Peter's DX Corner

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Tag: Mediumwave (Page 1 of 16)

QSL HJLK Radio Calidad de Cali 1230 kHz

April 2, 2025 / / 0 Comments

A QSL from HJLK Radio Calidad, broadcasting from Cali, Colombia on 1230 kHz. I heard this station during my holiday on Curacao.

Email QSL for Radio Calidad de Cali on 1230 kHz

Radio Calidad is a RCN (Radio Cadena Nacional) station. RCN operates a few networks or brands as I explained in an earlier post. La Cariñosa is the program with focus on popular music. It is being broadcast on mediumwave from 15 cities, but according to Wikipedia three of them also have their own local station ID and programs: Radio Calidad from Cali, Radio Santander from Bucaramanga and Radio Paisa from Medellin. And indeed I heard an ID like “Radio Calidad la Cariñosa… y con la vocacion de servicio”.


QSL BBN Radio Caracas 1260 kHz

March 31, 2025 / / 0 Comments

When staying on Curacao last year (2024) I received BBN – Bible Broadcasting Network – from both Venezuela and Colombia. But I only sent a report to the BBN Colombia which was confirmed with a QSL. So during my holiday this year I took the opportunity to write to BBN Venezuela as well. After all, it appears to be very difficult to get a QSL from a Venezuelan radio station these days. But in the case of BBN the report was sent to, and the reply came from their head office in the USA: red@bbnmedia.org .

QSL email for my reception of BBN from Venezuela

Like last time I got a nice detailed letter from BBN. BBN is most likely not as well known in the DX community as for example TWR and AWR. That is most likely because they do not operate on Shortwave. The organisation runs quite a few FM stations in the United States, in addition to 4 low power AM stations. But they are also active in 14 countries in South America, with medium wave presence in Chile, Colombia, Panama and Venezuela. Rather than excited preaching heard so often on other stations the BBN programs that I listened to were always about explaining the Bible in a more modest fashion.

QSL WKUM “Radio Cumbre” Puerto Rico 1470 kHz

March 27, 2025 / / 0 Comments

A QSL from WKUM “Radio Cumbre”, Orocovis, Puerto Rico on 1470 kHz. I heard this station during my stay at Curacao.

Email QSL WKUM Cumbre 1470, Puerto Rico

They advertise as “Cumbre 14-70, la estacion de regio central y Puerto Rico”. Which is correct if you see their location on the map below. The spanish word “Cumbre” translates as “Summit”, and indeed this station is located on the central mountain range in Puerto Rico, the Cordillera Central .

QSL WRSJ “TIVA Radio” San Juan 1520 kHz

March 25, 2025 / / 0 Comments

A QSL from WRSJ “TIVA Radio” San Juan 1520 kHz from Puerto Rico. I received this station while staying on Curaçao. I sent my report to info@.com and Mr. Edwin Gonzalez was so kind to confirm within a day.

WRSJ “TIVA Radio” is owned by International Broadcasting. They also own WGIT 1660, a station that I have heard in The Netherlands recently. According to Wikipedia WRSJ brings an adult contemporary format, but what I heard was a lengthy and passionate discussion on side effects of the COVID vaccines.

QSL WXRF WAPA Radio Guayama 1590 kHz

March 23, 2025 / / 2 Comments

A QSL for WXRF WAPA Radio Guayama, Puerto Rico on 1590 kHz. The station is part of the WAPA Radio network. My report to admin@borinquenradio was answered within a day with a brief email reply from ING Jorge Blanco, vice president of WAPA Radio. I heard this station while staying on the island Curacao (721 km distance).

QSL email for WXRF WAPA Radio 1590 kHz, Guayama, Puerto Rico

WXRF is part of the WAPA Radio network which operates 7 AM and 7 FM stations across the island of Puerto Rico. It is interesting to see that the email address still reads WBQN which was the call sign of the station on 680 AM which I QSL-ed last year (see below). At the time the network was branded Borinquen Radio, with “Borinquen” referring to the native name for Puerto Rico.

Things have changed over the past year. WBQN on 680 AM, the most powerful station of the network, has its old call sign WAPA back since October 2024. And the network is now called WAPA Radio network. WAPA refers to original owners, the Asociación de Productores de Azúcar, or Puerto Rico Sugar Grower’s Association.
The WBQN call sign now belongs to the station on 1580 kHz by the way.

Call sign swap request. Funny thing is that it is not the Ponce 1260 AM station, but the smaller station in Aguadilla/Morovis on 1580 kHz that got the WBQN call sign.
2024 QSL emails for 680 kHz San Juan, which carried the WBQN call sign at the time.

QSL LPAM Radio Redhill 1431 kHz

March 21, 2025 / / 1 Comment

Radio Redhill is a Hospital Radio station broadcasting on 1431 kHz with 1 Watt only from East Surrey Hospital in Redhill, south of London, United Kingdom. That’s a distance of 360 kms.

I did hear Radio Redhill in the first two months of the year almost on a daily basis, around 04:00 – 06:00 h UTC. But never really strong, just not above the realitively high noise level at my location. Sometimes I could pick up “Redhill”. In the end I decided to wrote down two song titles I recognized, made a MP3 recording, and sent my report to: studio(at)radioredhill.co.uk. Three days later, Ian, station engineer sent me a kind email to confirm my report:

Hello Peter.

Thank you for your reception report.

I can confirm the music you identified was played at that time:

March 14th

04:42 The Carpenters – Goodbye to Love
…..
04:02 Buddy Holly – Peggy Sue

We transmit with 1 watt of power so it is always interesting to receive reception reports from all over Europe. Sweden and Norway are the furthest we have had reports from.

Thank you for your email.

Ian

Station Engineer.

Radio Redhill started in 1974. My guess is that it was a typical “radio by wire” station that you have or had at many hospitals. In 2000 AM broadcasts started, and since 2022 the station is active on 100.4 MHz. You can learn more about the history of this hospital radio station on their website.

Diamond certificate for the SWL Contest 2025

March 18, 2025 / / 4 Comments

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:

Stations I received in the first months of the year 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!

MW Contest 2025Download

QSL VOWR St. John’s 800 kHz

March 11, 2025 / / 0 Comments

VOWR St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada is a station that can be heard regularly in The Netherlands with a fair to good signal. Overnight their schedule features “Music for Relaxation” : non-stop oldies with now and then a VOWR station ID. Ron LeDrew, manager of VOWR was so kind to confirm my report with a brief email reply.

There are only 3 stations that carry a call sign that doesn’t start with a “C”: VOCM, VOAR and VOWR. These stations were founded before Newfoundland joined the Canadian Confederation in 1949. The ITU prefix VO was originally assigned to Newfoundland and remains in use by radio amateurs. With this QSL from VOWR my set is complete!

VOWR was started in 1924 by Reverend Joseph G. Joyce from the Wesley Methodist Church to allow people that couldn’t make it to church to listen to the services. Soon afterwards they added more general programs, but today a fair bit of their schedule still has a religious background. On their excellent website you can learn a lot about this historic station.

QSL Radio Santa Fe Bogota 1070 AM

March 4, 2025 / / 0 Comments

I got a confirmation from Radio Santa Fe for a reception from Curacao some time ago, but it is so much nicer to get a QSL for a reception from my home QTH. It is also my first MW QSL from Columbia at my home QTH!

Bianca Bernal confirmed my report and she is most likely family of Hernando Bernal who founded one of the first commercial radio stations in Colombia. She enclosed a nice picutre of the Radio Santa Fe office and their web app:

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