The wonderful world of listening to the radio
A QSL from CADENA 100. I heard them during the June 24th opening to Spain. The 8 kW transmitter is located in Murcia. I sent my report to cadena100@cadena100.es.
CADENA 100 is a nationwide network owned by COPE. It broadcasts adult contemporary music. I heard a quiz and the “Black Eyed Peas”. In 2023 it was the 2nd most listened to music radio station in Spain.
The return on my Spanish Sporadic E reception reports is quite poor. Especially when you compare it to the response rate of the Italian stations (over 50%). But at least my report to Pop Lasser FM from Valencia, Spain, was answered with a kind reply from the technical department. I sent my report to popradiofmvalencia@gmail.com .
Pop Lasser (the RDS display shows Laser by the way) broadcasts from Valencia with only 2 kW. I heard them with pop music and local commercials from Valencia, which – in addition to the PI code/RDS – helped the identification.
A QSL for NDB MIA-292 in Melilla. As Melilla is a Spanish enclave on the North African coast it counts as a separate radio country, a new one for me. I chased for a week on this one. Made SDR recordings from sunset until sunrise of the 290-310 kHz band, in 1 hour segments. Next processed the recordings with Pskov.
This resulted in 3 loggings of MIA, of which one was clearly identifiable and thus reportable. Unfortunately I did not obtain an good copy of NDB CEU-300 from Ceuta, which is also high on my wish list.
I sent my report to informacion@enaire.es, and as with earlier reception reports the confirmation email contained a datasheet but also a high quality photo of the antenna.
During the CLE299 all of a sudden I received three beacons from the Canary Islands. I’ve said it before, reception from a station based on an island is somehow always a bit special. So I am very pleased with this QSL for NDB HIE-376, located on the island of El Hierro.
El Hierro is the tiniest inhabited island of the Canaries. But it has an airstrip, and on the picture below you can actually see the radio beacon, to the left of the terminal building. It’s a tiny airport, and traffic is limited to flights from Tenerife and Gran Canaria.
As was the case with the QSL for the NDBs on the Baleares, the email confirming my reception came with a fully detailed datasheet:
A nice fully detailed email confirmation of my reception of MRCC Bilbao, Spain, on 2187.5 kHz. I sent them both an email (2nd attempt to bilbao@sasemar.es ) and a letter. From the answer I guess that it was the letter that made it to the control room.
Whereas Valencia, Coruna and Las Palmas Radio are frequently heard with DSC messages, the MRCCs seem less active on MF. There are quite a few of them though, but the ITU list indicates a presence on VHF/UHF only. Classaxe however shows five stations that were logged on 2187.5 kHz in recent years: Finisterre, Tarifa, Gijon, Valencia and Bilbao. The first two are most frequently heard apparently.
Via Enaire, the air navigation and aeronautical information service provider in Spain, I got a QSL for NDB IZA-394 Ibiza. This radio beacon is located in Santa Eulalia del Rio on the island of Ibiza. It serves as approach beacon for the airport of Ibiza, and take off beacon for the airports of Menorca and Palma de Mallorca. The transmitter is a Marconi SS 2000A with 200W output power. The Antenna is a “T” as you can see on the picture they so kindly provided:
Browsing through my SSTV recordings on 14230 kHz I found this interesting call sign: EH3ARRL. The station was on air September 23rd, 11.41 h UTC. Checking the QRZ.com website I learned that the call sign EH3ARRL is owned by a group of amateur radio operators from Catalunya. EH3ARRL is advocating that Catalunya should be a separate DXCC country.
For those unfamiliar with the radio amateur jargon: ARRL is the American Radio Relay League, the national association for radio amateurs in the USA. DXCC stands for DX Century Club, an award for those operators who can confirm having worked stations from 100 countries. And of course the ARRL defines what counts as a country, and doesn’t. All over the world radio amateurs use the ARRL DXCC definition to determine how many countries they worked. By the way, as a DX-er I always used the EDXC country list, which is a bit different.
The EH3ARRL group argues that Catalunya, while being part of Spain, has its own government, own police and own telecommunications. And they have their own EA3 radio prefix. They quote examples like Scotland, England, Wales and various other territories and enclaves that are counted as a separate DXCC radio country, while they are also not an official state. If you agree with them you can sign their petition on the change.org website.
Later that afternoon I received the SSTV picture from EA3BIL, who happens to be one of the operators behind EH3ARRL.
In less than one hour after sending my report I received a QSL COPE Valencia on 1296 kHz. My reception was confirmed with a QSL by Carlos Corral from the local technical department who also confirmed my report for COPE Murcia. Thank you Carlos!
COPE is an acronym for Cadena de Ondas Populares Españolas. This nation wide network is established by the Spanish Episcopal Conference – the catholic bishops in Spain – with the intent to bring religious programs. Since 1980 the network evolved to a more generalist radio. They still bring religious programs though, and the church has a prominent spot on the COPE website.
Earlier this year I received a short email for my reception of SER Radio Manresa. Manresa is a city in Catalunya, Spain. The nation wide morning news program of the SER network is called “Hoy por Hoy”. If features slots for regional news allowing you to identify a specific station.
My report was sent to informatius@els40.com.
In November last year I received an email QSL for my reception of SER Radio Leon, Spain on 1341 kHz. I sent my report to radioleon@radioleon.com.
Nice detail in the email: using medium wave I was one of the few people abroad able to listen to Radio Leon. Access to the Radio Leon internet stream was blocked outside Spain for the duration of the FIFA World Cup in Qatar (in relation to broadcasting rights and royalties)!
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