A brief email to QSL Port Said Radio on 2187.5 kHz. I received the station in February acknowledging a DSC test message from a tanker Dilos anchored in Port Said Harbour. Initially I tried to reach out to the Port Said Harbour authorities via psp@portsaid.gov.eg , but without success. Rob (IZEROCDM) at DX Fanzine was so kind to share the portsaid.radio@te.eg address that delivered him the QSL. Thank you so much Rob!
This is only my 2nd QSL from Egypt. I don’t know how many reports I sent to Radio Cairo… but they were all to no avail. The other Egyptian QSL I have is from the Middle East News Agency (MENA). I vividly remember how in 1993 I built a small RTTY decoder using an OpAmp (918?). It ran with software on the first PC I owned, an IBM PS/2 with an 80286 Intel CPU (10 MHz). With only one purpose… to get a QSL from my 181st radio country.
Among the DSC stations Faversham Radio, call sign MNC, is something special. You have the major Coastal Radio Stations and Rescue Coordination Centres (JRCC or MRCC) and then there are a few maritime colleges and training institutes like MarTec in Skagen, NuTec in Bergen and Trondheim, and the Constanta Maritime University. Faversham Radio in Kent, United Kingdom is also a training facility but operated by volunteers. It is situated in Faversham along the Swale, a tidal channel in the Thames estuary.
Roger Taylor was so kind to confirm my reception of Faversham Radio. After serving as a radio officer at sea and then teaching Decca radar systems all over the world, he joined the Merchant Navy College at Greenhithe in Kent. After a stint at the National Sea School in Gravesend he and a few colleagues decided to become independent and start Snargate Radio as a training facility for GMDSS. They gave it call sign MNC, referring to the old college at Greenhithe. But also the first coastal radio station in the UK using an M (as in the old days of the Marconi Stations) rather than G in their call sign.
Later MNC was relocated to Faversham, and the name was changed accordingly. The station is entirely voluntary run by ex seafarers. The transmitter is a Sailor 5000 SSB kit because, as Roger explains, this is the only kit that allowed them to program an MMSI number starting with “00” indicating that it is a coastal radiostation. This is indeed something that is odd with stations like MarTec, NuTec, CMU or ANFR Donges: their MMSI is like that of a ship.
Faversham Radio is allowed to acknowledge DSC test calls. Making it the only HF maritime provision in the United Kingdom. In the beginning (2013-2015) the station was heavily used. But then a drop in requests was noted. Apparently due to the fact that the UK MCA had asked the entry in the ALRS (Admiralty List of Radio Signals) to be deleted. This has no been decided otherwise, but the use of Faversham Radio is still very low. Making it a rare catch.
Recently I received Bangkok Radio on 2187.5 kHz. With 9225 kilometer this is by far my most distant maritime reception on MF. Unfortunately I couldn’t find an email address, until Néstor Damián Fischetto provided me with one. Within a few days I received a fully detailed email from YvesZor, radio operator at the station:
Dear Peter Reuderink,
Thank you for your email and for sharing your reception report of Bangkok Radio. We are delighted to hear that you were able to receive our station on 2 MHz, especially considering the distance of over 9225 kilometres. It’s always gratifying to know that our signals are reaching listeners around the world.
We confirm your reception of Bangkok Radio on 2187.5 kHz on February 27th, 2024, at 20:28 h UTC. Your dedication to the hobby of radio reception for over four decades is admirable, and we are honoured to be a part of your listening experience.
Should you have any further questions or if there’s anything else we can assist you with, please feel free to reach out to us.
Thank you once again for reaching out to Bangkok Radio. We value your support and interest in our broadcasts.
Warm regards,
YvesZor [YZ] Radio Operator Bangkok Radio
Big thanks to Nestor (and Rob IZ0CDM, who provided similar address info a few days later)!
In October 2023 I (and some other DX-ers on YADDNet as well) received a DSC message from Svalbard Radio with MMSI 002570900 on 2182.7 kHz. This station MMSI is not received very often. And what I heard was an acknowledgement of a test message sent by the ferry Silja Serenade on its way between Mariehamn in Finland and Sweden on the Baltic Sea. So I wondered if I truly received Svalbard Radio.
I sent a reception report to Kystradio Nord in Bodø (kystradio.nord@telenor.no), as they remotely operate Svalbard Radio. But quite unusual for them I did not get an immediate answer. So I tried again last week. And with apologies (which is not necessary at all as they are just doing us DX-ers a favor on all of our requests) I got an email that QSL-ed my reception of Svalbard Radio.
Email confirming that I received the Svalbard transmitter of Telenor, Kystradio Nord
The email also explains why there was such a strange connect between a ferry on the Baltic and Svalbard Radio/ The test acknowledgements are fully automated on many (but not all) coast stations. So my guess is that the radio officer – who has to execute a mandatory weekly test – decided to go for something special… and triggered a response from the Svalbard transmitter?
This means that I have received a QSL from a station from mainland Svalbard/Spitsbergen for the first time. Not a new radio country though, as Bjornoya (Bear Island) which I received with NDBs LJS in the past and BJO last year is considered part of Svalbard according to the EDXC country list.
But where exactly is this station located on Svalbard? The first maritime station on Svalbard/Spitsbergen, Svalbard Radio was established in 1911. The location was Finneset, close to Barentszburg, the Russian settlement on Spitsbergen. But in 1930 the station was moved to Longyearbyen. And in 1975 the transmitters/antennas moved to Longyear – Svalbard Airport. Since 2006 the station is remotely controlled by Kystradio Nord in Bodø.
