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:
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!
Congrats Peter, quite impressive !
I could only dream of receiving all those MW stations (or maybe I am not as determined as you ;-))
Good DX !
Patrick
Thank you Patrick,
The European ones are all about determination. But SDR recordings help you to browse swiftly through the band finding IDs for European ones.
For the DX stations the MWlist website helps a lot. I made a recording every night, and when on the basis of my own observations and that of colleagues on MWlist conditions were good I scanned each and every frequency.
Kind regards, Peter
Hi Peter,
Sorry to disturb you!
I would like to submit a small problem to you, completely unrelated to the above blog:
I have tuned on 4833 kHz last Sunday (March 16th 2025) a pirate radio station which was unknown to me.
It’s ID is Atlantic Studio or Atlantis Studio, based in The Netherlands in appearance.
Part of my listening is stored at the following address where ID can be heard at 28s from the beginning: https://voca.ro/1c3CEHoSxvt9
But, as I do not understand at all the Dutch language and as I heard them for the first time, I don’t have any email address for a reception report to send.
Do you know the correct email address of this radio station or could you please give me the email of someone who might know it?
Thank you in advance for your attention.
Sincerely,
Norbert F5202SWL (From Paris, France)
Hi Norbert,
Although I think I heard Atlantic Studio rather than Atlantis Studio (but it is a bit difficult with the north-eastern accent and sound quality), the only address I could find is studio@atlantis.fm . No the beauty is that it has “studio” in the name, and that’s something you don’t hear a lot with pirates.
On this specific frequency I could find no other logs that might help.
I got this info via the site of UK DX-er: https://ukdxer.wixsite.com/my-vxw-site-di06oi/addresses
Hope this helps, kind regards, Peter