FM-DX-Diary - Harri Kujala, Naantali - Finland

Moving two radio stations

2011-07-31T11:15:00.003+03:00

I work for Radio Auran Aallot, Radio Melodia and Zoom FM (local commercial stations in Turku). I moved the stations from Turku city centrum to new Turun sanomat multimedia centrum in Artukainen (new city cetrum) on 28-29.7.2011. So, no time to monitor FM-band.
R.A.A. and Melodia moved, Zoom FM 93.4 (50 Watts) was closed down for 2-5 months to restart later with full 1 kW power on 99.0 MHz.

There were Italy opening on Wed (28.7) evening and some Turkey/Balkan on Friday (29.7) afternoon.

Tue-Wed 26-27.7.2011 - Italy and UK links

2011-07-27T23:32:00.015+03:00

On Tuesday 26.7.2011 Southern Italy opening was up - mostly to Rome, later to Emilia Romagna-area again.
Several new Rome-stations were audible even above 100 MHz. Radio San Marino also gave id on 102.7, long time since last time to hear that station, also Vatican Live on 105.2 MHz.

On Wednesday 27.7.2011 not much time to listen, but this was not a good day anyway. In the evening several Greeks (ERA-freq's) and Italian stations were up (Radio Alfa from MN on 88.8 MHz).

British 6 mb-STL-links id'ed first time
I got a new antenna for 6 meters amateur radio band (5 elements yagi to 45-55 MHz). It is made by OH1ZAA (Zaba), wellknown radioamateur from Pori, Finland.
The antenna works very well !!! I heard my first low power STL-links (=Studio-transmitter-links) from UK. My receiver is Realistic Pro 2006 (It is OK, and cheap as 2nd hand, but a nightmare to use).
Some 6 mb-loggings from 27.7.2011
48.425 - 1821- G: UNID from England. No id heard.
52.750 - 2021 - G: Bridge FM, Dundee, Scotland. Hosbital station in Dundee. Quite big signal! Still 5 Watts only?
52.925 - 1823 - G: Trust AM, Nottinghamshire.

Sun 24.7.2011 - Middle East ! East Europe - Turkey

2011-07-24T22:54:00.007+03:00

On Sunday afternoon, after 11 days silence, FM-band opened to Middle East !! Very interesting opening to Lebanon, Syria, Israel and Iran !!
Several id's were clear but most of the stations remained unidentified. Arabic stations have much talk and music with rare station-id's.
After arabic some Turkey popped up, mainly from Istanbul and Zonguldak (close to Istanbul). Between Turkish stations some Ukrainan, Romanian and Bulgarian stations appeared with strong signals, and Moldova, too. MUF was over 100 MHz only several short moments.
I rewind my recordins later but here some live-observations:

Some loggings from Sun 24.7.2011

89.600 - 1236 - SYRIA: Ninar FM, Nice id's in English!!
90.800 - 1235 - LBN: Sevan FM, Beirut. RDS + audio-id.
91.400 - 1241 - UKR: Radio Alla with local id to Odessa.
91.600 - 1328 - ROU: Radio Mamaia, Mamaia
91.700 - 1218 - Possibly Iran with talk long time. Several arab's on 89.4, 92.1, 92.2, 88.6, 91.9 and 100.7
91.800 - 1241 - UKR: Radio Shanson with local Odessa-id. Also Radio Gala on 91.0, Sharmanka on 89.5 and FM Odin on 87.5 MHz. A lot of Ukrainan signals above 100 MHz but I concentrated on Arabic on lower band.
92.300 - 1337 - TUR: Lig FM, Istanbul.
94.500 - 1339 - TUR: Rock FM, Istanbul.
94.500 - 1314 - TUR: Radio Saranya, Saranya. 2nd time this summer!
94.700 - 1304- MDA: Prime FM, Kishnev. RDS. Ex-Antena C.
94.700 - 1332 - ROU: Doina FM with music and RDS but again no id.
95.300 - 1345- TUR: Slow Türk, Istanbul.
95.800 - 1340- TUR: Bayram FM, Istanbul. Highest Istanbul station was on 96.0 MHz.
97.300 - 1352 - BUL: R Veronika, Varna-tx.

Surprise from Belluno, Italy - Radio Piú

2011-07-20T21:07:00.006+03:00

Today and yesterday I got nice reply from Radio Piú from Belluno, North Italy.
Belluno is very rare to receive here in Finland. I think the reason for that is the high mountains to Finland direction (North). However, luckily some transmitters find their ways to ionosphere beside mountains.
On the 13th of July I heard commercials to Belluno on 104.4 MHz. I found that this station could be Radio Piú. I wrote e-mail to the station, and they kindly confirmed my recording.

Some journalists at Radio Piú are also working for local newspaper, Il Gazzettino Belluno, so jornalist Mirko made an article of my distant reception.

Here is that article was published on the 20.7.2011. CLICK

Wed 13.7.2011 - Sicily and Balkan

2011-07-15T21:37:00.012+03:00

Wednesday 13.7.2011 bought rare signals from Sicily (Italy), not long lasting but anything is wellcome from southern Italy. Only two stations were heard from Sicily, but also some other new italians for me from the continent.
Before south Italy the band was full of Emilia Romagna-stations (Bologna, Modena, Ferrara, Parma etc). This are is the most common area to receive here since all time (from whole Europe). I think I have heard 95 % of possible stations from that area - and the rest are on very difficult frequencies.

Also some Balkan stations were up, but strangely only on a few sporadic frequencies. Radio Kosova (95.7 MHz) was also audible with RDS, quite rare lately.
Some loggings Wed 13.7.2011 (Red=First time in Finland)
87.800 - 1612 - I: Ravegnana Radio, Ravenna (RA)
89.300 - 1646 - + I: Tentative: Radio Italia Anni 60 Trapani, Marsala (TP). Two adverts to Marsala before blocked by another Italian.
92.200 - 1637 - I: Radio Tua Punto Due, Ancona (AN).
92.900 - 1700 - SRB: Radio S, Beograd. I visited this station several years ago.
93.000 - 1632 - HRV: HR Otocac. Heard on 107.6 before.
94.700 - 1615 - I: Radio Gamma, Savignano sul Rubicone (FC). There are several independent Gamma's in Italy and this is the most common.
94.700 - 1626 - I: Radio Fiesole 100, Firenze (FI).
95.700 - 1715 - KOS: Radio Kosova, Pristina. RDS.
95.900 - 1617 - I: Radio Milano TV. Ex-Rete 96 ja ex-Milano Marttima. Some kind of art-station.
97.000 - 15.44 - I: Radio Nettuno, Bologna (BO).
97.400 - 1708 - + I: Circuito Radio7 Basilicata, Muro Lucano (PZ) . Local news: "GR regione Basilicata". Myös RDS: "RADIO 7" "RETE" "SUDAUDIO". Some kind of network with independent stations.
97.500 - 1529 - I: Radio Sound, Codigoro (FE).
97.800 - 1637 - + I: Radio Azzurra Marsala, Marsala (TP). Nice new suprise from Sicily with multi-skip.
97.800 - 1703 - + SRB: Radio Beocin, Beocin (Voj). European Top 44-px!
97.900 - 1610 - I: Radio Record, Sant'arcangelo di Romagna (RN). RDS-id.
98.500 - 1717 - I: Radiosa, Matera (MT). RDS and simple audio-id.
99.000 - 1524 - I: Teleradio Veneta, Legnano (VR). "T.R.V" + telephone-number.
99.900 - 15.55 - I: Radio Venere, Monzuno (BO). A little bit more processed jingle than italian usually have.
102.000 - 1527 - I: Modena 90, Modena (MO). Heard on 107.4 on previous opening.
103.100 - 1544 - I: Radio Monte Kanate, Salsomaggiore Terme (PR).
103.500 - 1546 - I: Radio Venezia, Mestre (VE). Nice surprise this one, too. Not so many stations in Venezia today.
104.200 - 15.48- I: Veronica My Radio, Pesaro (PS).

There were also opening on Friday 8.7.2011.
It was weak in the afternoon to Italy (40 min) and later in the evening to England and Ireland (20 minutes). Only several local stations were id'ed but nothing new for me.

Wed 6.7.2011 - Whole Europe opening ->> white noise

2011-07-10T12:28:00.019+03:00

Wednesday evening 6.7. bought the strongest opening so far this summer. Unfortunately the condition area was too large. At the same time whole Europe was coming up, only Turkey and UK were out! FM-stations from 25 countries at the same time! Lasted 4 hours (last 2 h were mostly Romania).

On most of the frequencies were 10-20 stations pushing up at the same time from almost every European country. This kind of situation gives white noise, dozens of stations are fighting on one frequency and the result is only noise (receiver's signal meters are peaking on highest level all the time but you hear only noise).

This opening was not the worst I have expereinced. There were still some high-power transmitters up and audible, but stations were changing all the time on one frequency and were very difficult to id. Less than 1 kW stations are mostly not audible because highpower transmitter from some other country blocks the channel.
Also RDS-signal-ID is useless during this. Usually during white noise-opening we do not get RDS-signals out because stations interferere each other so much. Strong signal from the same or adjacent channel blocks RDS-datas.

Some loggings Wed 6.7 2011 (red= first time in Finland)
92.400 - 1759 - SVN: Val 202, Ljubljana on 3 diff frq !!
94.700 - 1914 - ROU: Radio Doina, Constanta. Long time with rds.
95.300 - 1545 -+ CZE: Radio Valassko, Vsetin
95.800 - 19.38 - ROU: Radio Delta, Tulcea. + a lot of romanian networks all around with a lot of dance music, mostly Pro FM.
96.500 - 1621 - SRB: Radio Beograd 2/3.
96.800 - 1741 - SRB: Skala Radio, Ugljevik
97.900 -1609 - AUT: Radio Niederösterreich
97.900 - 1823 - BIH: Radio Valentino, Bijela.
99.100 - 1605 - AUT: Antenne Steiermark
99.900 - 1710 - MDA: Radio Noroc, Chisinau
101.600 - 1603 - I: Radio Parsifal, Pescara
104.700 - 1619 - HRV: Radio Rijeka
104.900 - 1755 - POL: Radio Eska, possibly Wroclaw.
104.900 - 1613 - AUT: Antenne Kärnten, Klagenfurt.
105.00 - 1816 - BIH: Radio Brcko, Brcko
106.700 -1828 - RUS: Retro Radio, possibly local ads.
107.400 - 1700 - I: Modena 90, Modena
106.600 - 1621 - + HNG: Lánchid Rádió, Budapest. New relay on 106.6.
106.600 - 1704 - POR: UNID Portuguese !!
107.000 - 19.00 - MDA: Radio Micul Samaritean, Chisinau
107.600 - 16.13 - SVK: Radio Express, Bratislava
107.600 - 16.35 - HRV: HR Radio Otocac
107.800 - 1617 - BIH: Kalmanradio, Sarajevo
107.900 - 1632 - HRV: Hrvatski Katoliscki Radio, Zagreb
108.000 - 1611 - I: Radio Studio Piú
+ also stations from more Western Europe must they were mostly national networks

Fri 1.7.2011- Weak South Italy

2011-07-01T18:50:00.003+03:00

Very weak South Italy appeared around 14utc. Not much to log:

87.800 - 1359- I: Radio Potenza Centrale, Potenza (PZ)
87.800 - 1400- HRV: R. Dalmacija. Almost at the same moment 2 days ago
88.100 -1413- I: Radio Linea, Civitanova Marche (MC) "Radio Linea numero uno"

Wed 29.6.2011 - Weak Crete, Romania etc

2011-06-29T18:43:00.013+03:00

Wednesday morning gave weak signals from south: Romania, Hungary, Croatia, Crete (Iraklion). Very weak and short-skips.

Some Loggings Wed 29.6.2011
87.800 -09.54- HRV: Radio Dalmacija.
87.800 -09.45- ROU: Radio Brasov "RADIO BV"-rds.
87.900 -09.40- GRC: Erotokritos FM, Iraklion. From Crete! Highlight of the day!!
88.300 -09.43- HNG: Clear id with frq-announcement but not found this station!

Tue 28.6.2011 - Jordania, Lebanon etc - New RSL!

2011-06-29T18:23:00.018+03:00

Tuesday afternoon and evening was very extraordinary. Middle-East is very rare to receive here in SW Finland (more common in East Finland!) but on this day I heard Jordania Main Programme with RDS on 95.8 MHz !! Also Lebanese stations were strong on several frequencies! Great!
After arabs conds moved over Europe giving occasional signals from Romania, Bulgaria, Czech, Moldova and Austria - not big signals, short-timed and scattered.

Finally the clouds moved to UK-position, not high MUF but for some moments around 97 MHz.
The highlight was RSL-station Pride Radio from Newcastle on 87.9 MHz !! This is 30 days station for Gay Pride Festivals! So, the power of this station is around 10-20 Watts only!
Also many London pirates were audible: Impact FM 87.5 MHz (from South Coast of England) and tentatively 87.9 MHz (Shine), 89.6 MHz (Klick?) and 90.8 MHz (Lightning?). These were audible for the longest time. Tapes not cheked yet.
Also several Benelux-frequencies were open but unfortunately no pirates from Holland!!

Some Loggings Tue 28.6.2011
87.500 - 1038- G: Impact FM 87,5 Mhz, Southern Counties. From Southern England (Surrey, Sussex, South Coast).
87.900 -1051- + G: Pride Radio, Newcastle. Gay Pride Festival Radio. On air 20.6 - 17.7. These kind of RSL's have usually only 10-20 W power!
88.300 -1707- BUL: Radio Stara Zagora, Stara Zagora.
90.200 -1708- BUL: Radio Bella, Petrich.
91.900 -0630- LBN: Radio Al-Nour, Beirut. Later also on 91.7 with stronger signal. Lebanese also on 88.3 and 88.7 MHz.
92.900 -1713- GRC: Kiss FM, Athens.
94.600 -1730- GRC: Akroama FM, Serres.
95.800 -0630- JOR: Jordan Radio Main Programme, Amman. With RDS!
+ dozens of stations not listed now

Mon 27.6.2011 - Rome and Bordeaux !!

2011-06-29T18:09:00.006+03:00

Monday afternoon and evening finally gave some distant signals.
The conditions started from Rome, Italy - not high MUF. After that conds moved to Bordeaux, France - for the first time ever (dep 33)!! And then back to South Italy.
After Italy-opening several arab talking-frequencies opened for 20 minutes, but only talk, no luck with id's.
The frequencies were 87.8 / 87.9/ 89.6 / 92.2 MHz. I think they were from Algeria or Tunisia
as they are on the line for multi-hop over South Italy.

