Reply from Radio Annaba, Algeria

Today I got surprise from Algeria.
The director of Radio Annaba replied with kind e-mail and verification of my listening.
Radio Annaba is a regional station of Radio Algérienne broadcasting on 88. /99.3 and 107.6. I received this station on 88.8 MHz (10 kW).
My reception / Mp3
This is Multihop Es, distance 2810 km. Annaba is a city in the northern coast of Algeria, 235 000 inhabitants. / Algeria is my 49th country verified on FM.

232 FM-QSLs this year!

This year I have collected 232 FM-QSLs so far - from all around Europe !! This is a new Finnish record (was 216) !! The goal is 250, which should be reached as there is two months left.

The best country this year has been France with 28 replies. The most difficult country so far seems to be Bulgaria and Turkey (dozens of stations but only a few replies).
I have had a lot of nice contacts and some of them goes even to the stations web-page, like with Radio Złote Przeboje (Warsaw, Poland): Story of my reception. Tnx Jakub!

Allmost all replies are naturally e-mails but there are still several letters coming (to my e-mails):
- German stations are very kind to reply, especially the big provincial network. You get real QSL-cards from Grmany (Bayersicher Rundfunk Ostbayern / SR3 Saarland, B5 Aktuell)!!
- Also I have letters with pens, stickers, badges, keychains, CDs etc. from
- Latte&Miele, Bologna, Italy / Radio Maria Espana / Radio Express, Prag, Czech (QSL!) /Radio Bresse, Branges, France / Radio Fribourg, Switzerland / Spin FM, Dublin, Ireland /

This Friday 29.10.2010 I got kind e-mail from Radio City from Maribor, Slovenia.
Programme director Bor Greiner (first at right of this morning crew-photo) wrote funny e-mail and verification.
This crew on this photo must be very funny!! Radio City is the highest market-learder I have ever known. They have about 50 % share of listening in their broadcasting area (1/3 of Slovenia), the other 16-17 station are all under 9 %..... amazing...

My FM-antennas

Here a few photos of my antennas in Naantali. There are two little towers, nothing special.

Tower 1 (rotator)
- 8-element Triax yagi, vertical
- Körner 15.11, horizontal
- 2 x Triax preamps and rotator

Tower 2 (manual direction)
- 8-element Triax yagi with Triax-preamp
- 72 mhz dipole for OIRT

Tower 1 is about 4-5 meter high. The highest 2 meters of it is plastic. That's because the vertical antenna is connected directly to the mast. In this way the distance between V and H can be minimal (or could be installed even to the same boom).
Everything in tower 1 is painted black, so it is more invisible for neighbors.

A few years ago I tried stacking two vertical Triax 8-el. yagis with Triax-combiner but never succeeded. All got weaken for some reason (similar antennas, similar coax-feeds). I am not clever enough to build combiner myself.

Click the photos for better views (different angels):

204 FM-QSL-replies this year !

I have now 204 QSL-replies this year! I broke 200-limit last week:

On Friday I got e-mail from Radio Diffusion Charentaise (RDC), 93.4 MHz from Angoulme (Midwest France). I mailed them C-casette with recording + Finnish music etc.
On Friday also nice reply from Aire Latino, 88.5 MHz from Valencia, Spain. Station director Alberto Valencia, basicly from Colombia, told he reformatted the station lately. Seems to be quite big station because station's internet-site looks very dynamic.

European pirate stations received on FM !

Last summer there were excellent conditions on FM to Europe. I identified hundreds of stations from all around. My distance-record last summer was Radio Darom from Beerseba, Israel on 95.8 MHz, 5 kW, 3380 km (I have QSL).

However, I heard also a few pirate stations on FM via ionosphere - from London, Holland and Serbia.

Here are some audio-clips of these pirate stations which I identified last summer on FM (Many of these stations are indentified or tracked from the given telephone-numbers or city-names on commercials):

FM-Pirates from London, UK
87.5 MHz - Platinum FM, London - 14.6.2010 at 15.05 utc // mp3
90.4 MHz - Whoa FM, London - 1.6.2010 at 20.38 utc // mp3
92.2 MHz - MetroLove, London - 1.6.2010 at 20.30 utc // mp3
94.6 MHz - Kool FM, London - 1.6.2010 at 19.43 utc // mp3
See Kool FM studio live-video from their web

FM-Pirates from Belgrade, Serbia
87.5 MHz - Narodni Radio, Beograd - 18.7.2010 at 12.51 utc / mp3
92.2 MHz - Radio Raka Esinger, Lazarevac-city - 15.6.2010 at 09.10 utc // mp3
99.5 MHz - Radio Balkan, Beograd - 18.7.2010 at 12.02 utc // mp3
104.2 MHz - Radio Krajina, Beograd - 7.6.2010 at 15.37 utc // mp3

FM-Pirate from Holland
87.5 MHz - Zender Starsky, Vroompshoop - 1.8.2010 at 12.30 utc // mp3

I tuned this Dutch pirate only about 1,5 minutes time on 87.5 with nonstop music, but I was in contact with this pirate and they confirmed my clip (you can hear vinyl-record slow-starting sound in my clip). They sent a few photos of their equipment, too. Power 2 kW + antenna gain to 4-element yagi.

192 FM-QSLs this year! / Nice tropo 9.10.2010 !

I have not had time to update this blog since mid-summer. There were so big FM-openings and it took all time to check the recordings! And now I am in the mood of reporting and QSL-hunting!
So far I have collected 192 QSL-replies this year!!
From now on I will inform here what do I got during the end of this year.

This weekend we had nice tropo opening towards Poland and South Sweden. A few new stations were heard by my on Saturday 9.October 2010.

Here the best receptions: (times UTC) - Underlined first time in Finland

87.8 MHz - SWEDEN: R Treby, Vara. 200 W vertical. "Det här är R Treby, 87.8" -05.40-
87.8 MHz - SWEDEN: Mix Megapol Östergötland 106.9. Åtvidaberg-tx. Listed to be only 20 Watts on very high tower !! Fighting with Treby. -05.30-
90.8 MHz - SWEDEN: R Falköping. 300 W vertical. Jingel ID after 30 min nonstop. Later px. - 05.40-
100.9 MHz - SWEDEN: East FM, Norrköping. - 11.07-
102.9 MHz - POLAND: RMF FM Maxx, Lebork-tx. 1 kW vertical. - 13.25- 710 km
103.1 MHz - SWEDEN: GNF 103,1/ K103, Göteborg. "K103 is the station you are listening right now". 700 W vertical. - 10.50- 650 km
105.7 MHz - DENMARK: R ABC, Randers. Langå-tx, 1 kW vertical. This was the best catch today. The first small private station from Denmark with tropo in Finland on FM!! - 08.58- 840 km

Also a lot of Polish Polskie Radio, Radio Zet and RMF FM trasnmitters from North Poland from Gdynia to Kozalin and Slupsk. Strong signals with RDS! Naturally Danmarks Radio was audible on 96.5 etc. and many MixMegapol and RIX FM regional relays from Southern Sweden (Halmstad, Norrköping, Göteborg etc).

Here is a Hepburn tropomap-forecast for Saturday 9.10.2010. That fits perfectly what we did got (Click for better view):