The wonderful world of listening to the radio
QSL for NDB RBU on 401 kHz and NDB RS on 336 kHz. Both are serving Roros Airport, a small airport in mid Norway. Wideroe operates flights to Oslo from here. Like NDB NMS-329 Namsos the beacon is inspected by FNT Midt at Avinor. Mr. Aune was so kind to confirm my reception.
What a surprise! While I was participating in the SWL 2024 contest this summer I received Myanma Radio on 5985 kHz in excellent quality (SIO454).
I tried to QSL this station in the 80ies: reception of the station was never easy. The reply percentage to QSL requests were low… I was never successful. As I also didn’t manage to receive a QSL from Rangoon (Yangon) Aeradio the country of Myanmar stayed on high on my “to do” list.
I learned that recently DX-ers had success with sending a report to nptradio.eng(at)mail.com . So I gave it a try. Six weeks later I received a friendly email and a nice e QSL! My 197th radio country QSLed!
The program I received was a program in Myanmar language, clearly recognizable as they played the national anthem “Kaba Ma Kyei”, followed by a prayer ended by that bell sound so characteristic for Buddhism. After that the programme continued with local traditional music. They do have programs in English as well as you can see in the above schedule. I might try this coming winter as transmission times do not seem to favor reception in Europe during summer months.
A QSL for NDB DND at 394 kHz for Dundee Airport. Mr. LJ Smith from Air Traffic Control at Dundee was so kind to confirm my reception within a day. This is my fifth confirmation from a HIAL airport. They operate 11 airports in the Scottish Highlands. With 708 km Dundee is the one closest to my location. As before I sent my report to info@hial.co.uk, asking them to forward it to the local Air Traffic Control officer.
Dundee Airport sells itself as “the gateway to golf” as championship courses at St Andrews, Gleneagles and Carnoustie are nearby. It is a small airport though, mainly used by charters and private aircraft. Loganair operates flights to London City Airport, Kirkwall (Orkney) and Sumburgh (Shetland).
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.
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