Some loggings Mon 27.6.2011
88.000 -1730- F: Radio Esperance. Limoges-tx (87).
88.000 -1906- I: R.V.E. FM Top Radio, Jesi (AN). Ex-Vallesina.
88.100 -1748- + F: Radio Campus, Bordeaux (33). The 2nd Campus for me this summer (Orleans 88.3).
89.300 -1740- + F: Radio Melodi FM, Libourne (33). Same name as the station were I work.
90.600 -1441- I: RDS - Dimensione Suono Roma. Possible loval programme for Rome, which is different than nationel feed.
90.800 -1435- I: Radio Verde, Viterbo (VT).
91.700 -1452- + I: Tele R Orte, Orte (VT). Unlisted frequency.
92.800 - 1852- I: Radio Salentina, Martano (LE).

Sat 25.6.2011 - Short Turkey, Ukraina - 15 W RSL-reply!

2011-06-25T23:41:00.015+03:00

This season has been very poor so far. Only one good opening (and I missed it)!! Also not good conditions in Utö-pedition.
Today there were tiny opening to Samsun-city in North Turkey. Unfortunately only lower-band signals. No MUF above 94 MHz. Also some Ukrainan stations shortly.

LOG Sat 25.6.2011
88.000 -0819- UKR: R Dacha. Simferopol-tx.
88.400 -0806- TUR: Fistik FM, Samsun. Very long commercial-break!!
88.800 -0805- TUR: Metro FM, Istanbul. Samsun-tx. Rolling RDS: "METRO FM" "SAMSUN".
89.500 -0821- UKR: R Sharmanka. Gave tel for advertisers.
93.900 -0805- TUR: TRT. "Reklamar"-jingle revealed this to be TRT.

New Low-power-record - 15 Watts
In Utö I received British low-power RSL-station (on the air only for one month!) and I got a reply!
Ultra Radio from Morpeth (NE England, near Newcastle) on 87.7 MHz verified my mp3-clip.
They told their brodcasting power is only 15 Watts !! That is my new record! (Previous record was 25 Watts, Ruthland Radio 97.4 MHz).
-
.

In Utö-island - 10-19.6.2010

2011-06-11T20:58:00.002+03:00

I am listening in Utö-island with 7 other listeners till 19.6.2011.
The daily results are here www.uto-fmdx.blogspot.com

Wed 8.6.2011 - Nice Turkey-opening

2011-06-09T20:05:00.008+03:00

On Wednesday-afternoon we had nice 50 minutes long opening to Istanbul and around. Luckily there were also stations up from Adapazari, Kocaeli and Gebze-cities, which made this more interesting. (Red= First time in Finland)
Conds started from Adapazari and moved slightly to Istanbul.
87.800 -1155- TUR: Radyo 34, Istanbul. Adapazari-tx. Later on 88.0 MHz.
88.200 -1158- TUR: Lalegül FM, Istanbul. Unlisted frequency. RDS. Also heard on 88.4 when area moved to Istanbul.
90.300 -1221- TUR: Kocaeli Radyo Sahin, Kocaeli (Mam). Jingle an ads.
91.600 -1231- TUR: 91.6 Türkiyenin Haber, Istanbul. Station gives id: "91.6 - Haber". Ex-Radyo 24.
91.700 -1237- + TUR: Radyo Gül, Gebze (Koc). RDS-id and adverts. Bulgarian went over just in a dramatic moment to have also audio-id.
94.000 1203- + TUR: R Aktif, Adapazari (Sak). My 3rd different Aktif from Turkey, but this is not a network.
94.500 -1157- + TUR: R Sakarya, Adapazari (Sak). Simple jingle between music.
95.400 -1136- + TUR: Gebze FM, Gebze (Koc). I got e-mail and sms-message from this station for my message of their signal in Finland!

Also IDed Viva, PAL FM, Kral Pop, Kral Türk etc.

Utö9 starts this Friday 10.6.2011

2011-06-06T21:27:00.009+03:00

I will join to the traditional Utö-FM-pedition for the 5th time this summer (previous 2004, 2008, 2009, 2010).
This will be named as Utö9. The camp is on from 10.6 - 19.6.2011. We arrive late Friday evening by m/s Eivor.
http://uto-fmdx.blogspot.com

There will be 8 listeners this year; last year crew + Juha Ylönen from Central Finland.
This year we have extra challenge with antennas. Finnish army now forbid us to connect our masts to the barrier close to the houses. We had to arrange holes to our antenna-masts. New antenna-masts will be drilled on the rocks:

Heteka-antennas from the 70's

2011-06-04T15:55:00.013+03:00

I started my FM-DXing in the 70's. Till the end of the 70's decade we used Finnish traditional Heteka-beds as antennas.
Here is one historical photo of my old 1-element Heteka-antenna - my grandmother's old bed as antenna!

We had excellent results even with 1-element. In the end I had 3-elements (laminated, 1977). The negative point was that it usually gave extra creaking sound to the recordings (during heavy wind). Click the photo for better view.
............................Late and bad April Fool joke

Fri 3.6.2011 - Italy, weak France

2011-06-04T00:19:00.009+03:00

We are waiting fro the BIG BANG-opening - not seen yet this summer!! Moderate cond-days continued on Tuesday. Strong signals to Italy in the morning, very weak to France in the evening.

Log Fri 3.6.2011
88.000 -1744- F: RCF Vendée, La-Roche-sur -Yon (85). "Vous écoutez sur RCF Vendée dans émission Grande de Sambles...". Local-id just during that minute when it was up. Weak signals from Bretagne for 45 minutes. Short peaks.
88.200 - 1723- F: Radio Caroline, Pontivy-tx (56). Chérie FM 90.8 and FUN 94.1 from this same city.
88.300 - 1723- F: MFM. Also on 88.8.
89.300 -0620- HRV: Novi Radio, Zadar. 3rd time this summer!
91.100 -0711- I: R Cinque, UNID-QTH. "Radio Cinque, radio a cinque stelle". What is this station. NEW?91.900 - 0705- I: Radio Parsifal, Pescara (also 99.5 tent.)
95.600 -0655- I: R Marte, Napoli (NA). The only new for today.
97.300 -0652- I: Antenna Adriatica, Termoli (BA). RDS-id and spots.

Tue 31.5.2011 - Romania, Balkan, Italy

2011-06-03T23:29:00.008+03:00

This May has been one of the most interesting May in my 35 years FM-DX-history (Yes, I heard my first E-skip in 1976, Bayerischer Rundfunk and Radio Novi Sad). This May I have not heard so many new stations, but from quite many countries, and so often. Most of the openings have been weak with short lasting skips. 31st May gave the strongest signals.

Log Tue 31.5.2011
88.300 -1643- + I: R Ritmo 80, Barletta (BA). First time in Finland.
88.400 - 1613- BIH: Slobomir FM, Biljeljina. 3rd time this month!
89.200 -1755- I: Tentative: R Ottanta, Belluno (BL). BL is rare to hear here although Radio Company Belluno 88.4 is very common.
90.700 -1635- SRB: R.Republike Srpske. I think no compression in audio on this station.
90.800 -1622- ROU: Radio Iasi.
91.100 - 1644- I: Radio Centrale Puglia with RDS-music-only.
91.900 - 1315- ROU: Itsy Bitsy. Station for kids. The only one in Europe?
92.100 -1619- HNG: Klasszik Rádió, Budapest.
92.200 -1634- BIH: R Tesanj. Pronouncing stationname like not expected.
92.200 -17.25- I: Radio Jukebox, Lamezia Terme (CZ). Comes here often.
92.200 - 1630- ROU: Rock FM (Ex-One FM?)
94.000 - 1630- BIH: Radio Tuzla. Blind-recording.
94.000 -1319- ROU: Tentative Radio Unu, Satu Mare. Spot to Satu Mare.
95.600 - 1330- ROU: R Cluj.
96.500 -1336- POL: Radio Maryja. Poland is quite rare here because short skip is needed.
96.900 -1332- ROU: R Impact, Baia Mare.
97.500 - 16.47- I: Radio One, Bitonto (BA).
99.100 -1630- HRV: Gradski Radio, Osijek.
99.100 -1651- I: Radio Laser, Pisticci (MT).
99.600 -1626- BIH: Radio Avaz, Celic. RDS. I think announced also another frq.

Sat 28.5.2011 - Weak Balkan, France

2011-06-03T23:06:00.006+03:00

Weak May conditions continued on 28.5.2011. Nothing special. I heard only one new station for me.

Log Sat 28.5.2011
88.1 - 1742- SRB: Station from Valjevo. Must be pirate, strong 50Hz hum in audio.
88.2 - 1702- ROU: Europa FM.
88.3 - 1705- ROU: Radio OK, Ploiesti. Only RDS with music.
89.1 - 1735- SRB: Star FM, Cacak. Only new station today.
90.o - 1738- UNID: Radio Marija. From Albania or Serbia. RDS only.
91.0 - 1710- BUL: Darik Radio.
95.6 - 1927- F: Contact FM. The only id'ed French station from short peak

Thu 26.5.2011 - Mainly strong Italy (Emilia Romagna)

2011-06-02T22:59:00.010+03:00

Once again very different day with skips around Europe, but mostly strong Italian Reggio Emilia-stations. This area is the most common Es-skip area in SW Finland. Now I have heard all FM-stations from Modena (from free frequencies) !!

Log Thu 26.5.2011
87.600-1641- HRV: R Trsat, Rijeka. Nonstop classic rock for over 10 minutes.
88.400 -1757- ALG: RTA, Nador. On 94.7 MHz possibly R local Tlemcen. News in Arabic!
88.400 -1925- F: Mixx, Cognac (16). RDS and audio-id.
88.400 -1400- I: R Sportiva, RE-tx. This is one of the most common tx to receive here from Europe!
88.700 -1646- SVN: R Center, Ljubljana. Gave net-address.
88.800 -1517- I: R Alfa (MN). Many times with RDS this season.
88.800 -1837- SUI: R Basilisk, Basel. 7 min. Luckily till jingle.
89.100 -1657- I: R Fantasy, Cervignano del Friuli (UD).
89.3 -1049- HRV: Novi R, Zadar. Many times this season with RDS.
89.600 -1836- F: La Radio Plus, Thonon Les Bains (74). Blind recording. I expected to have a Swiss station from this frq because hey were up, but surprisingly it was French near Switzerland. This station at the same time on 93.0 MHz.
90.100 -1919- F: RMJ - La Radio des Meilleurs Jours, Magnac Laval (87).
90.100 -1656- HRV: R Zona, Buzet. RDS. 90.600 -1700- I: R SorRriso, Castelfranco Veneto (TV). Three R-letters, one big. "SorRriso Notizie". .
91.000 -1523- I: R City solo musica italiana (AL).
91.900 -1520- I: R Parsifal, Pescara (PE). Blind recording series from this frq 60 minutes: Multiradio (MC) > Radio Nostalgia (BI-tx) > Radio Parsifal (PE).
93.000 -1659- + I: R Gente Umbra, Foligno (PG). Station id as "R.G.U".
93.200 -1527- I: R Pico Classic, Mirandola Modena (MO). The last station from Modena to id.
95.000 -1453- I: R Erre, Reggio Emilia (RE).95.100 -1539- SVN: R Celje. Also Radio Koper from unlisted 94.7.
95.200 -1840- SUI: Yes FM, Geneve. I heard before on 95.6 MHz , which tx is on the French side.
96.200 -1529- + I: Canzoni e Sorrisi, Modena (MO). Accordeon-station with rare id's. Finally I was lucky the get audio-id. I tried twice last summer!
107.200 -1432- I: R Tirol. Bozen (BZ). German language station in N-Italy

Also I identified the following stations whichI have tuned here many times: Linea R (87.9) / Ciao R (90.1, BO) / Studio Delta (96.5) / R Stella (Modena, 96.8), R Bruno on many NEW frequencies / Studio Piú (107.9 and 108.0) / Onda Libera (PG, 89.6 and 105.9) / Isoradio RAI 103.2 / Multiradio (91.9( / R Nostalgai (91.9) / R Reggio 101.6 / R Azzurra (107.6) / Subasio (106.5) / Stella FM (VI, 104.2) / TRM 88.0 / TRC Int 2 (99.5) / R Delta Uno (CH, 96.1) / Play Capital (104.8) / R Ketchup 106.1 / R Center Music (99.1) / R Company (BL, 88.4) / R Camaldoli Stereo (88.6) / Skyline R (89.2) / R Fantasy (89.1) / R SorRriso (90.6) / New Radio Star (97.8) / Rete 96 (95.9) not listed in FMLIST?? / Ravegnana R (87.9) / Primaradio (88.9) / R Sond Piacenza (94.6) / Amica R (88.4) + national comm. networks all around.

Wed 25.5.2011 - Rhodos, Samos, Istanbul

2011-05-26T00:39:00.012+03:00

Wednesday evening 25.5 gave again weak but interesting signals - now from Turkey and far away Greece, Samos and Rhodos (very rare here). += first time in Finland.

Log Wed 25.5.2011
87.900 -1629- I: Love FM, Bari (BA). This network is spreading.
88.000 -1635- + GRC: R Ena, Rhodos. Fading in and out for long period but luckly came up for id. Very nice surprise.
88.000 -1630- GRC: R 34, Istanbul. Big and dramatic Burasi-id.
89.400 -1607- TUR: R Damar, Istanbul. Ex-Yasam.
90.200 -1605- TUR: R Turkuvaz, Istanbul. The only one with RDS.91.700 -1625- + TUR: Aktif FM, Aliaga (Ege). Giving id as "Aktif Radyo" (2x). Distance to Izmir only 40 km. After two minutes ERA Net Samos-tx came up.
95.600 -1621- GRC: Tentative: Anemos FM, Samos. Supermarket-ad to Karlovasi in Samos.

Tuesday 24.5.2011 - Weak signals

2011-05-25T23:58:00.009+03:00

Once again May-evening opening. Not strong signals but some new catches for me. This evenings's highlight was Marseille-opening, but unfortunately nothing new from there.

