"It's not true I had nothing on, I had the radio on" - Marilyn Monroe
For the reception of Radio Frieloo on 6290 kHz I received a friendly QSL email from the operator. I sent my report to frieloo(at)outlook.com .
Radio Frieloo is a pirate station operating from the province Gelderland in The Netherlands. The operator told me that he is not often in the air. When it is the case it is mostly to test antenna designs. The transmitter is a R&S with 100 Watt as shown in the picture.
Another souvenir from my favourite holiday destination Südtirol: email to QSL my reception of Radio Holiday on 99.6 MHz (Luttach, Italy). They cover South Tirol with 14 transmitters ranging in power between 20 and 1000 Watt only. I guess that in these mountainous regions line of sight requirements result in more antennes rather than high transmitter power.
I heard them in Steinhaus in the beautiful Ahrntal, only 6 kilometers away. So not really DX, but as a said: a nice holiday souvenir for a station that is very difficult to receive, if at all, in The Netherlands. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
At a distance of around 600 kilometers from my home QTH FM stations in the southern part of Germany are difficult if not impossible to catch. They are too close for Sporadic E. But also out of range for Tropospheric DX, particularly when transmitter power is relatively low, as is the case for Hitradio RT1. So I took the opportunity to listen to them while I was visiting the area.
Hitradio RT1 has 10 FM transmitters in the Schwaben region in Germany, west of Munich. Power varies between 0.1 and 0.3 kW, with one station at 1 kW. They carry separate local programs for the city of Augsburg, Neuburg, Nordschwaben and Südschwaben. I received the latter one while in Altenstadt, 28 km away. I sent my report to the local station: info@rt1-suedschwaben.de . Markus Sampl replied within a day.
A very friendly but also a bit of an odd email to QSL my reception of SWR DasDing on 98.9 MHz. DasDing (“The Thing”) is the youth radio station of the Südwest Rundfunk, the commercial free radio for the Bundesländer (“States”) Rheinland-Pfalz (Rheinland Palatinate) and Baden-Württemberg in Germany. I heard the station during an overnight stay in Altenstadt, 28 kilometers away from the location of the 1 kW transmitter near Ulm.
Tina from DasDing wrote:
“Actually we are only broadcasting in Baden-Württemberg und Rheinland-Pfalz. But it could be that you have received the 98.9 transmitter from Ulm”.
My reception location was about a kilometer across the border in neighbouring Bavaria. Oh oh these naughty radio waves: propagating to where they are not supposed to go… 😂 . Thank you Tina for the confirmation!
I received Antenne Vorarlberg while staying in Altenstadt near Ulm, Germany. With a distance of 77 kilometers that is apparently just within the coverage area of the powerful 50 kW Antenne Vorarlberg transmitter located near Bregenz in Austria. This is their main transmitter, the other 7 ones are mere repeaters.
I listened to “Party-Mix mit Enrico Ostendorf”. Nicole was so kind to confirm my report sent to service(at)antennevorarlberg.at .
A QSL from NDB VNA-364 Vanja, a navigation aid for Umea Airport in Sweden.
Earlier I received a e-QSL for my reception of the other NDB for Umea Airport WU-329. The engineering team that reached out to me promised to send a QSL card by mail for the other beacon VNA-364 once they had completed their maintenance visit and were able to take a few pictures. Last week I received it!
It is always nice to get a picture of an NDB. Sometimes I’m able to trace them on Streetview in Google Maps. But as Christoffer from the Engineering team explained: no chance for VNA which is pretty much off the beaten track. The picture below shows the access path to the beacon.
The transmitter is SA-100D transmitter with 100 Watt. Christoffer told me it’s the same as WU uses and the stations are near identical in terms of looks.
QSL for NDB NMS-329, a navigation aid for Namsos Airport. This regional airport is located in central Norway, situated along the river Namsen, which flows into the Namsenfjord.
Namsos Airport has one of the smallest runways for airports with regular flights. They are operated by Widerøe with destinations Trondheim, Oslo and Rørvik, as part of a public service obligation. As Trondheim is only 165 kilometers away, and roads between Namsos and Trondheim are upgraded, many people travel by car to Trondheim to take a flight from there.
The beacon is one of those that I receive quite regularly in the Netherlands. Thanks to Goran Hardenmark for helping me out with the contact address at Avinor for the QSL!
This summer I decided to participate in the SWL 2024 contest. This contest was organized by Franck F0DUW . Aim was to log as many broadcasters in each metre band. I had a slow start as I was very busy in June with Sporadic E receptions, but in July/August I focused a bit. In the end I was able to log 425 broadcasters. This was not only more than enough to qualify for the “Diamond” certificate, but it also makes clear that shortwave isn’t dead!
I plan to give more information about what I heard in a future post, but that will take a little bit of time. Stay tuned!
Thanks to Franck for organizing. On his facebook page he announced that there will be another contest starting January 1st, 2025.
Almost exactly a year ago I wrote a post on my reception of two beacons for Umea Airport: WU-329 and VNA-364. At the time I received a polite “thank you email” from Swedavia, the operator of Umea Airport. But hardly a QSL.
Two weeks ago I was contacted by engineers working at AVISEQ, the company responsible for the maintenance of the navigation aids and ATC communication/systems in Sweden. They had read my post and prepared the above eQSL for NDB WU-329 me and there should be a QSL for VNA-364 on its way. Of the latter beacon I also received some nice pictures, as the team was doing some maintenance on VNA. I will post them together with the QSL.
Stay tuned for more!
In June this year the German service of Radio Taiwan executed some test transmissions to determine the best frequencies broadcasting from Tamsui
“Sie Hören ein 10-minutige Testsendung von Radio Taiwan International…. von der Sendeanlage Tamsui”.
And it made sense for them to perform these tests because their signal on 11995 kHz was excellent, whereas on 9545 kHz the quality was average at best. Worse, on 7250 kHz I didn’t manage to receive them at all…
My reception reports were awarded with an “old school” paper QSL… which is fitting for an “old school” request for listeners to report on reception quality! Thank you RTI!
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