But that is not the location of the MF transmitters though. In 1932 two Soviet ships went aground. These were probably coal ships to Barentszburg. The Russian coal mining company Arktikugol developed an intiative to improve the navigational aids. It included the construction of a new station on Isfjorden in 1933. Once it was called Isfjord Radio, but since 1976 the station is remotely operated by above mentioned Svalbard Radio after completion of the Longyear – Svalbard Airport facilities. The Isfjord name seems no longer in use. Isfjorden is also the location from which Svalbard NAVTEX messages are being transmitted.
Isfjord Radio Station
Today the housing facilities of the radiostation in Isfjorden are exploited by Basecampexplorer to accommodate arctic tourists. So it is possible to make a visit!
Fully detailed eQSL from XSX Keelung Radio, Taiwan
If I’m not mistaken this was my 3rd attempt to get this nice QSL for XSX Keelung Radio 12577 kHz. I sent my report to klgmdss@ms1.hinet.net .
Unfortunately I couldn’t find a lot of info about Keelung Radio on the internet. So I will finish this post with my QSL from 1982 from Keelung Radio, when we were still searching the bands for VVV and CQ markers in CW:
1982 QSL for reception of Keelung Radio in CW on 8 MHz.
I got a friendly email to QSL Skagen Skipperskole (Martec) Skagen, Denmark, on 8414.5 kHz. Yes, Skipperskole is Skipper School in English, witnessing the Danish influence on the English language which, as most of you probably know, goes back to the Viking era.
QSL Skipperskole (MarTec) Skagen 8414.5 kHz
Mr. Andersen, principal of the school was so kind to answer my reception report. I sent it to martec@martec.dk and acta@martec.dk. The Skipperskole is part of MarTec a polytechnical education institute in Skagen, a harbor city in the most northern tip of Denmark.
The DSC transmission to a fictive MMSI 999999999 was made as part of a training session in which not only Danish students, but also students from Portugal, Sweden and Panama participated. I’m very pleased with this QSL, if only because I am a huge fan of any real technical study whatsoever. We need more technically educated people!
Martec Skagen, the “eneste” skipper school in Denmark. Eneste is close to “enigste” in Dutch, which means “only”. It’s funny that “only” is more like “ähnlich” in German, which means “similar”. Etymology is another of mine as you can guess.
It probably wouldn’t be too difficult to receive Skipperskole Skagen if it wasn’t for the fact that these training sessions are not an everyday event. So you have to be lucky. And if you are dependent on night time propagation you do have bad luck, as the courses are probably day time only. Other schools that I know off that have DSC transmissions as part of their curriculum are Bergen and Tromso in Norway, but I never got an answer from the latter one on my reception report.
This blog is about listening to the radio and not only about the reception of QSLs. So I’d like to share this nice surprise.
Aasiaat Radio in Greenland was my most remote log on 2187.5 kHz. Until last night when all of a sudden Bangkok Radio from Thailand showed up on DX-Atlas. I have received Bangkok Radio a couple of times on 12 Mhz but never on 2 MHz.
With a DSC message they responded to a test call from bulk carrier “BASS” near Banda Aceh on its way from Sikka, India to Singapore.
Unfortunately I don’t have an email address of Bangkok Radio, and I couldn’t find recent QSLs on the internet. But if you have info, feel free to drop it in the comments.
My second attempt to QSL Polish Rescue Radio on 2187.5 kHz was successful! Polish Rescue Radio operates from the city of Gdynia in Poland. I heard them with a DSC message to a cargo ship GT Foresti. When I checked the ship was in the Kiel canal, connecting the East (Baltic) Sea with the North Sea, on its way to Brake, a harbor in the Weser river, north of Bremen.
Email to QSL the reception of Polish Rescue Radio on 2187.5 kHz
I snet my report to gmdss@umgdy.gov.pl . Polish Rescue Radio replaced Witowo Radio on January 1st, 2020. They have a very nice website that provides lots of info on their operations.
Today I received a polite email to QSL my reception of Tianjin Coastal Radio on 8414.5 kHz. I sent my report to tianjinradio@163.com, and three hours later I received my reply. The call sign of Tianjin Radio is XSV.
Tianjin is the third largest port in the world, after Shanghai and Singapore. That said, I don’t see them in the DSC logs as often as for example Shanghai and Guangzhou Radio. The port is situated on the Haihe river. Tianjin has a population of 14 million.
Tianjin Coastal Radio Centre
By the way, last week I was away on a skiing holiday, but I kept my receivers on DSC watch. I also triggered remote logging on the YaDD decoder. The beauty is that I could see in Tirol what was being received via YaDDNet . So I already knew that I had received Tianjin before I got home… and DX Atlas confirmed it. Not all is bad in the modern age of DX-ing!
This was my fourth attempt in the last 12 months and finally successful: QSL Hai Phong Radio 8414.5 kHz. They were broadcasting a DSC message to cargo ship “Ga Hong” on the South Chinese Sea. I sent my report to hphong_radio@vishipel.com.vn . It is only my 2nd QSL from Vietnam. The other one is from the Voice of Vietnam, years ago.
Successful on my 4th attempt: eQSL from Hai Phong Radio / XVG
Hai Phong Radio is probably the station from Vietnam that I receive most often. Ho Chi Minh Radio is another regular one. I received Nha Trang Radio once on 8 MHz. This station apparently doesn’t operate on higher frequencies. I sent reports to these latter two stations via regular mail, but never received a reply. So if someone has a good (email)address, feel free to put it in the comments.
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.
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