LOG Tue 24.5.2011 (rarely signals around Europe. mostly weak and mostly Italians)
87.900 -1702- F: R Maritima, Marseille (13). Long time with strong signal. but no sign of other Marseille-stations, only 90.0 Skyrock Sud (supposed) was audible well but with no local content.
88.400 -1730- F: LFM, Lausanne.
88.700 -1520- HRV: R Nasice, Nasice.
88.900 -1532- BIH: Ljubic R, Prnjavor.
89.400 -1546- I: R Centrale, Montorio al Vomano (TE). Up twice.
90.000 -1526- I: R Torino International, Torino (TO). Romanian language station in Torino!!! Big surprise to hear Romanian and Italian spots in a row. ID in Romanian and Italian.
90.200 -1537- HRV: R Vallis Aurea, Pozega. Rolling RDS-PS was corrubted for long period but finally audio-id released.
95.700 -1613- I: R Voghera (PV). Up 10 minutes. Also I identified old familiar stations: Radio Zeta 102.8, Gamma Pavia 89.6, Radio Milano 89.6, Radio Amica 88.4 , Radio Veronica 93.6, Radio Fantastica 89.3.

First opening 21.5.2011: France, Germany, Balkan

2011-05-23T19:53:00.025+03:00

This season's first opening was very good, on Saturday, mainly to France. In the first place I hunt new stations for me, or never-heard-before-in Finland ( + = in the log). That makes this more interesting, to have challencies.
The interesting point of this day was that I idenfied 6 different French private stations on 88.8 !!! (Of course dozens of TDF-Radio France transmitters were audible around the band and I identified many Virgin, NRJ, Nostalgie etc. networks with no local content).

LOG 21.5.2011 (mainly France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Balkan)
87.800 -1110- I: R Voce nel Deserto, Rovigo (RO). Blind-recording.
87.800 -0926- F: R Star, Montbeliard (25). Blind-recording with rx n:o 5. First SWR Baden-W, then France Bleu Bourgogne and finally this as new station.
88.000 -1800- GRC: ERA NET 105,8, Thessaloniki. The only identified on Sunday 22.5. Popped up from noise for 1-2 minute skip. Only stn on the band.
88.100 -1140- D: R Galaxy. Kempten-tx. Network px.
88.100 -1141- D: Hitradio RT 1, Dillingen. Only words "RT Eins" heard over Galaxy!
88.100 -0738- SRB: R Dedal, Grocka. I visited this city (and X Radio, now closed) exactly 3 years ago.
88.200 -1140- D: RSA,Oberallgau. Only RDS, no talk.
88.300 -1137- CZE: R.Egrensis, Cheb. Kiss Hady from Czech in the morning on this frq.
88.300 -1025- + F: R Campus, Orléans (45).
88.400 -0752- BIH: R Slobomir, Bijeljina. Id: "Slobomir FM". I've heard this tx before under name Radio Step.

88.800 -1130- D: Rock Antenne, Ismaning. Slightly over noise for long time. Strange skip.
88.800 -1023- F: Magic FM, La Souterraine (23). GOOD OPENING TO FRANCE. I identified 6 stations on 88.8 MHz: Magic FM (23), Virgin R (51), Mega FM (45), MFM (44), Alouette (79) and finally Evasion FM (77) twice. All heard before...
89.200 -1043- F: R Plus, Etampes (91). Unreal moment: I turn receiver to 89.4 and I see "PLUS FM"-rds (Blois, 41, heard before). I turn immedeately to 89.2 MHZ where I can id another Plus, Radio Plus!
90.200 -1032- F: VAG FM, Artenay (45). No reply from this station before. 21.5.
91.300 0949- F: R Dreyeckland, Selestat (67).
91.600 -1047- + F: Chérie FM Centre-val de Loire, Saint Avertin (Tours). Long local-id. On 95.7:lla I saw Chérie FM Nancyn local rds: "RDS 95,7".
92.800 1008- F: R Bresse, Le Bourg (71). RDS-level. Replied with letter + CD etc last winter. Thanks!!
94.500 -0912- F: Triage FM, Migennes (89).
95.400 -1040- + F: EvryOne, Evry (91). RDS- ("EvryOne" small letters) + audio-id.
95.600 0925- SUI: Yes FM, Geneve. Ex-Lac FM.
95.800 1038- F: 77FM, Meaux (77).
97.700 -0915- F: R Nohain, Nevers (58).
106.000 -0937- F: Sud Radio, Toulouse. Bordeaux-tx (33).
107.600 -0936- + SUI: RTN, Marin. French lang station. Nice surprise from upper band which I checked only 2-3 times.

I collected 324 FM-QSLs during year 2010

2011-01-01T21:52:00.013+02:00

Last year I took a project to maximize collecting QSL-verification replies from FM-stations during one year.
The goal was to pass ex-Finnish record 216 (from year 2009).
Summer 2010 gave good conds and brought a lot of new stations. Also I had many recordings from the past years. So, I mailed hundreds of reports with mp3's during the year 2010.

The final result was 324 replies! So, it is kind of Guinness-record. Almost all were e-mails (about 5 letters. German stations kindly post QSL-cards, 5-7). All replies are confirming my clip to be their station.
The biggest number of replies came from Italy, 47 stations, and from France 35. The rest are devided to almost all European countries + one from Israel and Algeria.
The poorest results came from Greece, Bulgaria, Russia and Turkey (only 10 -20 % replied). I think 65 % of stations replied, but I am not sure because I did not make any statistics.

I have now total almost 1 500 replies from FM-stations, all received in Finland. However, I am not the leader. Mr Jim Solatie (Espoo, Finland) has a bit more. Yes, Finnish DXers are QSL-hunters, since the 70's.
In mails I used their local languages with translations made by different persons in and out of DX-scene (Tnx Istvan and Marius). I used English only to Poland, Slovenia and Albania (and UK-Ireland naturally). I used also Google translator a lot, trying to avoid big mistakes and complicated sentencies.

Above and below you can see logo-collections of some stations which kindly replied to me.

Radio Noord-Holland 93.9 MHz via auroras

2010-11-24T20:15:00.014+02:00

I found one old interesting recording from my archives.
This is from previous solar-maximum period over 10 years ago, from 30.12.1997.

I heard Radio Noord-Holland (RNH) from Wieringermeer-tx on 93.9 MHz (11.2 kW) via auroras in the Northern sky!
Aurora-reflection gives usually very distorted audio and it is difficult to copy the words.
However, this time audio is clear enough to understand station-id.

Listen my clip:
RNH 93.9 MHz 30.12.1997

Ron Versteeg, senior-reporter RTVNH confirmed my old clip:

It's a promotional jingle about the upcomming program on newyears-eve. Voice is probably of Ron Bakker, a technical engineer who lso is 'the voice' of Radio (and now also, television) Noord- Holland.

Next solar-maximum is coming within next 3-4 years.
Via auroras I have heard usually Scandinavian, Polish and German high-power transmitters.
Sometimes also BBC and Russian. Mostly signals are too distorted, because auroras are moving all the time, but sometimes surprisingly clear, mostly with the highest tx-powers.

My record with aurora-reflection are two Norwegian low-power stations from Oslo, Topp Radio 106.8 MHz and Radio Nova 107.7 MHz, from 1989-1990 period. Tx-powers on both is only 100 Watt (both also QSL'ed).

This propagation is not interesting anymore because completly free frequency is needed and mostly the same stations are up. RNH and Norwegians were nice exceptions.
(This year, 2010, I have collected 262 FM-QSL's, so far)

ERT Zakynthos 93.2 MHz QSL (nr 242)

2010-11-03T21:05:00.008+02:00

Greek national radio ERT's regional station, ERT Zakynthos, replied today with photos and QSL ! Technical director is radioamateur, so he knows what is DXing and Sporadic E :
Αγαπητέ Φίλε
Η αναφορά σας επιβεβαιώνεται (=Your report is confirmed)
Ο Σταθμός μας Αγαπητέ Φίλε
εκπέμπει στους :
· 927 Khz με ισχύ 50 Kw
· 93.2 MHz FM με ισχύ 10 Kw
· 95.2 Μhz FM με ισχύ 2 Kw
O 93.2 εκπέμπει από την Κορυφή του Αίνου στην Κεφαλονιά

73s Technical director Rs Zakynthoy

He writes that this transmitter on 93.2 MHz, which I heard, is on the top of the Enos-mountain in the middle of the Kefalonia Island. Power 10 kW. I heard their local station-id last summer.

Reply from Radio Annaba, Algeria

2010-10-30T15:55:00.006+03:00

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!

2010-10-29T21:45:00.014+03:00

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

2010-10-17T19:26:00.002+03:00

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 !

2010-10-17T19:03:00.005+03:00

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 !

2010-10-15T21:07:00.021+03:00

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 !

2010-10-10T13:24:00.026+03:00

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):

Utö FM-FX 11-20.6.2010

2010-06-11T08:42:00.005+03:00

I will be in Utö-island for 10 days. There is a group of 7 DXers monitoring the FM-band.

You can read daily our logs from www.uto-fmdx.blogspot.com.

Incredible start for this FM-season!!

2010-06-06T23:37:00.004+03:00

Here is SW Finland, and in whole Finland, Sporadic E-season has been exceptionally good!! We have had Band II opened almost everyday since 25th May till Sunday 6th June 2010 - and still continuing. Unfortunately I've no chance to tune all the best moments.

Saturday 29.5.2010
Weak Italy and Russia
Tuesday 1.6.2010
Turkey, Greece, France (Paris), Benelux, UK (many pirates logged), Hungary up to 108 MHz for the whole evening till late night!
Wednesday 2.6.2010
Russia, Austria, Slovenia, Czech, Slovak, Croatia, Italy. MUF up to 108 MHz totally 7 hours!
Friday 4.6.2010
France, Germany, Italy around midday 45 min. Weakly in the evening.
Saturday 5.6.2010
Greece, Romania, Turkey, UK, France (Paris open 108 MHz long time). Many hours.
Sunday 6.6.2010
Weak Ukraina, Romania and Bulgaria for many hours.

In East Finland DXers reached Middle East on FM. First time Iraq was heard - even one or two private commercial stations!! Also Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia. Turkey was open to Istanbul for 1,5h to 108 MHz around Helsinki!
For some reason Middle East is very rare here in West Finland.

Very curious to see what is coming because the best time of the FM-season is ahead!!

Thursday 27.5.2010 (Mostly France, UK)

2010-05-29T11:14:00.005+03:00

I missed the first 1-2 hours of this condition. We were whole day in Helsinki visiting press editors of Sanoma WSOY's Helsingin Sanomat and Ilta Sanomat and also Etelä Suomen Sanomat in Lahti.
Our company, Turun Sanomat, is moving to multimedia-publishing during next 12 months including press, tv, net and radios.

Thursday 27.5.2010 (Mostly France and some UK, 18.00 > 22.22). At night short skips all around France, but not many stations at one time. Big networks not logged, only locals.

88.0 MHz - Radio TRM, Milano (MI). 3 minutes before Radio Milano!! - 21.42-
88.4 MHz - Lalegül FM, Istanbul, Turkey with RDS for 2 minutes. 18.03-
88.8 MHz - Magic FM, La Souterraine (23). Rare late night skip! - 21.41-
89.4 MHz - ODS, Seynod (74). - 18.49-
91.2 MHz - Radio Margeride, Termes (48). Possibly also on 98.5 later. - 19.20-
91.4 MHz - Radio Orient tentatively from dep. 45. - 19.47-
93.8 MHz - Radio Bresse, Le Bourg (71). - 19.22-
95.2 MHz - BBC R Cornwall. - 18.25-
96.3 MHz - Hot Radio Chambéry, Lancey (38). - 18.53-
96.4 MHz - The Wave, Swansea. 18.30-
96.4 MHz - Radio Isa, La Tour du Pin (38). - 18.52-
103.2 MHz - Red Dargon Radio. - 18.38-
105.4 MHz - Real Radio. Now for the 2nd time this season. 18.37-$$

Wednesday 26.5.2010 (mostly France)

2010-05-29T10:52:00.006+03:00

Luckily conditions are taking place in the evenings. During working hours it would have been hell...

Wednesday 26.5.2010 (Interesting South France, around Marseille + Piemonte area!! 16.15 - 17.25 utc)

87.6 MHz - Radio Mater. - 17.18-
87.9 MHz - France Bleu Drome. - 16.15-
87.9 MHz - Radio Maritima, Marseille. Local ad's to Istres?? Have to check later. - 16.36-
88.0 MHz - Radio Radicale for the 2nd time this tx-site. 16.30-
88.2 MHz - Métropole Radio, Brignoles (83). Tracked up from the lists!! - 16.47-
88.5 MHz - Latte & Miele, Torino local break. - 16.51-
88-8 MHz - Radio FG, Paris. 17.25-
89.2 MHz - RFM, Marseille-tx. Not local px. - 19.18-
89.4 MHz - Radio Orient with RDS. Toulon-tx (83) near Marseille. Arabic. - 16.38-
89.5 MHz - Radio Milano first time on this frq. 15 min before on 88.0 MHz. - 17.13-
90.2 MHz - Radio Star 90.2, Toulon. I hope I have local ad-break taped. - 16.41-
91.0 MHz - Verdon FM, Castellane (04). - 16.40-

Tuesday 25.2.2010

2010-05-29T10:16:00.008+03:00

Quite good signals to Northern Italy giving basic local stations. Most of them I have heard many times during the years. I log here only local stations, no networks like 105, RDS, 101 etc. which are all around the band.
Later at night our local time there were opening to Wales, South Ireland and Bretagne, France!

Tuesday 25.5.2010 (Italy, mostly Piemonte, 16.00 - 16.45utc)

87.8 MHz - Radio Radicale. - 16.31-
88.0 MHz - Radio Milano. This stn has been very common this summer!! - 16.00-
89.3 MHz - Fantastica, Torino. This is from Colle della Maddalena-tx-site. Ihave heard almost all 48 stations from this site (which are on free frq.). Only one is left to hunt (R.Blackout).
90.3 MHz - m2o, Torino-tx. - 16.03-
90.7 MHz - Italia Uno Party, Torino, - 16.01-
91.2 MHz - Radio Musica from Milano. Only RDS. This would have been new for me. - 16.08-
91.2 MHz - Modena Radio City. - 16.13-
92.3 MHz - Radio Stella. - 16.40-
93.7 MHz - Radio Record. - 16.24-
93.8 MHz - Radio Bruno. - 16.17-
95.2 MHz - Studio Piú. "Studio +" on RDS. - 16.21-
95.7 MHz - Radio Voghera. 16.14-
96.2 MHz - Radio Canzione e Sorrisi, MO. Only RDS with music. First time for me. - 16.44-
97.0 MHz - Radio Canelli e Monferrato, ex-Monferrato. 16.06-

At night new opening:
91.7 MHz - Forum, France. - 21.52-
93.0 MHz - France Bleu Breiz Izel, Brest, Bretagne, France. All frq's of this site were up (89.4, 95.4 and 97.8 MHz).
97.4 MHz -4FM, Cork-tx. First time in Finland!! - 22.09-
102.8 MHz - Pirate FM. - 22.20-
105.7 MHz -Real Radio, Wales. - 22.15-

21-22.5.2010 Weak Italian FM

2010-05-22T12:43:00.013+03:00

Saturday 22.5.2010
88.8 MHz - Radio Bari, Bari pushed up twice. Quite new station. Founded 4.7.2007. - 06.25-

Friday 21.5.2010
On Friday evening weak Italian signals on the lower FM-band:

For 2-3 minutes I heard stations only from one tower from Salerno-province. That was Perdifumo-Monte Stella-tx-site about 50 km East from Salerno. Stations:
88.0 MHz - Radio Radicale - 16.01-
89.4 MHz - KissKiss - 15.59-
91.2 MHz - Radio Maria - 16.02-
92.8 MHz - m2o (tent.) - 16.02-

Also Radio Company from Benevento on 88.4 MHz was up before these. Seems to be very often audible here. That must be because high tx-site in the mountains.

