To everyone who visits my blog… I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. And of course a lot of good DX!
For me 2026 will be a year of change. We will be moving from the densely populated part of the Netherlands in the west, to one of the most rural parts of the country. And our house is under construction as you can see (I have to admit the big Christmas tree and the snow are AI).
The lines for 3 antennas, a rotor and a clean grounding are already in place
Of course the new house will have a radio shack and facilities to connect to three antennas in the garden. On the picture above you can see the work in progress.
As we will move to a temporary house in the next few weeks I might have less time to spend behind the radio, resulting in fewer posts on this blog. In an investment in what hopefully will be a QTH with less QRM!
I don’t know what it is… there is so much to listen to on the internet, but receiving a station with music that isn’t mainstream via the airwaves… it is always a bonus. Via Channel 292 I listened to Kölsch in de Welt with a program dedicated to Kasalla. Kasalla is a popular German Kölschrock band from Cologne, formed in 2011, known for energetic hits like “Pirate” and “Stadt met K” that dominate carnival sessions. Their music blends rock with Cologne dialect lyrics, celebrating local pride and creating euphoric live atmospheres across Germany and beyond.
It fits the mission of Kölsch in die Welt: to spread the Cologne way of life, music, and culture far beyond the cathedral city. With energetic Kölsch rock hits and tours throughout Germany and Europe, they carry pride in Cologne, its dialect, and its traditions to the world. Whether at concerts or planned international performances, Kasalla brings the spirit of Carnival, Kölsch, and Cologne to a global audience.
Since 2018 the Voice of Indonesia is back on shortwave. They are using frequencies in the 90 meter band (3325 kHz) from Palangkaraya on the island of Borneo and 60 meter band (4755 kHz) from Jakarta on this island of Java. A remarkable change of strategy as most broadcasters have left shortwave, and tropical band frequencies in particular.
According to Voice of Indonesia the reason is to promote Indonesian culture and government views, at relatively low costs and with the ability to reach areas where digital infrastructure is not as easily available as in other parts of the world.
eQSL from RRI Voice of Indonesia on 4755 kHz
Via voilisteners@gmail.com I received a personal email and a beaticul eQSL card for my reception of their program on 4755 kHz. I listened to their Spanish and German program which could be received in reasonable quality at 17:30 and 18:00 h UTC respectively. They even have a Dutch program which I will try to receive on 3325 kHz in the coming months.
My first QSL from the Voice of Indonesia is from February1989. See below.
1989 QSL from the Voice of Indonesia
In those days they were still broadcasting in the 25 and 19 meter band, and despite their 100 kW of power I don’t recall it being an easy catch. Funny thing is that in those days they didn’t have a broadcast in Dutch.
Even during summer (or maybe especially during summer) it pays out to monitor the medium wave. Last night offered very good conditions towards Brazil and Argentina, allowing me to log a few stations that I didn’t hear before.
On this Youtube video you will see my recording of the National Anthem played on Radio Buenos Aires 1350 kHz. With 11448 kilometers from my QTH a new personal record!
I noticed this special call sign PA25NATO a couple of time on SSTV 14230 kHz. Apparently it is in use to celebrate the upcoming NATO Summit in The Hague, The Netherlands.
It’s going to be quite the event security wise, right in one of the most densely populated areas of Europe, to the point that you think whether it wouldn’t have been wise to select a more convenient location. Good thing that I’m retired and don’t have to deal with all the road closures and resulting traffic jams in the coming weeks.
A few times per year the International Space Station (ISS) has an event in which they transmit SSTV messages in the amateur band. Between April 11th and 16th there was such an event, dedicated to “Humans in Space”. Note that April 12th, 1961 was the date of the first human space flight with Yuri Gagarin.
The frequency used was 145.800 MHz in the 2 meter amateur band, which is covered by my ICOM R8600 so I decided to give it a try. I used the AMSAT site to get information when the ISS was flying over. Each morning there were 5 passes, about 1.5 hr apart. During a pass the ISS would “theoretically” be in visible range for 6 to 10 minutes. As I didn’t have a 2 meter band antenna I just pointed my 5 elements 100 MHz Yagi (6 m elevation) westward to see what would happen.
