Peter's DX Corner

The wonderful world of listening to the radio

Tag: Ukraine

My mind is elsewhere… global tensions

October 13, 2023 / / 2 Comments

I was not very active blogging I have to admit. Following the developments in Israel my mind is elsewhere, and I still find it difficult to focus my mind on pulling “difficult to read” radio signals out of my SDR IQ recordings…

I’m still monitoring the waves, and the computer picked up some signals from two countries under attack…

On October 7th I picked up this NAVTEX signal on 518 kHz from Haifa Radio, Israel, mentioning the blockade of the Gaza strip. As the message states “as of 03 January” I do believe that this is not related to the current war, but to a blockade that has been established earlier.

On October 10th I picked up another message. This one contains an Israeli Navy annoucnement about a safety zone around the Karish platform.

Another station that I didn’t receive for a while is Odesa Radio, Ukraine. I see a couple of warnings about drifting buoys in the Black Sea… probably nothing out of the ordinary, while buoys are there for safety they often break loose and appear in messages like this.

QSL NDB PN Palanga 407 kHz

March 8, 2023 / / 1 Comment

With my return to the bands I also picked up my passion for NDB hunting. Today I got an email QSL NDB PN Palanga. NDBs – or Non Directional Beacons – are used for navigation purposes. In the past you had them in both maritime and aeronautical service. The maritime ones have all gone in Europe as far as I know, but aeronautical beacons are still present.
I never received a beacon from Lithuania, so this is proof of the fact that my new combo of ICOM-R8600 and Bonito Megaloop FX can actually “do it”. That said, my participation in the NDB CLE two weeks ago was a disaster, finishing last ☹️.
For NDBs I always used “PPCs”. Forgot what the acronym is all about (Prepared Post Cards?), but the idea was that the station only had to “sign, stamp and post”. In the email era I felt that you still need to spice it up, and below you can see my approach on how to do that.
Please note the letterhead with the Lithuanian and Ukranian flag, holding hands in solidarity. And that makes this QSL special when I will look back on it years down the road. I’ve a couple of such “landmark” QSLs in my collection which I will post about in due time. Happy NDB hunting!

email QSL NDB PN Palanga – my first Lithuanian NDB!

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