UNID. Help with this:
89.3 MHz - Radio Erre, UNID QTH. Clear id between the music. 16.07- IDEAS??

FM-season 2010 started

2010-05-22T12:26:00.004+03:00

FM-season started here in South Finland on 8th May 2010 giving basic Italians for 10 minutes:
Radio Capital, Subasio, Suvy and RDS all on 87.5 MHz.

Thursday 20.5.2010
I had one holiday Thursday and tuned some Russians on OIRT:

66.44 - GRTK Saratov with local programme - 09.10-
66.68 - GRTK Saransk with local programme - 09.52-
67.30 - GTRK Samara with local programme - 09.57-
68.51 - Russkaya Sluzhba Novostey, Samara. Local news at 10.00 utc-

Replies from RTV Zenica, Bosnia

2010-03-19T00:11:00.010+02:00

On Thursday 18th March I got nice messages from RTV Zenica (Zenica-city), 50 km NW from Sarajevo, Bosnia. I sent them a clip of Radio Zenica's signal which I received here in Finland on summer 2006 on 95.6 MHz. Signal was very strong and clear (mp3 here later).
Station engineer Ibrahim Avdic wrote that this transmitter is in Bugojno-city, 778 Watts ERP. The station has also 3 other FM-tx's in the region. They have also own regional TV-station in operation (Channel 41 UHF).

I got also confirming message from programme manager, Sanja Stevic:
"Postovani, da to jeste iz naseg programa, jer prepoznajem glas naseg voditelja Edina Sinanovica. Vec smo imali takvih informacija o tome da su ljudi mogli u nekim okolnostima na radiju slusati nas program. Drago mi je da je tako i hvala vam sto ste nam se javili. Hvala na javljanju, javite se opet! S postovanjem - Sanja Stevic".

She wrote that it was clearly their station which I heard as she recognized the voice of Edina Sinanovica, one of their presenters.
RTV Zenica has very informative web-page with a lot of beautiful pictures of Zenica. It seems that they have had very cold winter in Bosnia (as you can see even from the header on the front page)!! Zenica is the 4th biggest city in Bosnia ( 127 ooo people) . www.rtvze.ba

Yvelines Radio, 88.4 MHz, Marly Le Roi, France

2010-03-01T20:51:00.002+02:00

French Yvelines Radio (88,4 MHz) made big surprise to me yesterday!! They made nice article to their web-page of my reception in Finland: YVELINES RADIO capté en Finlande
They even gave link how this is possible via Sporadic E (link)! Great work!

This station is located in Marly Le Roi (78) very near Versailles (and Paris). They broadcast on 88.4 MHz with about 2 kW power.

More QSL-replies from France!

2009-10-15T23:49:00.024+03:00

I've just started to check my old Sporadic E-tapes from the recent past years, and now I have 30 replies from French FM-stations within 5-6 weeks!!
Here I list the stations replied during October 2009.

I got 4 replies from France Bleu regional stations; FB Perigord (Bergerac, 99.0 MHz), FB Sud Lorraine (Nancy, 100.5 MHz), FB Lorraine Nord (Metz, 98,5 MHz) and FB Haute Normandie (Rouen, 96.5 MHz).

This last one on this list is the most interesting case because I found one very old recording from 1985 from my C-casettes!! There were id "Radio Haute Normandie". I mailed this to the station and director, Pierre Desaint, replied quickly and was surprised of the old recording. The most surprising thing is that the presenter (DJ) on my recording, Manuel Quesnel, is still working for the station!!!Radio Cactus is a regional station in departement 38, near Grenoble and Swiss border. I heard this on 92.2 MHz (1 kW, Charolles).
And more private stations:
- Jet FM, Nantes, 91.2 MHz (Dep. 44)
- Radio Active, Langres, 91.7 MHz (Dep. 52)
- Frequence Plus, Dijon, 95.4 MHz (Dep. 21). Seems to be big station!! Their web-page look fantastic and this station sounds great!! Nice to meet succesful local stations!!

- Virgin Radio Roanne, 89.4 MHz (Dep. 42). This Virgin local station has even own web-page!

- R.B.A. Auvergne-Limousin, Bort les Orgues, 104.4 MHz (Dep. 19). Stéphane Antignac wrote:
"Bonjour, Quelle surprise !! En effet l'extrait sonore correspond bien à notre radio. Nous sommes situés au centre de la France. Nous sommes une radio associative avec deux fréquences : 104.4 et 98.2. Notre site internet : www.rbafm.fr Nous allons vous faire parvenir un autocollant de notre radio.Nous sommes ravi et vous souhaitons bonne continuation. Très cordialement - Stéphane, Radio RBA FM Auvergne-Limousin"

- R.C.F. Saint-Aignan, Orleans, 90.3 MHz (Dep. 45)
- R.C.F. Aube, Troyes, 88.2 MHz, (Dep. 10)
These both RCF-stations gave nice and informative reply. RCF stations seems to reply very well but you must always be sure that the programme is local, not RCF national feed.

- Radio Kerne, Ploneis, 90.2 MHz (Dep. 29) was very speacial station to have contact. This station is broadcastinf in Breton language, which is spoken only in Bretagne, France (even 300 000 in all).
- Radio Sainte-Baume, Saint-Maximin, 88.9 MHz. This station from very South France, only 40 km NE from Marseille, from very little town (only 13 000 people) in Saint-Baume mountains. The city is known of the beautiful basilica (year 1295) dedicated to Mary Magdalene.
- Radio Morvan is a community station from Chateau Chinon (Dep. 58) from very Middle France - broadcasting on 95.8 MHz
- Le Mouv' is part TDF (Radio France). This station is not easy to hear because hey do not have as many frequencies as other national programmes. Le Mouv' is easy to track from the band beause it is rock-based formatted.
- Radio Brume, 90.8 MHz, is a student university-radio station in Lyon (Dep. 69). Nicholas Croisette kindly confirmed my mp3-clip. Nicholas is publishing very useful and informative web-site of French radio stations (Annuaire des radios francaises)

- Plus FM, Blois, 89.4 MHz (Dep. 41). Regional station between Tours an Orleans. They wanted to make an interview. Unfortunately I have forgotten to go further...

Newspaper article of me in PresseOcéan, Nantes

2009-10-09T20:49:00.013+03:00

Today I had very nice and special surprise from France! Nantes newspaper, PresseOcéan, made an article of me and my DXing of French FM-stations!
The story is based on my reception of SUN 91.2, Nantes. I sent a mp3-clip of the my reception to this station about one month ago. The station manager Pierre Boucard told about this to newspaper journalist Guillaume Lecaplain, who made nice article of this.

You can read the story in internet > PRESSE OCEAN Harri Kujala

- or CLICK THE PHOTO BELOW TO READ THE ARTICLE -

Nice QSL-replies from France!

2009-09-07T22:28:00.064+03:00

At first I must give big honour and respect to French radio stations!! They are clearly market leaders in Europe to make radios sound excellent!! The jingles and programme productions are magnificent, ingredible, creative and unique. All other countries are far, far behind French radio production. I wonder why?? Because of language - or competition?

I have sent some messages to French FM-stations, which I have heard here at my home via Sporadic E-skips during past summers. Here some logos from the stations I have QSLed:

Very special stations replied this week:
MY 2nd QSL from Corsica!! Fréquence Jazz (now "Jazz Radio 2"). I heard this station on 88.7 MHz with local announcement: "Fréquence Jazz á Bastia sur 88.7". They have two transmitters on this frequency and both are in Corsica.

Vivre FM is a station for handicap people in Paris on 93.9 MHz !! Must be unique in the world!!!

Radio Fidélité is community and christian radio station in Nantes area (Dep. 44). I heard this station 3 years ago on 89.5 MHz. This frequency in now changed and not in use anymore. Station runs mainly by donations (70% of incomes are donations)!
RCF Anjou is a local station in Angers (Dep. 49). Part of the largest French Christian FM-radio network RCF (Radios Chrétiennes Francophones). I have heard their local programme two times on 88.1 MHz.

Radio Tempo (Dep. 29 / 101.2 MHz) is one of the most East FM-station in France. It is located in NW of Bretagne with two transmitters around Brest and Morlaix. They have very exotic looking office!

There are at least three Jazz-formatted FM-networks in France. I have heard two of them. TSF Jazz has confirmed my reception from last summer. I heard their Laval-relay (Dep. 53) on 97.7 MHz, between Le Mans and Rennes.

VFM from Vire (Dep. 14 / 90.1 MHz), is a provincial station in North Bretagne, under English Channel.
It is nice to see that there are lively local stations alive in France! I got a quick e-mail from the station for my mp3!

Sweet FM, private commercial radio around Le Mans and Alencon, (Dep. 72,61 / 95.8 MHz) gave nice replies from many people from the station. This seems to be a big station with many activities.

Radio Accords from Poitiers (86 / 89.3 MHz) is a religious station in midwest France. Programme director Mr. Lachen confirmed my mp3-clip to be from their programme. They have even 6 tx's around Poitiers and Niort - and even over 100 people making programmes.

Frequence Horizon from Houdain
(62 / near Belgium border, 100.8 MHz) gave a quick e-mail back:
"That is right, it is our program ! That is incredible ! The distance between you and our transmitter is huge ! In july 2007, our apparent power was 1KW. Thank you very much for this document ! Have a nice day, Guillaume, Fréquence Horizon".

Radio Caroline from Rennes in Bretagne (Dep. 35 / 90.8 MHz). Technician Patrick confirmed my reception:

"Votre message nous a fait plaisir. Je vous confirme qu'il s'agit bien de RADIO CAROLINE en Bretagne".

I got nice promotional photo enclosed >>

Another nice reply from Bretagne: SUN (Le Son Unique à Nantes) (Dep. 44 / Nantes, 93.0 MHz). This station is located in Nantes.

Pierre, Directeur de SUN, gave very quick reply to my report, 10 minutes(!!):

"Bonsoir, Je vous confirme que c'était bien SUN* (Le Son Unique à Nantes) que vous avez capté. Il s'agit bien de nos jingles de l'époque ;-)". "SUN - Unique Sound In Nantes" in the name of this station today.

The most exotic reply from France was Radio Salam from Lyon.
This is Arabic language station in Lyon (Dep. 69 / 91.1 MHz) !!
Mr Ali Abed, Président de Radio Salam e-mailed me short confirmation to my report: "Bravo et j'espère que vous allez rester fidèles auditeurs de notre radio."

Very kind replies from France.

FM-phaser: Fading out local FM-stations

2009-08-23T13:25:00.017+03:00

I have had FM-phaser for several years, but this summer I had a chance to finetune it because I have now 5-6 antennas (=Triax-preamps with two outputs). With this device it is possible to fade out some local/semi-local FM-stations by phasing out the chosen signal.

This phaser is at it's best when you have certain and constant signal-level of the QRM-station, which you want to fade out. It should not be too close and strong (= if tuneable with 1 meter-wire forexample) or too far and weak (=fading in/out a lot).

HOW IT WORKS:
I do not give here any technical data, only a description how it goes.
I have two yagi-antennas for this job: Yagi-1 (vertical) is directed to the station I want to hear. Yagi-2 (horizontal) is directed to that station I want to fade-out (QRM-stn). First I adjust the signal of QRM-station from both antennas to equal levels in my receiver. Then I phase the QRM-stations's FM-signal opposite, 180 degrees, and combine them to my receiver. This means that the local station fades out and DX-station has free or almost free frequency to come up.

For example I have YLE Eurajoki 87.7 MHz (30 kW) 80 km away. I can fade it out for Es-stations (unfortunately no Es-conditions this year for results).

Here is a video-clip of how I fade-out YLE Fiskars on 97.0 MHz (3 kW) 100 km away. It is constant here and blocks the frequency. I could have chosen better example (closer/more power) because this signal is beatable by strong tropo.
However, there is a new Latvian local station to hunt on 97.0 MHz, Radio Vidzeme in Valmiera.This is the reason why I choose 97.0 MHz (vertical).

In this clip I show the signal-level of YLE 97.0 MHz (3 red leds shining) - then I fade it out by tuning the phaser (one led shining) - and after that I take horizontal QRM-antenna away from combiner, which shows that QRM-signal comes back with V-antenna (3 leds again), because there is no combined signal anymore.
I try later to make examples of closer stations.
This FM-phaser is built by Pertti Äyräs, living close to me. His QTH is almost impossible for FM-DX (Kaarina, 6 x 50 kWs only 3 km away).
I do not have any technical data available of this for instant delivery, but I suppose I could get it from Pertti later.
Let's see if I manage to hear this Radio Vidzeme during autumn tropos (no idea of their power)!!

Perseids meteors 2009: No results

2009-08-13T22:04:00.003+03:00

Again this year Perseids meteor-shower gave nothing special!! However, it seems that the best peak was at night between 12-13 August. I monitored in the morning and late evening on 12.8 some times, but mostly very short pings came up. 5-20 sec long pings is needed.
Perseids seems to have been weakening all the time comparing to 10-20 years ago!
In Finnish Perse = ass - and id = identification! That describes Perseids very well nowdays!

Wed 5.8.2009: Weak South France

2009-08-05T21:42:00.006+03:00

Today very weak opening to France. However, one new station popped up even with RDS, Radio M from Montélimar (26) on 88.3 MHz.

And once again Radio Nimes and France Bleu Gard Lozere. Almost every summer I have some stations which coming up several times, which are never heard before by me. Strange why E-clouds like to take same places within one summer!