The Amsat site provides a tool to predict ISS pass times.
On the first try I was lucky. The SSTV broadcasts were in FM and PD120 mode, which took me some time to sort out. Good thing that I made an SDR recording so I could leisurely experiment with fine tuning the decoding. Now each picture takes 2 minutes to send, followed by a pause of 2 minutes. And while the ISS is “theoretically” in sight for 6 to 10 minutes, the reality is that at my location I don’t have a free view from west to east. On the west there are houses and somewhat further away a 9 story apartment tower. But east is worse with a nearby 5 story apartment blocking my view. Combined with the directional properties of the antenna it meant that I never managed to have more than 2 minutes of good quality reception each pass. As you can see in the pictures below:
But good enough to upload my pictures to the ARISS website and apply for an award which was almost immediately returned (Tip: do check you spam email box, as that’s where my copy landed!).
Award for my reception of ISS during the “Humans in Space” event.
Now the problem is that I don’t have a reliable source for upcoming ISS events. The ARISS website doesn’t always seem to mention them. I got my information form the AMSAT-UK website, which had links to various relevant pages. So suggest you follow them if you are interested to try for yourself.
Dear DX friends I got this tip for a broadcast from Key Channel Radio. This station has been on the air before. I have a source telling me that this one will come from St. Kitts and Nevis😁 … No matter what it is a nice DX goal!
This year I had again the privilege of spending some time on Curacao. Like last year I brought a radio with me: the Tecsun PL-368 I won in the SWL 2024 contest. I focused a little bit more on the upper side of the MW band this time. Below a list of the stations I received. Quite a few from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, more than a year ago. The most distant stations I heard were ZSN1 Nassau and Radio Monumental from Quito (both 1700 km), WFED with a WTOP program from Washington (3100 km) and LS6 Radio Buenos Aires (5300 km). I was pleased to receive ZBVI from the British Virgin Islands as well as the Voice of St. Maarten, two new DX countries for me. I am still waiting for a reply from the latter station.
During my holiday on Curacao I was able to receive ZBVI from Tortola, the largest island of the British Virgin Islands. A distance of about 840 km. Sandra Potter, Operations Manager at ZBVI was so kind to confirm my reception report. This QSL ZBVI Tortola, British Virgin Islands on 780 kHz is my 198th country confirmed!
The official call sign of the station in the FCC data base is ZBV, but the station identifies as ZBVI after the Virgin Islands. It is also not clear why this station has a FCC license in the USA and seems to have to adhere to US law (no tobacco commercials allowed). Anyone?
Is this the end of Radio Free Asia? Following the announcement of the Trump administration to cut funding of the USAGM department VoA, Radio Marti, RFE/RL, RFA and possibly other USAGM sponsored stations will discontinue broadcasting.
Last week I received this email from RFA:
Dear friends,
Last weekend Radio Free Asia lost its grant and funding. Unfortunately, we are unable to confirm any more reception reports.
If this situation changes, we will let you know.
As our relay sites stop transmitting our broadcasts, currently, we’re still airing evergreen programming on limited frequencies but it’s unclear how long this will continue.
Thank you for listening and also for your years of support and friendship.
RFA’s QSL Team
Personally I have mixed views on all of this. I saw an interview with Cubans on the closure of Radio Marti. An eldery man was truly disappointed. But a younger man said “I’ve heard of it, my granddad listens to it, but I never do”. I don’t know how many people still use short wave radio for their news. The younger generation typically relies on the internet. So with that in mind maintaining a shortwave radiostation is expensive and outdated.
That said: internet can be filtered or even blocked. Which is much more difficult for radio waves. Nevertheless the demolition of LW, MW and SW transmitters and antenna facilities continues in Europe. At the same time the Israel army resumed MW broadcasts of Galei Zahal, their army radio,ahead of their operations is Gaza and Lebanon. It might be that we will regret that we didn’t use some of the 800 billion to “rearm Europe” to maintain some of the legacy radio facilities. Time will tell.
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