The wonderful world of listening to the radio
The fifth and final beacon of this series. A QSL for NDB OD-322 Örnsköldsvik Airport. Not in Lapland but close. Örnsköldsvik is the first airport in the world to have a remotely controlled air control tower. It is controlled from Sundsvall–Timrå Airport.
Below please find the excerpt of the email to QSL the Lapland beacons. Thanks to Chris from AVISEQ. Feel free to contact me for the QSL address by dropping a comment!
The fourth beacon from the Lapland region in Sweden. Chris from Aviseq sent me an email to QSL NDB DK at 328 kHz, Vilhelmina. The beacon serves as navaid for South Lapland Airport, 1547 km from my QTH.
As is the case for Lycksele and Hemavan Airport there are daily flights from Vilhelmina to Stockholm Arlanda. Vilhelmina itself has a population of only about 4000. Apparently the huge distances to be covered in Sweden justify the airport.
Another two NDBs from Lapland, Sweden. NDBS NUT on 325 kHz and SUT on 342 kHz serve as navigation aids for Hemavan Tärnaby Airport. The distance to my QTH is 1632 kilometers.
Hemavan and Tärnaby are ski/winter sport resorts. From the airport, which is adjacent to Hemavan, you can see the slopes in the background. Amapola (aka Populair) Airlines operates flights between Hemavan and Stockholm Arlanda.
My reports were confirmed by Chris from AVISEQ.
Chris from Aviseq, who also QSL-ed my reception of the beacons WU and VNA for Umea Airport, was so kind to confirm my reception of the beacon OL for Lycksele, Sweden on 320 kHz by email as well.
Lycksele Airport is located in South Lapland, a sparsely populated area in the north of Sweden. The distance to my QTH is 1590 km. Amapola operates daily flights to Stockholm from Lycksele Airport.
To give you an impression what it means to dig such a signal out of the noise with Pskov software I added the above picture. In the yellow/black panel you see how OL is received… Every line from left to right is a capture of the cyclic signal. As you can see the first minutes/cycles offered a better signal… The aggregate is a clear OL identification in morse code.
One of the Norwegian coastal radio stations I heard often in CW during the 80-ies was Rogaland Radio. But I never managed to get a QSL from them. Today they frequently pop up in the DSC log for 2187.5 kHz. So I decided to send a report to Mr. Stian Tveit who is so kind to act as QSL manager at Kystradio Sor in Norway.
It turned out that I not only heard Rogaland Radio but also Bergen Radio… another one that was missing in my collection. Thank you Stian for the QSL!
A very nice, fully detailed eQSL from Mike Radio. Mike Radio is a Free Radio station operating from the province of Gelderland, The Netherlands. For the Gen Z folks: the station is powered by solar energy!
I sent my report to mikeradio(at)live.nl . UKdxer told me than Mike is one of the younger free radio stations in the Netherlands.
My personal opinion is that rules on hobby broadcasting via MW/SW should be relaxed as apparently nobody seems to care about the interference of PV installations on these frequencies…
Thank you Mike!
I received a couple of beacons from the Toulouse area in France. NDBs TW, MUT, TOE and TLF were received in such a good quality that I thought I could share them and ask for a QSL. I sent my report to the responsible person* at Toulouse Blagnac Airport Mr. Jean-Marc Caner.
Jean-Marc confirmed my reception of the beacons TW, MUT and TOE. But TLF is the responsibility of the smaller Francazal Airport in Toulouse which hasn’t replied to my QSL request yet.
There are two other NBDs I received, TLB and TS, which seem to belong to Blagnac Airport as well. So I will give them a try for another QSL. CVU clearly belongs to the local airport of Castres-Mazamet.
Toulouse Blagnac is the 5th largest airport in France. It is also hosts the head office of aircraft manufacturer Airbus, and test flights are conducted from this airport.
* The email address of Mr. J.M. Caner is not public, I can share it on request. Just drop a comment.
I don’t think that there are many examples of regional stations which target an audience in two countries? But feel free to drop a comment if you know one. Anyway, Radio Seefunk, or better Das Neue Radio Seefunk is tuned into by some 147000 German and 35000 Swiss listeners.
The station started as a local radio for the city of Konstanz under the name Seefunk Radio Bodensee. Today they have 13 transmitters across the south of Baden Württemberg in Germany. Rebranded to Das Neue Radio Seefunk in 2019 they bring music from “Vier Jahrzehnten” (4 decades) targeting an 30+ audience.
I received them while staying near Ulm. Mr. Grunewald was so kind to confirm my report sent to redaktion(at)radio-seefunk.de .
A QSL card from Welle 370 “Das Funkerberg Radio”, from Königs Wusterhausen, Germany. I’m not only very pleased to receive an old school QSL card, but this is also a broadcaster that represents a lot of radio history.
As early as 1911 the “Telegrafentruppe” of the “Deutsches Heeres” (German Army) started radio activities from the Funkerberg, just southeast of Berlin. Initially the antennas were raised using balloons, but between 1913 and 1916 impressive antennas and transmitter facilities were built on this location. Soon the facilities were in use for the distribution of telegrams and weather messages. On 22 December 1920 a “Weihnachtskonzert” was broadcast from this location: the start of the “Rundfunk” in Germany. In 1925 there were already 20 transmitters operating from this location.
After WW2 the transmitters were removed from the Funkerberg, but new equipment was also added, including a new 100 kW LW transmitter. It seems that most of the operations ended in the 90-ies with concern for “electro-smog” being quoted as a reason with only an 800 Watt FM station “Sender KW” remaining.
Today Funkerberg is a Museum, a must do for radio enthusiasts. And Welle 370 is still broadcasting from Funkerberg on 810 kHz (370 meter), albeit with only 8 Watts. Given the presence of Radio Scotland on the same frequency that makes it a bit challenging to receive them in the Netherlands. But fortunately they also broadcast their programs from Nauen (as was my reception) and other relay stations.
Welle 370 has very nice programs made by radio enthusiasts with topics on German radio history. I listened to a student who made a program on the competition between radio and record companies. Please follow them on their website and tune in to their programs!
Another station from Südtirol that I heard during my holiday in the beautiful Ahrntal. Like Radio Holiday the station covers the valleys of Südtirol with multiple low power transmitters. Radio 2000 has 20 of them. Where the valleys are wider as is the case near the capital of Südtirol Bozen (Bolzano) power is a few kilowatts. But the transmitter I received in Luttach has only 200 Watt. If you know the area it is no surprise that Luttach is chosen as location because it is where the river Ahr makes a 90o turn. From Luttach it possible to cover entrance and “Talschluss” of the Tauferer Ahrntal.
I sent my report to info(at)radio2000.it and got a direct reply from Mr. Lukas Thaler.
© 2024 Peter's DX Corner
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