LOG Wed 5.8.2009: Weak South France

88.3 MHz - Radio M, Montélimar(26), France. RDS + DJ. - 18.15-
88.4 MHz - UNID Spanish. Unfortunately only nonsense talk. - 18.15-
92.2 MHz - Radio Nimes, Nimes, France. RDS with music. - 18.07-

Mon 3.8.2009: Sardinia, Toscana !

2009-08-04T00:03:00.009+03:00

Very interesting opening to Italy. Sardinia is very rare here and also Toscana. Both areas were audible during 20 minutes opening, Sardinia 7 minutes. This was nice moment because the band was not full of stations from all around Italy.

LOG Mon 3.8.2009 (Mainly Sardinia-Toscana, Italy - First time in Finland underlined)

87.5 MHz - Radio Zeta, Caravaggio (BG). Spot to Torino (011-). Zeta seems to have local spots to 6 areas but this tx should be in Toscana??? - 17.29-
88.0 MHz - Radio Rama, Tortoli (NU), Sardinia, Italy. No ID but spot to Bari Sardo near Tortoli. Faded out just during jingle. - 16.48-
88.8 MHz - Radio Maria, Italy announced that they will start R.Vatican News. - 17.30-
89.5 MHz - Radio Mater,Italy. RDS and talking. - 17.11-
90.8 MHz - RDF - Radio Diffusione Firenze, Firenze (FI). New relay? - 17.00-
92.2 MHz - Radio Siena, Siena (SI). - 17.13-
93.3 MHz - Radio 19, Genova tentatively. Spot to Genova. 16.57-
94.7 MHz - Radio Fiesole 100, Firenze(FI). - 17.09-
95.2 MHz - Radio Italia Uno, Padova. Not listed here. - 16.51-
95.2 MHz - Radio Studio Piú,Desenzano del Garda (BS). - 16.59-
95.7 MHz - Radio Sintony, Cagliari (CA), Sardinia, Italy. - 16.55-
95.8 MHz - Radio Macomer Centrale, Siniscola (NU), Sardinia, Italy. No ID only pizzeria spot to Siniscola with tel 0874-. - 16.51-

Tue 28.7.2009: South Italy opening

2009-07-29T20:37:00.009+03:00

This summer has been one of the worst ever in my 33 years FM-DX-history!! There is not much time to have things better for this season. Very often August is worse than June or July...

On Tuesday we had a bit better opening to South Italy, to Puglia area mainly.
LOG Tue 28.7.2009 (South Italy, times UTC)
88.4 MHz - Radio Company, Benevento (BN). - 18.52-
88.7 MHz - Radio ItsyBitsy, Romania. This might be Europe's ONLY station for children!! There was one in France many years ago. - 15.40-
89.3 MHz - Radio Cuore. Funny rolling RDS-PS. One letter of word "CUOrE"is changing from big to small in sequence. 18.00-
89.4 MHz - KissKiss Italia. - 14.45-
90.2 MHz - Radio Puglia, Bari (BA). 14.36-
91.7 MHz - Radio Sound, Bari (BA) - 14.26-

91.7 MHz - Radio Venere, Corsano (LE). Full stereo-RDS. Unfortunately I make mono-rcordings. Otherwise it would have been nice to put a hifi-recording here. - 14.40-
92.1 MHz - RAI. Perhaps local px to Basilicata? Traffic instructions to Salerno etc. - 14.57-
92.2 MHz - Radio Jukebox, Lamezia Terme (CZ) (BA-tx). Listeners can make sms-order for the title they want to be played. This automated station gives title-code/name between the records by female voice.
97.9 MHz - Radio Alfa, Prato Perillo di Teggiano (SA). Rare-station to hear. - 14.33-
99.6 MHz - Radio TRC, Cerignola (LE). 3o years old station!- 14.35-

Sat 18.7.2009: France 2-3 minutes

2009-07-18T17:27:00.002+03:00

Yesterday's big Es-clouds gave a little promise for today, but no. There were clouds over right places (Denmark etc.) but not enough MUF. Only one 2-3 minute opening to Bretagne. Perhaps there has been more short skips because I have not been monitoring all the time.

LOG Sat 18.7.2009
88.4 MHz - Europe 1. Tx in dep. 29, Bretagne, France. - 10.29-
90.1 MHz - Radio Bonheur, Pléneuf-Val-André (22). Guingamp-tx, Bretagne, France. This station was audible for about 2-3 minutes with nice IDs. - 10.30-
93.0 MHz - France Bleu Breiz Izel, Brest (29), France. MUF around 96 shortly. - 10.30-

Fri 17.7.2009: France opening for 30 minutes

2009-07-17T23:08:00.005+03:00

Unexpected attack with French signals for about 30 minutes on late Friday afternoon! I heard stations from very large area from France - central, northeast and south. Not so many IDs but luckily one station never-heard-before (in Finland)!!

LOG Fri 17.2.2009 (France-opening)
91.0 MHz - RCF en Berry, Bourges (18). Spot to "Musique en Berry"-festival. - 14.43-
91.1 MHz - NRJ. Tx from departement 52 (NE France). - 14.45-
91.7 MHz - Active R, Joinville (52). - 14.49-
92.2 MHz - Radio Cactus, Semur en Brionnais (71). - 14.44-
92.9 MHz - Totem, La Primaude (12). Tx dep. 48. Big network now!!! Over 20 tx with 7 local officies. - 14.52-
92.9 MHz - RTL pushed over Totem. Tx dep. 03. - 14.54-
98.5 MHz - France Bleu Lorraine Nord (dep. 57) with RDS and music. - 14.57-

QSL Radio City, Katerini, Greece

2009-07-16T21:45:00.004+03:00

After 6 months waiting I got a e-QSL from Katerini-city, Greece! Better late than never!
This station is Radio City, 102.8 MHz (www).
In the reply I was told that the transmitter is located in Mount Olympus - so no wonder it reached Finland.

1-2 minute openings...

2009-07-12T21:43:00.008+03:00

During the past days Sporadic E has shown us only several 1-2 minute openings on many days in a row!! Typical for this summer, MUF does not rise enough and do not last long enough... Frustrating... Some stations anyway on Sunday from Italy, Bosnia, Croatia and Greece.

LOG Sun 12.7.2009
87.8 MHz - Latte & Miele, Italy. - 07.10-
88.0 MHz - Radio Republika Srpska, Kotor Varos (local px) tentatively, Bosnia. Spots to this city at 06.58- and 07.18-
88.0 MHz - ERA Net 105.8, Thessaloniki-tx, Greece. - 08.30-
88.2 MHz - Radio Dubrovnik, Croatia. RDS. - 07.12
89.1 MHz - Radio Slavonija tentatively, Slavonski Brod, Croatia. -07.06-
89.3 MHz - Radio F, Radio Federacije Bosne i Hercegovine. RDS. - 06.56-

Tue 6.7.2009: Turkey (Bulgaria, Greece)

2009-07-07T19:43:00.002+03:00

On Tuesday evening we had the best opening so far. It was Turkey up to 108 MHz, Istanbul and around (Very rarely I can hear other parts than Istanbul, distance 2200 km)).
Unfortunately it was not so strong over 100 MHz here. Signals were also fading rapidly.
However, some new stations were up. (Some recordings are not checked yet):

LOG Tue 6.7.2009 (Times UTC)
87.9 MHz - Bizim FM, Sile. 50 km NE of Istanbul, Turkey. - 16.21-
88.0 MHz - Radyo 34, Istanbul. - 15.53-
89.0 MHz - Antena C, Kishinev tentatively "Aici Kishinev", Moldova. - 17.00-
89.3 MHz - Armoni FM, unknown location. Perhaps new relay to Armoni FM from Terikdag (European side of Turkey). - 15.47-
90.0 MHz - Radyo Viva, Istanbul, Turkey. - 16.10-
90.3 MHz - Alem FM, Tekirdag-transmitter, Turkey. - 15.58-
90.4 MHz - Haber Türk, Istanbul, Turkey. - 16.27-
91.2 MHz - Radio NRJ, Varna-tx, Bulgaria 16.01-
91.4 MHz - Ola FM 91.4, Thessaloniki, Greece. - 16.56-
91.8 MHz - Infopro FM , Romania
92.9 MHz - Kanal Türk, Istanbul, Turkey. Also with RDS. -16.48-
93.3 MHz - Radyo K, Istanbul, Turkey. - 16.51-
98.0 MHz - Kral Türk, Istanbul, Turkey. - 16.49-
98.5 MHz - Kiss FM, Romania. Very hard compression on audio. -16.50-
100.8 MHz - Radyo Ilac, Istanbul, Turkey. Very nice and lively ID. - 16.42-

Utö FM-DX-camp 2009 is over

2009-07-07T18:41:00.002+03:00

I was in Utö-island for 9 days listening FM-band. It was DX-camp of 6 listeners. It was full of FM-monitoring, swimming, playing cards and drinking beer!

We had fair results on tropo and Sporadic E. It is always a dream to have good and stable Es-opening in Utö but it did not happen. Also no megatropo (not expected).
We identified stations from 29 countries (7 with tropo, 3 with meteor, 19 with Es)

You can read the results and daily log from http://www.uto-fmdx.blogspot.com/

Utö FM-DX-started Monday 22.6 >

2009-06-22T21:15:00.006+03:00

Utö FM-DX-started! Two listeners are now in distant Finnish Utö-island for FM-DX and later four listeners will join them this Friday, including me! This pedititon is up from 22.6 till 5.7.2009.
You can read Utö-pedition highlights from http://www.uto-fmdx.blogspot.com/.
We listen in these two little red cottages visible in this photo below (direction South is ahead from the door; left). Click the photo for bigger view:

Mon 22.6.2009

2009-06-22T19:52:00.005+03:00

On Monday morning after 07utc some weak Arabic, Turkish and Ukrainan stations noted in South Finland, but nothing here.

Sun 21.6.2009: Spain, Africa, France

2009-06-21T20:32:00.023+03:00

Sunday morning brought us nice conditions to Spain, France and even North Africa! Unfortunately I had to be at work for the best opening time because of one quick illness! I had to run out local church service for our local station in Salo (Radio Melodia, Salo, 88.2).
In South Finland Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia was up among many Spanish stations. These are quite rare in Finland although Algeria I have heard many times. This needs douple-hop for sure (3000 km).
Spanish stations were from Andalucia, South Spain, having about 3300 km skip.
Nothing special heard by me but I losed the best moments.

LOG Sun 21.6.2009 (07.45utc >)
88.0 - Radio 5 Todo Noticias, Andalucia, South Spain. This was up for almost 10 minutes with douple-hop (3300 km) - 08.30-
88.3 - RCF, France. I this this was St.Etienne (42) transmitter-site. Heard many times. - 10.38-
88.4 - Radio Tele Algérienne, Chaine 2 in Tamazight-langauge. Transmitter location Nador (see 94.7 below). NICE SIGNAL: mp3 - 10.10-
89.3 - UNID in Arabic. Libya is heard on this frequency in Benelux! (Libya is never identified in Finland!!). Only female talk, no hints. - 10.14-
90.8 - Onda Cero, Andalucia-tx (Sierra de Mijas/Monte Viego - same tower as 88.0 above) mp3 - 08.44-
91.0 - Radio Bruno, Carpi (MO), Italy. - 08.50-
91.1 - Radio Tonic, Chagny (71), France. Only RDS visible with accordeon music . 08.20-
94.7 - UNID, possibly Radio Tlemcen, Nador, Algeria because this was the only signal up at the same time with 88.4 MHz (Nador-tx-site).

Thu 18.6.2009: Weak Turkey

2009-06-18T19:20:00.024+03:00

I was very lucky to notice very weak signals from Turkey today after 13utc!!
During about 10 minutes I heard only one Turkish commercial station on 88.0 MHz (no other Es-signals)!!
With the help from Marko Weck from Finland it is tracked this to be a station from Biga-city, about 170 km south west from Istanbul.
It seems this is Radio Pegai (www) from Biga!!
Here is a clip from the station's commercial-break: mp3!! Tuned 18.6.2009 on 88.0 MHz at 13.08utc.
These kind of weak distant signals are the most interesting!!
Let's see if I get any reply from the station. How to explain I heard it on FM because tehy have live stream on their page...

Tue 16.6.2009: Opening to North Italy

2009-06-16T22:17:00.022+03:00

On Tuesday evening, 16.6. (1745utc >), there were 20+ minutes long condition to North Italy. Signals were quite strong giving RDS but MUF was not higher than 97 MHz.
I heard mostly stations which I have identified many many times before:

LOG Tue 16.6.2009
87.5 - Radio Zeta, Caravaggio >> Rete Malvisi later (also on 87.6) - 18.01-
87.8 - Radio Radicale, Piacenza-tx. Once I tried to visit this station locally in Pescara (summer 1984) but they did not let me in (left-wing radical station)!!! I talked with two sucpicious guys in the street and finally gave up - 17.54-
88.0 - Radio TRM, Milano (MI). Dance music and RDS flashed on the screen just when I arrived... No talk unfortunately - 17.45-
88.0 - Radio Milano (MI). The other stn on this same frq. in Milano! 18.00-
88.4 - Radio Padova - 18.05-
88.8 - Radio DJ. They have very creative programme jingles-efects-production also in Italy (French stations are clear leaders in sound-production in Europe)!!
91.2 - Radio Radar, Porretta Terme (BO). This was new catch for me. 17.59-
91.2 - Modena Radio City, Modena (MO) pushed over Radar. - 18.02-
91.9 - UNID giving spots to Firenze. Must be R. Blu (Prato/Pisa). - 18.03-
92.2 - RCN, Cremona (PC). - 17.50-

Sun 14.6.2009: Benelux and Denmark on FM !

