, located on the river with the same name. Târgu Mureș means “Marketplace at the river Mureș”. The river is called Maros in Hungarian, and vásárhelyi is Hungarian for marketplace.
For a long time the city was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. All the people living there were Hungarian. But after the First World War the victors wanted to reduce the influence of the empire, and it was agreed that Târgu Mureș should be part of Romania. After WWII the policies of the communist regime under dictator Ceaușescu resulted in the Hungarian speaking population being reduced to a minority (just above 40% these days).
Marosvásárhelyi Rádió started in 1958 with a daily broadcast of 30 minutes in Romanian and 15 minutes in Hungarian. In 1985 all regional stations were prohibited by the communist regime. After the fall of Ceaușescu and his regime in 1989 transmissions were resumed and grew steadily to 15 hours a day. On 1323 kHz you usually hear Radio Marosvásárhelyi Rádió in Hungarian. Weekend days feature an hour of Radio Târgu Mureș Minoritate in the language of the Roma, and an hour Radio Neumarkt in German. By now you should be able to guess where the name Neumarkt comes from…
In the last week of October I received strong signals from WCBS 880 New York. Click the link for a YouTube recording. On the internet I could find a QSL report from 2016, but nothing of a more recent date.
WCBS Newsradio 880 is operated by the Audacy group in the United States. Audacy apparently owns 235 radio stations. In 2017 they took over CBS radio, which might explain why I couldn’t find a QSL of a more recent date as Audacy appears to be not very “friendly” to DX-ers or even listeners overseas in general. All of their websites can’t be viewed in Europe for example, unless you use a VPN to bypass the IP blocker. And if you do so: contact email addresses are nowhere to be found.
So in addition to a traditional mail, on which I didn’t receive a reply, I sent them a Facebook message for my reception in January this year. All I got was a generic message expressing their appreciation… Disappointing that a group with a 1.5 billion USD revenue can’t do a little bit more in terms of public relations.
And guess what, a day after my first QSL from Bosnia Herzegovina I received my second. A QSL for NDB BLK-340 Banja Luka. This time the email sent to info@bhansa.gov.ba apparently made it to the right desk. Mr. Stanisic who is head of Air Traffic Control Banja Luka was so kind to send me a confirmation.
What is a bit confusing is that Banja Luka is situated in Republica Srpska. This translates as Serb Republic, but should not be confused with the Republic of Serbia, which is an independent country (and also still on my “QSL to-do list” by the way). Since December 1995 The Republica Srpska, together with the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina form the independent country Bosnia and Herzegovina…. But as the Republica Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia Herzegovina couldn’t agree on who was to own Brčko, that was turned into a third autonomous district in 1999… pretty complicated eh?
To make things even more complicated: the Republica Srpska consists of two parts and according to their current leadership the Republica Srpska should be an independent state. Which would possibly result in a new EDXC radio country as well, and possibly even two (like West and East Malaysia), as they are separated by Brčko …
But as much as this would be nice for us DX-ers, please don’t let them fight another Balkan War over it…
Yesss… a new radio country confirmed: Bosnia Herzegovina. I got an email from Mr. Adnan Becic to QSL NDB TU-455 from Tuzla. If I’ve counted correctly, this is my 189th EDXC radio country. In the 80-ies I was able to receive and QSL Radio Sarajevo. But that was before the Balkan war, and Bosnia Herzegovina was still part of Yugoslavia.
BHANSA is the organization responsible for aeronautical navigation services in Bosnia Herzegovina. I tried sending a report to BHANSA directly about my reception of the Banja Luka Beacon BLK-340. But I only had their corporate email address so it probably never reached the right department. I never got an answer.
So this time I decided to write to Tuzla Airport instead and sent an email to Mr. Brcaninovic, technical manager at Tuzla Airport. He forwarded my message to the BHANSA team (translated from Bosnian language):
Guys.. greetings!
You see if you want to answer this lover of radio signals. I have no idea how (probably the contacts on our website for the technique) but it’s not my responsibility, so I’m forwarding it to you for your attention and possible action. As nice as it is to know that you can hear from Holland 😃
And as you could see, it worked! Thank you Mr. Brcaninovic and Mr. Becic for allowing me to add another country to my list!
Note: the email address was not available in public domain and therefore not published here. You can contact me for further details by submitting a comment.
A QSL for Jake-FM heard on Channel 292, broadcasting from Ingolstadt, Germany. I sent my report to qsl@jake-fm.de . Jake-FM is basically a hobby internet station. As the operator Michael Fischer writes on the Jake-FM website: Why another internet station? Because the operator enjoys it!
The station got his name from a local cult-music bar “Black Jake”. FM was added because it sounds better than Jake-digital or Jake-internet, and stands for Fabelhafte Musik (Fabulous Music).
From their website: JAKE-FM’s basic program consists of a non-stop music mix that emphasizes Classic Rock, but also includes many other genres, such as blues, soul, pop, oldies. Under no circumstances will you hear hits, folk music, hip-hop, techno or the latest chart noise here.
JAKE-FM can be heard on the “real” radio every 4th Sunday of the month via Channel 292. From 2 p.m. local time on the frequency 6070 kHz with the “JAKE-FM – Shortwave Show”. It’s repeated the following Saturday at 10 a.m. local time (may be postponed). Check Jake-FM website or Channel 292 for the latest info.
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