2009-06-15T17:55:00.013+03:00

The beginning of summer 2009 has been very very poor. Only two brief 1-2 minutes long openings to south... One of the worst starts ever!
Finally on Sunday evening 14th of June we had something happening. There were stations mainly from Holland but also some from Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg, mainly strong high-power stations. Unfortunately this was not good condition and it lasted 50 minutes.
The highlight of the day was Denmark ! It is very rare here in SW Finland because the skip is so short. I identified Skala FM (www) from Esbjerg, on 87.6 and 88.4 MHz playing Top 40-programme. Here is mp3 from 88.4 MHz, playing "Human" by Killers after ID. The other Danish was Nova FM tentatively on 89.3 MHz.
The length of the skip was only about 950 km which is short for Sporadic E.LOG Sunday 14.6.2009
Here some loggings from this day. Times UTC.
87.6 - DEN: Skala FM, Esbjerg (Viuf-tx, 500 W). - 17.01-
87.9 - HOL: Omproep Zeeland. - 16.50-
88.4 - DEN: Skala FM, Esbjerg (Vojens-tx, 300 W). - 17.09-
89.3 - DEN: Nova FM tentatively (5 kW). - 17.10-
90.1 - HOL: Slam FM. - 17.25-
90.2 - HOL: 100%NL. - 17.03-
92.2 - F: FUN. (Must be from dep. 59 near Belgium). - 17.23-
92.2 - HOL: Omroep Fryslan fighting with FUN. - 17.23-
93.2 - HOL: Waterstad FM, Sneek (20 kW!). - 17.34-
94.7 - F: France Bleu Freq. Nord with network programme. - 17.32-

Poor May conditions

2009-06-01T22:48:00.005+03:00

May 2009 was very poor in Es-conditions. Weak openings to France and Italy (18.5 and 25.5). Es-clouds have been mostly lying over Switzerland and that is too far to give FM-signals to Finland!
On 25.5 I identified: BFM 87.9 / RMC 88.8. Both from very South France (dep. 83, 06). Radio Milano on 88.0 was only ided private from Italy... great...
I have now added Triax FM88108-amplifiers to my Triax 8-el. yagis (V and H). Luckily Sony XDR can handle more local power-signals with no overloading!! That was good news.
Now I am listening Skärgårds Radio 90.2 from Stockholm's coast with strong signal. More power than last summer???

FM-season 2009 starts

2009-05-21T22:50:00.006+03:00

FM-season 2009 started to me on 18th of May with very weak opening to Lyon-area, France. The real job starts within next 1-2 week.
New feature for this season is "sensational" FM-receiver Sony XDR-F1HD (more). It is interesting to compare this device to elder receivers. I have two new Sonys side by side (Click the photo).

Later this summer I will go to Utö-island again for FM-DXing for 9 days with 5 other DX-ers.
First time this big group is joining in FM-pedition! Utö-FM-DX-blog will be updated during the pedition.

Visting FM-stations in Riga, Latvia

2009-03-15T21:47:00.065+02:00

I visited Latvian capital Riga with my wife between 11-14 March 2009. Among the sightseeings in this very beautiful city I visited many FM-stations, too!!

Basic radio-info:
* Riga has 717 000 people (about 42% both Latvian and Russian). 2.3mill people in Latvia.
* There are 12 commercial FM-stations in Riga (half Russian/ half Latvian).
* 3 national commercial stations: Radio SWH, Star FM and European Hit Radio.
* There are not very tight and clear music-formats on radio (excl. rock). Reason must be small market.
* Most of the FM-transmitters are located in the big TV-tower. It is the 3rd tallest building in Europe (368,5 m). FM-signals have too high level in the Riga centrum. FM-receiver overloads very badly!!!

I did not make any appointments with the stations beforehand, I just walked in (which is not a good way) and therefore I did not try to take much time per visit. These days people are busy at the radio stations everywhere.
However, all stations were friendly and showed me kindly places around and answered the questions!

MixFM, Radio Baltkom, Fit FM, Jumor FM
The first visit was a group of 4 stations which are all located in the same floor: Mix FM (102.7 MHz), Baltkom (93.9), Fit FM (99.5) and Jumor FM (88.6). This group is quite new compination as Fit FM, Jumor FM and Baltkom are founded about 1-2 years ago. The owner is Russian based company.

Mix FM is the main product in Russian language on 102.7 MHz (elder pop-station). Baltkom is news-radio in Russian (with very interesting way of programme production) with stylish music. Fit FM is music channel in Latvian and Jumor has no presenters (music and tv-soundtracks).
Journalist/DJ 'Eleonora Rozevelt' (arist-name) kindly showed me all the stations. She also recorded a jingle from me in Finnish language for Mix FM! I hope it will be played... All these stations sounded very good!
The SWH Group
Radio SWH is the oldest commercial station in Latvia. It is founded in 1993 and is now nationwide with 4 regional studios. I was surprised when I heard this station first time around 1995 because it sounded very professional from the very beginning!! Jingles had very good production! Later the founder Zigmars Liepiņš, confirmed me that he used US based consulting to build up the station.
Zigmars sold SWH-stations to big Irish-based media company Communicorp in 2007, but he is still involved in the board of the company and visits the station every now and then. This was bad news for me because I thought it would have been a pleasure to meet him personally!!
Communicorp is also operating in Finland with stations Suomipop, Metro FM and Groove FM.
Click the photo for bigger view >>

SWH is operating three channels: Radio SWH (Riga 105.2 MHz), SWH Plus (105.7 MHz, Russian language) and SWH Rock (89.2). SWH Rock has only 2h live-DJ daily and the rest is non-stop. I suppose this is the only rock-channel in Baltia. It is mostly tuned by Russian speaking people.
SWH's revenues for 2008 was over 2mill Euros. Really big station with many safety-guards outside! Self-advertisment manager Laura Dukjana-Lice kindly gave station-tour!!

Radio Skonto 107.2 MHz
It was also a great pleasure to see Radio Skonto, good old local radio in Riga.
Today the trend is that FM-stations are grouped under big companies who run many channels at the same time, but Radio Skonto is positive exception. I thought first that this station is a small one and close to death, but it was a big surprise that it is still very well tuned and professional. They even have music-inquires which is very expensive to arrange.
Unfortunately Programme manager was not present at that time, but young sales-lady gave kind and professional information. It was also surprise that advertising agencies sell 75 % of the Skonto's revenues. This has always been a problem in local-radio market in Finland, ad-agencies sell almost nothing...
Elita Marga was on the air, but she was too 'shy' to be photographed - but she had time for my questions between hosting the listerners. The have about 200 000 weekly listeners. Click >>>
All stations had very modern equipment and facilities - looked and sounded out professional. I did not try to solve the price-level of radio-advertising, but it must be high in Latvia because there were more people working at the stations than I expected. I suppose the base for that is the high price-level of television advertising, but I am not sure.

Go to see Riga! It is beautiful and clean culture-city with hard history under Polish, Swedish and Russian control with German influence...

Radio Sanluchino, Bologna and Discoradio, Caravaggio, Italy

2009-02-20T20:33:00.013+02:00

I e-mailed old recording to Radio San Luchino (www) Bologna, Italy. I heard that station in Finland in summer 1991 on 104.7 MHz. In the clip there was a woman giving sms-number to the station (mp3).
At that time I got no reply, but today, the same lady who was talking on that 17 years old clip, replied to me:
"...con emozione confermo che la voce è la mia..mi chiamo Bruna Zamboni e lavoro a Radio Sanluchino da 25 anni.... Complimenti per la tua bella famiglia - cordiali saluti da tutto lo staff di Radio Sanluchino"
So, Bruna Zamboni told she listened that old clip with great emotions because she was talking on it (and she has been working for the station now for 25 years!) !!

It is a great pleasure to mail old clips to the stations because they might bring memories to the staff! The oldest one I just sent was Radio Parma (102.0 MHz, www). They confirmed my recording from 1983 and identified that the speaker on the clip was Platinette (www), who is famous drag-queen today!!

Today, also Discoradio from Caravaggio, North Italy mailed verification. The reception was from summer 2001. Station manager M. Lagonegro tuned my clip.

Radio Potenza Centrale and Radio Globo, Rome

2009-02-19T23:33:00.007+02:00

Two replies today from Italy!! Radio Potenza Centrale (www) from Potenza, sent quick confirmation to my mp3-clip. RPC is now big station with large tx-network in South Italy, founded 1973 as a mobile pirate radio broadcasting from a car!!
Potenza-province is quite difficult to hear in Finland.

Another reply came from Rome. Radio Globo (www) is great sounding dance-station with very profesional production. I heard this station on 99.6 MHz several years ago. Direttore artistico, Lucio Scarpa, sent me e-mail wondering my reception. This is very big station sounding excellent (my mp3-clip). Here is a team of The Morning Show:

Radio Omega Sound, Roma, Italia

2009-02-16T22:55:00.009+02:00

This week I got a reply from the beautiful city of Rome, Italy!
Radio Omega Sound (www) confirmed my reception.
I heard this station in Utö-island last June and signal was absolutely clear on 91.4 MHz (mp3)!

This is now over 32 years old station!

This week I got also kind replies from Reggio Emilia-area. I have short message from Play Studio Dance Network (www) from Bologna and Radio Centrale (www) from Cesena. Radio Centrale is also 32 years old station. The station owner, who founded the station, replied and confirmed my old clips (mp3 from 1989!) !

Reply from Radio Metro, Udine, Italy

2009-01-10T22:18:00.004+02:00

Last week I got e-mail from Udine-based Radio Metro (www). It is very big network in N,NE Italy with 20-30 transmitters from Venezia to Padova and Udine. I heard their Padova-relay on 91.1 MHz.

I got this late mail from my mid-December postings. Usually 90 % of stations reply with 1-2 days. After that there is not much expected to have.

Quadrantids 2009 Meteor shower - no results

2009-01-04T13:59:00.003+02:00

On Saturday 3.1.2009 at 12.50utc there were peak of Quadrantids meteor shower. It was expected to be good enough for short E-skips of European FM-stations.
It was quite good giving quite tense and long signals! Many DX-ers here in Finland identified stations, mainly high-power transmitters from North- and Central-Germany.
I was listening but I got no interesting results.
I tried to hunt new Irish regional networks anround 102 and 105 MHz. This autumn started i102 and i105 in Ireland with quite big transmitters. However, there were no sign of Irish stations. On lower band (above 88 MHz) I noticed BBC several times but that's all.

So, next 5 months will be total silence on FM-DXing. Now there could be some time to listen recrodings from the past years. I still have hours and hours to check...

R. DeeJay Alexandroupolis - R. Amore, Napoli

2008-12-30T22:41:00.010+02:00

This week I got two QSL-e-mails, both from great South European historical culture-cities.
Radio DeeJay (www), Aleksandroupolis, Greece confirmed my tentative report. I heard their relay on 93.3 MHz which is located in Orestiada. Listen their very professional jingle (taken from their webpage).

Another nice QSL came from Napoli, South Italy. Radio Amore (www) confirmed my reception of their Napoli-transmitter 105.8 MHz. They told that the station has 12 repeaters around Campania and this tx has 4 kW power.
Very exotic QSLs for the end of 2008!

Xmas-card from Radio Vladimirci, Serbia

2008-12-24T16:53:00.010+02:00

In May 2008 I visited a little Serbian FM-station Radio Vladimirci (www)with extreme-DXer Jim Solatie (Espoo, Finland).
I heard this station here in Finland on August 2007 (mp3). When we visited the station, Sandra was on the air (click the photo>).

Now, on Christmas day 2008, I got a nice Xmas-card from this station (see below)!

Vladimirci is broadcasting on FM on 89.6 MHz to a very little Vladimirci-city (only 1.900 people, 20 000 in the whole municipal). According to the photos found from internet this station seems to be very lively and going strong.

Letter and photos from Radio Blu, Monopoli, Italy

2008-12-20T22:00:00.007+02:00

I had nice letter and many photos from Filippo Rattile from Radio Blu in Monopoli-city, (Bari-province) South Italy. Here is a complilation of them. They also put my photo to their website.

QSLs from Italy - now totally 305 stations!

2008-12-18T22:09:00.017+02:00

This month I e-mailed reception reports to 35 Italian FM-stations! I got 17 replies back!! All very nice and clear confirmations of my listening. Thanks to all stations who kindly replied!!!
Now I have totally 305 Italian FM-QSLs!!! 225 of them are letters (with stickers etc.) between years 1985-2000 and last 80 QSLs are e-mails from this century.
Here is a list of stations who replied during December 2008. These are mostly from South Italy:

- ARC Rete, Paternopoli (AV) - 99.5 MHz
- Radio Santa Maria dei Miracoli, Andria (BA) - 105.9 MHz (www) - Small religious stations in a little town Andria in Bari-province
- Radio Flor Levante, Terlizzi (BA) - 91.8 MHz (www)
- Radio Blu l'Onda Italiana, Monopoli (BA) - 92.9 MHz (www)
Filippo Rattile from Radio Blu made nice story of me to their web-page and blog. Nice surprise!!
- Radio Argento, Monopoli (BA) - 95.4 MHz. I have heard this station many times.
- Radio One, Bitonto (BA) - 96.3 MHz
- Radio Citta Futura, Bari (BA) - 101.0 MHz (www). Big website.
- Radio Onda d'Urto, Brescia (BS) - 98.0 MHz (www)
- Radio Europa Stereo, Lucera (FG) - 99.0 MHz (www)
- Radio Nostalgia Piemonte-reg., Genova (GE) - 94.0 MHz (www)
- Radio Onda Verde, Napoli (NA) - 97.8 MHz (www) My photo is on their page, too (here)
- Quinta Rete, Napoli (NA) - 93.9 MHz www (www)
- Radio Parma, Parma (PR) - 102.0 MHz (www) I mailed them very old clip, from 1983!!!! This seems to be a big tv-station!
- Radio l'Olgiata, Roma (RM) - 96.6 MHz (www) Started 1975 !!!
- Radio Delta, Rovigo (RO) - 103.6 KHz (www) Very big station!
- Rete Uno, Manduria (TA) - 92.1 MHz (www)
- Stella FM, Trissino (VI) - 97.4 MHz (www)

There are more to come... It is great to give a surprise to stations that they have been received in Finland on FM.

Reply from Rado Bubamara, Svrljig, Serbia

2008-12-14T23:09:00.014+02:00

Last week I got a nice reply, written in Serbian, from Radio Bubamara (www), from a little town called Svrljig. There are only 7 700 people living in this town (17 000 in the whole municipal) and it is located 30 km NE from a big city Nis.
Radio Bubamara is the first local private radio station established in south east Serbia !!!

It began official broadcasting in 13.May. 1992 and it is owned and operated by Joca & Milos Miladinovic.

I heard this station on 93.5 MHz last summer. Now they have noved to 96.5 MHz. In the reply they wondered the weather conditions bringing their signal up to Finland.

Reply from Radio Toxotis, Giannitsa, North Greece

2008-12-08T22:52:00.021+02:00

On Sunday evening 7.12.2008 I sent e-mail to a few Greek FM-radio stations about their signal in Finland! I got one nice reply from Radio Toxotis FM (www) from a little town Giannitsa, from North Greece. There are about 26 000 inhabitants in this city.
The station-owner kindly confirmed my old clip from summer 2000. Here my mp3. This seems to be quite big commercial city-station according to their large web-pages. There is a lot of information.
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I think I have heard this same station in mid 1990's under name Radiofonikos stathmos Toxiatis on 96.7 MHz (mp3-clip), but I did not have any comments of this reception from 1994.

Reception reports to Italy

2008-12-07T21:39:00.002+02:00

During the first week of December I e-mailed 22 reception reports to Italian FM-stations!! I will write here the results very soon. How many replies I will have? Also I will mail Greeks later.

I bought new receiver: Sony XDR-F1HD

2008-12-07T21:21:00.009+02:00

A few weeks ago I bought a new FM-receiver from USA:
Sony XDR-F1HD !!!
This is very good tuner even for experienced FM-DXers. It has good sensitivity, signal separation in tight places, like 0.1 MHz, and it gives good audio. There has been no conditions to test it well, but I suppose this will be n:o 1 tuner in ythe coming summer-Es-skips. Very interesting.
The price is only 80 - 100 USD + post (about 50 USD) + taxes. Total around 100 euros. This model is sold only in US market with digital HD-radio system and 10 khz AM-steps. But it is worth of ever cent !

New FM-stations to Turku

2008-10-11T22:11:00.002+03:00

I have been very busy at work after summer and therefore no time for DXing:

I just opened two new FM-stations to Turku-city. They are Radio Melodia (www)(89.0 + 88.5, 91.8) and Zoom FM (www)(93.4 MHz - 50 W).
Provincial Radio Melodia is playing Finnish music and oldies for 35+ and Zoom FM is a small pop/rock-station in Turku-city for 15-30 years old listeners.

Now I have some time for DXing after big rush of music scheduling and jingle building etc.

Sunday 17.8.2008: Opening to Middle-Italy

2008-08-17T18:47:00.028+03:00

August 2008 has been better than expected. This Sunday we had first some Serbia/Kosovo-signals and then opening to Rome, Perugia and around! Quite strong and stabile signals for some time.
I have underlined the stations which are heard first time in Finland. Among these logged stations I observed a lot of network-stations (Kiss Kiss, 105, Cuore, Cuore 2, RDS etc.)

Log Sunday 17.8.2008 (Times UTC)
87.5 MHz - Radio Zeta,Caravaggio (BG), Italy. 13.45-
88.4 MHz - Radio Prizren, Prizren, Kosovo. Once again! 10.40-
88.4 MHz - Radio Company, Benevento, Italy - tentatively. Quite often here. 14.37-
88.8 MHz - Radio 19, Genova (GE), Italy. Nice surprise!!! 13.21-
90.1 MHz - Radio Onda Blu, Arezzo (AR), Italy. 11.21-
90.2 MHz - Radio K4, Kosovo "24 h a day. This is K4 (KFOR)". 10.54-
90.7 MHz - Tele R Stereo 2, Roma, Italy.
91.7 MHz - Radio Venere, Corsano (LE). Parabita (LE)-tx, Italy. 14.47-
92.2 MHz - RVT - Radio Val Tiberina, Sansepolcro (AR) , Italy. With RDS "Errevuti". 10.55-
92.2 MHz - Umbria Radio, Perugia (PG) , Italy. Pushed over RVT for ID!! 11.03-
92.2 MHz - Radio Siena, Siena, Italy. 12.12-
92.4 MHz - Radio Max Energy, Perugia (PG), Italy. 11.11-
93.4 MHz - Boom 934, Pozarevac, Serbia with hit-list programme. I visited this station in May. Professional station! 10.41-
93.6 MHz - Radio Gong, Jagodina, Serbia. "Gong marketing".10.44-
95.5 MHz - Radio Gruza, Gruza, Serbia. I arrived to silent carrier - then suddenly ID after 5 sec silence. 11.05-
96.6 MHz - Radio l'Olgiata, Roma (RM), Italy 11.00-

14.8.2008: Istanbul FM-stations audible in Finland!

2008-08-14T22:43:00.011+03:00

Istanbul FM-stations were audible in South Finland with strong RDS-stereo-signals for 2-3 hours. The band was full of Turkish-stations up to 108 MHz after midday UTC!
However, here in SW Finland the opening was not as good as around Helsinki. Signals were mostly weak over 101 MHz here.
There are even 103 legal FM-stations in Istanbul (listed here) !!!

One "funny" thing was that I identified all 3 Istanbul "Powers" around 100 MHz: Power Türk 99.8, Power FM 100.0 MHz and Power XL on 100.2 MHz !!!
Also Italians and some other counties were shortly up before Turkey.
I drove from work to listen for some time, but nothing exceptionally interesting was not heard by me (I mean stations "never-heard-before in Finland").

Very interesting and surprising condition in August, not expected!

12 and 13.8 Italian FM-stations

2008-08-13T21:37:00.006+03:00

On Tuesday evening 12.8 and Wednesday 13.8 afternoon Southern Italy was open to South Finland. I missed the 13.8 at work. A lot of networks were id'ed here.

Log Tuesday 12.8.2008 (Rome and Napoli; mostly weak signals)

87.6 MHz - RAI Radio Uno, Roma. Also usual Rome-stations were up on lower band , like Nuova Spazio 88.1 and Radio Classica 89.5 etc. but I have heard them many times. 17.38-
91.4 MHz - UNID with spots to Salerno. Perhaps Radio MPA, Salerno?? 18.22-
97.3 MHz - Radio Ibiza, Napoli (NA). 17.53-
99.8 MHz - Radio Cuore, Rome-transmitter. 17.56-

I missed the Italian stations at work on 13.8.2008. It was better opening, but not good one.

10.8.2008: FM-opening to France

2008-08-11T21:37:00.009+03:00

Finally after almost 6 weeks of silence we got fair 50 minutes opening to middle-east France. The conditions area was from Lyon to NE and SW. I identified a few new stations, some never heard in Finland before (underlined):

88.2 MHz - R.C.F. Aube, Troyes (10) with provincial programme "Le Téléphone du dimanche". A lot of live callings. 09.35-
88.4 MHz - R.C.F. Lyon (69) with same programme as Aube but clearly for Lyon area. 10.04-
89.4 MHz - Virgin Radio, Roanne (42). Local programme. Virgin is ex-Europe 2. 09.29-
90.7 MHz - Fun Radio Bourgogne, Dijon (21).
92.2 MHz - R Cactus, Semur en Brionnais (71). Also with RDS. 09.28-
95.4 MHz - Fréquence Plus, Dijon (21). I tried other Dijon-stations from upper band but no luck. 09.48-
96.9 MHz - Radio Espace, Lyon (69). Clear "Ess-passs"-jingle understood after many rewindings. 10.11-
99.0 MHz - France Bleu Périgord (24). Luckily with local programme at Sunday midday. 10.09-
102.6 MHz - France Bleu sud Lorraine, Nancy (54).
104.4 MHz - RBA Auvergne-Limousin (19). Nice to hear clear local commercial stations from France. 09.58-

Also I identified many NRJ, Cherie,Skyrock etc. but I hunt only local stations.

This FM-season 2008 is almost over. With a big luck we might have something...

3.7. - 28.7: Poor Es-conditions continue

2008-07-16T18:38:00.006+03:00

This summer has been one of the worst Es-seasons so far, especially for the time around mid-summer, which has normally been the best time for that!
After 8th June there has been Sporadic-E on FM only on three days: 25 and 26.6 and 2.7!!
Last over 3 weeks 2.7 - 26.7.2008 have been silent!! Incredible!

We have still some time, until the end of August (which is usually the worst after June-July) but this does not look good!
One nice thing is that Es does not disturb workdays. I am now building new FM-station to Turku.

A few e-mail-FM-QSLs!

2008-07-06T20:09:00.016+03:00

I have not sent so much messages to the stations of their signal in Finland, but I got a some QSLs for my few reports:

- Russkoje Radio Kaliningrad - 96.3 MHz. DJ Daddy confirmed my mp3-clip in Russian langauge e-mail. Kaliningrad is my 47th QSLed FM-country (Tnx JUS for e-mail)! mp3
- Hit FM, Gdansk, Poland - 94.6 MHz. I had nice e-mail from Marta Uzarska. She is a morning presenter at the station. On Sunday morning I heard her clip from the past week. mp3

- Radio Europa Stereo, Lucera (FG), Italy - 99.0 MHz. This is a small station in Foggia-province in south Italy, in Lucera. I got short confirming e-mail wit only two rows.

- Radyo Onbes, Istanbul, Turkey - 101.2 MHz. Short e-mail in Turkish. I also wrote them in Turkish. They knew about this FM-"signal-path" to other countries! Listen the excellent reception (ID in the end): mp3

Italy and Serbia on Wed 2.7.2008

2008-07-06T19:39:00.015+03:00

Another interesting opening to southern Italy was on Wednesday 2.7.2008. Also a few Serbians popped up but no luck wit id's. Here I log some of the identified stations.

LOG Wednesday 2.7.2008 (Mainly southern Italy)

87.6 MHz - R Potenza Centrale, Potenza (PZ), Italy. This stn is now quite wide network and more pro than 2-3 years ago. About 25 tx's. 08.04-
88.4 MHz - R Company, Benevento (BN). Every summer 2-3x here in S-Finland. 07.48-
88.6 MHz - I: Publiradio Network, Taranto, Italy. Parabitassa-tx (LE). 08.29-
89.5 MHz - Radyo Günes FM, Kirikkale, Turkey. Location 60 km east from Ankara! Nice surprise. 300 W acc. to FMLIST. No contact-info-found. 06.19-
90.2 MHz - Ciccio Riccio, Brindisi (BR), Italy. LE-tx. 08.46-
91.7 MHz - Radio Venere (LE), Italy. 08.09-
91.8 MHz - R Skyline, Ancona (AN), Italy. 15.12-
99.0 MHz - R Europa Stereo, Lucera (FG), Italy. I had e-QSL from this station next day! 08.41- -Logo below>
99.1 MHz - R Linea, Civitanova Marche (MC), Italy. 08.50-
101.8 MHz - Studio 100 R, Statte (Taranto) (TA), Italy. LE-tx. Big station. 08.40-
105.2 MHz - R Gamma, Barletta (BA), Italy. Faded out immedeately after R. Gamma-word. 08.49-

Balkan area on Thursday 26.6.2008

2008-07-06T16:18:00.013+03:00

On Thursday 26.6.2008 was the best FM-opening so far here in SW Finland. The conditions started at 05.50 UTC and fade away at 09.15 UTC. Also some more weak signals later during the day (mainly France).

I identified many new Greeks which are observed first time in Finland. There were also some Turkish, Bulgarian and Serbian stations - even Albania.
Also Radio Prizren from Kosovo on 88.4 MHz was a nice surprise!

LOG Thursday 26.6.2008 (Mainly Greece but also Albania, Serbia, Bulgaria etc.) (Underlined are received first time in Finland)
88.4 MHz - Radio Prizren, Kosovo. 09.01-
89.5 MHz - NRJ, Sofia, Bulgaria. 06.58-
91.0 MHz - Radio City, Kozani, Greece. 07.10-
92.1 MHz - Radio Pancevo, Serbia. I visited this station in May -08. 07.56-
92.2 MHz - Space 92.2, Kavala, Greece. 07.22-
92.9 MHz - Hit Radio, Kragujevac, Serbia. 07.44-
93.3 MHz - Alfa Ex Radio, Beograd, Serbia. 08.18-
93.4 MHz - Radio Hit 7, Sofia, Bulgaria. 07.12-
93.4 MHz - Mythos, Thessaloniki, Greece. 07.29-
95.5 MHz - Radio AS, possibly from Novi Pazar, Serbia. 07.58-
95.5 MHz - Antenna 5, Skopje, Macedonia. 08.26-
98.5 MHz - Roadstar, Serbia. National network. 07.40-
98.5 MHz - Radyo Can, Tekirdag, Turkey was nice surprise. 06.01-
99.0 MHz - Srefikos 99.3, Feres, Greece. 06.07-
99.8 MHz - Athina 98.4, unknown tx-location, Turkey. 06.16-
100.5 MHz - Radyo Sev, Balikesir, Turkey. 06.17-
101.7 MHz - Radio Nova, Sofia, Bulgaria. 06.28-

Wed 25.6.2008 Weak and wide European FM-opening

2008-07-06T00:32:00.012+03:00

This June has been very poor for Sporadic E, perhaps the worst ever. I was away from home (not a chance to DX) for two weekends etc., but there were no conditions!! The FM-band was empty between 8.6-24.6.2008!!! This has usually been the best time for the Sporadic E-skips, but this year nothing!
On 26.6.2008 I heard several stations widely accross Europe. Weak and short skips!!

LOG Wednesday 25.6.2008 (Weak signals from all over Europe)
87.5 MHz - Lynx FM, London's pirate. Audible again! Also pirate-signals on 90.8 and 92.2 MHz. No iDs unfortunately. Only short skip to UK today (MUF 96.6 MHz Plymouth Sound). 08.26-
88.3 MHz - Radio Classique,Paris, France. 07-59-
88.3 MHz - Radio Virgin, Italy. 08.16-
90.2 MHz - Radi Kiss Delta, Mladá Boleslav-tx, Czech. 05.40-
90.3 MHz - Radio Ena, Sežana-tx, Slovenia. 05.44-
91.0 MHz - Omroep Brabant, Holland. Nice jingle. 08.03-
96.9 MHz - Radio Studio 7, Trento (TN), Italy. First time in Finland! 05.56-

LOG Sun 1.6 and Fri 30.5.2008

2008-07-06T00:16:00.012+03:00

30.5.2008 I observed brief opening to southern Italy. Only for about 15 minutes! On Sunday 1.6.2008 FM was opened to France for a few minutes. Very poor conditions this summer!!

LOG Sunday 1.6.2008 (Very short France)
90.7 MHz - Brume FM, Lyon, France. Also Lyon Premiere 90.2 MHz was audible. 17.56-

LOG Friday 30.5.2008 (Shortly to Italy)
92.2 MHz - R.Jukebox, Lamezia Terme (CZ), Italy. Bari-tx. Listeners can order music by SMS by dialing a code for a song. 15.43-
96.3 MHz - Radio Enny Sound, Bari (BA), Italy. Rare station. 15.47-

On 7-14.6.2008 we were listening FM in the southest lived island, Utö, for one week. I had FM-DX-pedition with Jukka Soini (from Kurikka, midwest Finland) and Jussi Suokas (from Joensuu, mideast Finland). Nice pedition in excellent QTH. Read more!

Opening to Romania on 28.5.2008

2008-07-05T20:35:00.026+03:00

The first good Sporadic E-opening for me was on the 28.5.2008.
There were strong signals from Romania and Bulgaria here in southwest Finland. Here some of the obeserved stations:

LOG Wednesday 28.5.2008 (Romania, Bulgaria, strong signals, UTC. Underlined are identified first time in Finland!)

88.4 MHz - R Trinitas, Romania. Nationwide religious station. 16.08-
92.8 MHz - Radyo Tempo, Bursa,Turkey. FMLIST gives location Bursa for this. 17.09-
92.9 MHz - C FM, Constanta, Romania. Ids in English!!! 17.40-
95.4 MHz - Radio Favorit, Beius, Romania. 1722-
95.5 MHz - Vocea Sperantei, Romania. Bacau-tx. Another religious. There is even 3rd one! 16.52-
97.3 MHz - Radio Veronika, Sofia, Bulgaria. 16.56-
100.6 MHz - Itsy Bitsy FM, Bucuresti, Romania. Bacau-tx. Channel for children. Very rare!16.48-
101.2 MHz - Radyo Onbes, Istanbul. Many Onbes-tx's on this frq. In July I got e-mail QSL from this station !! 17.55- mp3

Utö FM-DX-blog to a separate blog!

2008-06-15T11:26:00.002+03:00

I moved all Utö FM-DX-data to it's own blog-address www.uto-fmdx.blogspot.com.

So, everybody can check circumstancies for FM-DXing in Utö island from there - and I can update this FM-blog separately.
We were listening FM in Utö for one week - 7-14.6.2008.
Good site for FM-DX!

Short report from Serbia Tour (17-25.5.2008)

2008-06-09T16:24:00.057+03:00

I visited Serbia for one week (17-25.6.2008) with another fanatic DX-er Jim Solatie (from Espoo, Finland).
We visited 19 FM-stations in Central-Serbia and fetched QSLs for ourselves and our DX-friends in Finland. Here is a report of this busy week.
>> CLICK THE PHOTOS TO LARGER VERSION >>

First some basic facts about Serbian radio today:
There have been hundreds of FM-stations broadcasting without license for many years. The things are now chancing. Forexample in Belgrade over 10 stations are closed within 2 years.

Serbian broadcasting authority has just published a list a frequencies and new license holders for the whole country. About 2/3 of the stations broadcasting today will be closed down. Forexample only a few frequencies will be given to Pozarevac where even 20 stations are now on the air!!
The MD of Boom 93 (Pozarevac) said that the illegal broadcasters will have heavy penalties.
The owner will get 7000 € and the station separately 15000 € penalty! We will see if they will really raid the stations, especially in the countryside.
A few stations we visited, were already closed down, or will lose license - or they even have to move to new area!! It is supposed that most of the stations without a license will close during a few next months. This means that Serbian FM-radio will be less attractive in the future!
So, this was the last chance to visit many of these stations!

We visited these stations for QSL. I am ashtonised of very kind people everywhere: >Click photos>

Pancevo 18.5: - Radio Safir 89.6 MHz. This station was closed week before! Standing at the door was frustrating experience...
- Radio Ritam 105.4 MHz (not heard, but was in the same building)
- Radio Pancevo 92.1 MHz (We have QSLs but had time to see the station)

Sabac 19.5: - Vikom Radija 91.1 MHz (QSL to JMS, HKU e-mail). This station was closed but we found the mother of the owner from the old address and phoned him! Mother wrote QSL after phonecall and she found us also big old RTV Vikom-stickers!
- Radio AS 103.7 MHz. Quite big station. (QSL to JMS)

Bogatic 19.5: - Radio Nesvil 93.2 MHz (QSL to HKU, PÄ). Real countryside station. The owner found my old C-casette/report. Very poor audio now on their signal.

Vladimirci 19.5 : - Radio Vladimirci 89.6 MHz (Heard by HKU). Small countryside station.

Koceljevo 19.5: - Tim Radio 91.7 MHz (QSL to HKU, JMS e-mail before). The sexiest station ever seen!!
- Radio 5 90.8 MHz (QSL to JMS, MWE)

Valjevo 20.5: - Radio Valjevo 88.6 + 1386 kHz. We were on the air. The chief engineer gave complete tour at the radio-museum. He put old 50 W tx on air for us at the museum!! (QSL to JMS, JUS, MWE, MB)
- Radio Glas Crkve 90.1 /94.7 MHz. Religious. (QSL to JMS, HKU)
- Radio Desetka 91.9 MHz. Station was closed. One sticker was found from the window of their ex-office!

Lazarevac 20.5: - R. Kiss 87.6 MHz (JMS had e-mail-QSL before and his photo was on the wall!!). Pro station for younger people with nice jingles!
- Radio Lazarevac 89.3 MHz . We were interviewed to the programme (QSL to HKU).

Smederevo 21.5: - Radio Smederevo 96.1 MHz. We were on the air live and Lordi + Teräsbetoni was played!! (QSL to JMS)
- Radio S 97.9 MHz. This station was closed. Nothing found...

Pozarevac 21.5: - X Radio 100.5 MHz. They made CD for us!! (QSL to HKU,JMS,JJS)
- Boom 93 93.4 MHz, The most pro station we saw! (QSL to HKU, JMS, JJS)

Belgrade 21.5: Beograd 202 104.0 MHz/national. We were on the air live nationwide on Wed evening with DJ Alek. (QSL JMS)

Jim's family arrived to Belgrade so I visited 3 stations alone on 22.5.
Grocka 22.5: - X Radio 90.4 MHz . I got nice photo-album! (QSL to HKU, JJS)
Belgrade 22.5: - MIP Radio 93.7 MHz. Owned by big Partizan foot-/basketball team. They gave me complete tour and jersey with my name!!! Great !!!! (QSL to HKU)

- Radio S 104.7 MHz. Very big national station!!! (QSL to HKU, JMS, MB, MWE)

Utö FM-DX-pedition 7-14.6.2008

2008-06-07T18:35:00.016+03:00

We are listening FM in Utö-island (map) for one week. Listeners are Harri Kujala (HKU, from Naantali), Jukka Soini (JJS, from Kurikka) and Jussi Suokas (JUS, from Joensuu).
We have four H- and V-antennas (4 x 8 el. yagi) with amplifiers.
QTH is nice cottage (own kitchen, WC, bedrooms) close the sea with open view to S and SW.
The cost of this is 100 € / night. Seems to be good place for FM-DXing.
We leave antenna towers here, so it is easier to come again - or anybody else. CLICK THE PHOTO >>>

LOG Sat 7.6.2008 (Times utc)
Short opening to Italy, about 15 minutes going up and down

88.4 MHz - Radio Cuore with local ad to Pisa-area but this is supposed to be MO-tx. 08.58-
90.15 MHz - Radio Zeta, Caravaggio, Italy. Never heard befpor on this frg / 87.5 MHz. 09.00-

NICE OPENING TO SOUTH ITALY from 16.40 to 19.00 UTC.

A few highlights ! Red= First time in Finland:

89.3 MHz - Radio Day, Frosinone, Italy. Possibly Rome-tx. 1642-
90.6 MHz - Radio Celje, Celje, Slovenia. 1648-
91.4 MHz - Radio Omega Sound, Rome. 18.02-
100.0 MHz - Radio Play Capital, Chieti province. New network owned by Delta Uno. 16.59-
100.5 MHz - Idea Radio Alternativa, Latiano (BR). 17.30-

I am going to Serbia, 17. - 25.5.2008 !!

2008-02-23T23:47:00.003+02:00

I am going to Serbia in May 17-26th, just before and during Eurovision Song Contest in Beograd.

I will visit many local legal FM-stations (at least 10 stations) in Beograd and in smaller cities around the capital. I will do that trip with my DX-friend (Jim from Espoo), so it will be radio 24h, FM- and pirate-radio.

We hope that we can be on the air on some bigger MW-pirate radio from Serbia on some late evening. It could be interesting to try to reach Europe from Serbian pirate between 1600 - 1700 kHz!
I will inform here about the possible broadcast from Serbia. It would be fantastic to take GSM-phone-callings and reports during the brodcast.

The happenings in Serbia does not look good just now. I hope everything will go better because we have already booked the flights!!

In Dublin, Ireland 5.-10.12.2007

2007-12-02T19:16:00.000+02:00

I visited Ireland with my wife. Among sightseeing we visited two legal stations: Midlands 103 in Tullamore (103.5 MHz; main office, www). Nice tour given by PC William Faulkner on Thursday!!

Click the photo >>>
They really have content and talk on Irish local radio. William played only one music title in his show 9.30 - 12.00! I have heard this station many times at my home on FM and William wrote me verification of my receptions on 103.5 and 102.1 (Athlone-local).

Also a short visit to Galway Bay FM, Galway, in westcoast of Ireland (95.8 MHz, www) on Friday. Everybody was buzy at the station because of outside auction-broadcast from city centre.

On Saturday evening I was also lucky to visit AM-pirate Energy Power AM, Dublin!
These guys really have transmitters and knowledge! Many FM-transmitters was all around.
Click the photo >>>
Big surprise was ex-Century Radio 1143 kHz 1 kW-transmitter (Waiting to have good home!). In the outside cottage there were real classic tx: WKLR's 20 years old 400 W transmitter!! WKLR (West Cork Local Radio, www) used this mid 80's on 1503 kHz (200m). This crystal was still on it's place!
Energy Power was on the air on MW on Saturday just because my visit. Nice surprise! They use unique homemade transistor-AM-transmitter with 330 W. Nice signal even 20 km away!

Weekend Log 8-9.12.2007 - North Dublin, Ireland
94.15 MHz - Rythm FM, Dublin. Weak. 24h weekend with dance.
94.65 MHz - Dance FM, Dublin. Strong with RDS. On air every day 24h.
99.5 MHz - Chance FM, Dublin. Weak. Oldies format from 60's to 80's. Weekend.
101.3 MHz - Club FM, Dublin. Fairly strong. Weekend dance station.

Three of Dublin's four FM-pirate were dance-stations. Dance FM had silent carrier since Saturday evening and went totally off air on Sunday evening!
These signals were picked up in a hotel (2nd floor) near Dublin airport 10 km away from city centre with Sangean ATS-909 and normal whip.

I will put some photos of my visits later!!

Pirate memories 1988 from Ireland

2007-11-18T23:40:00.000+02:00

80's was the golden decade of pirate broadcasting in Ireland. I was also lucky to receive many Irish big and small pirates on Medium Wave and FM. I have a reply from 20-30 Irish pirates.
Summer 1988 was good on FM-DXing. I heard many Irish FM-pirates here in Finland via Sporadic E-skip!
Many years back I made an audio-mix of the ID's and jingles of these stations - and now I made a little movie, too.

There is a slide-show with jingles and ID's.
These are the stations in order of appearance: Treble TR, Capitol Radio, Super Q, CAU FM, KISS FM (Monaghan), BIG M, Liberty 104, ErneSide Radio, Radio West, Radio Vera, Radio Nova (Unfortunately I did not get good ID or jingle from Sunshine 101 and many others).
You can see and hear this Irish-Mix-1988 as WMV (2,5 Mb) here.

E-mails from France and UK

2007-09-08T13:41:00.000+03:00

Last week I got two e-mail-QSLs from European FM-stations:
The first e-mail was from Radio Bonheur, Pleneuf val Andre, North France.
Mr. Dominique Le Boudec wrote me:
"Je vous confirme qu'il s'agit bien de Radio Bonheur que vous avez capté!"
Radio Bonheur plays 100% French music. This station is located in North France beside the sea and they have 3 transmitters. I heard this station on 90.1 MHz where they have only 50 W transmitter (www)! My mp3-clip.

The other e-mail came from South England. Original 106, Southampton (www) confirmed my mp3-clip!
News editor Rachel Tregenza wrote me: "Yes, this is our station, and it’s me reading the news! How very interesting that you managed to pick up the signal in Finland! Thank you for you interest,"
Later I had also mail from Karen Woods with compliments of my reception in Finland.

Reply from London pirate, Kool FM 94.6

2007-08-30T19:38:00.000+03:00

On 29th of August I had e-mail from London pirate station, Kool FM 94.6!! What a nice surprise!

DJ Bluesy from Kool confirmed that the station which I heard on 94.6 was them:
"Hello, yes I can confirm that was us in the audio clip, I was very amazed by whats happened. Very impressed!!! We are currently running just on a 150 watt transmitter. We are going back to 300 very soon. Thanks again!".

Kool FM (www) is one of the oldest pirates in London. It started 1991 and celebrated 15th birthday on 1.12.2006! Incredible ! Kool FM's (like many other's in London) music format is unique in FM-radio broadcasting worldwide: "Hardcore Jungle Drum and Bass" (DnB). For non-experts it sounds like fast talk-singing over drums and bass in the background. Here a sample of Kool from YouTube!!

And here Kool FM on TV documentary.

FM-opening to Balkan and Italy

2007-08-22T21:50:00.000+03:00

On Wednesday 22nd August we had FM-signals from Balkan countries (Serbia, Croatia) and also Hungary and Italy. Only little spots up with a few stations coming up at one time. Signals were mostly strong and clear. Nothing interesting heard although this kind of conditions can give some nice surprises.

LOG Wed 22.7.2007 (Times UTC)

88.2 MHz - UNID Hungarian, two possiblities. Balaton mentioned?- 16.00- mp3
88.8 MHz - Circuito 29, Mantova (MN), Italy. Nice ID (www)- 18.07- mp3
91.1 MHz - Radio Gamma Regione Romagna, Savignano (FO), Italy. "Gamma, bella come l'estate" - 16.37 mp3
91.1 MHz - Mig Radija, Vladimirci, Serbia - 16.20- mp3
91.2 MHz - UNID, perhaps Serbian. ID in noises - 16.25- mp3
91.6 MHz - VFM, Vinkovci, Croatia. "Super station"-jingles in English. This is now a dance-station! (www)- 18.23 mp3
92.9 MHz - Radio S, Beograd, Serbia. This network-transmitter is located in Vojvodina (www)- 16.16- mp3
92.9 MHz - Modena R City, Modena (MO), Italy. Clean liner between music titles (www)- 18.08- mp3
There were chances for better, but no....

Signals from Corsica, S-France and Italy

2007-08-19T11:21:00.000+03:00

On Saturday evening there were weak signals coming from North Italy and Southern France. The most interesting catch was Corsica!!! It is very rare here!

LOG Sat 18.8.2007 (Times UTC)

88.1 MHz - Radio SuperHit, Milano, Italy (www) - 16.21- mp3
88.7 MHz - Fréquence Jazz, Bastia-transmitter, Corsica (20)! There is clear station identification here: "Fréquence Jazz, Bastia, 88.7". However this can be network programme (www) - 17.00- mp3
88.8 MHz - Radio Maria, Italy from it's Milano-transmitter. Fades out quickly. This is a religious station (www) - 16.40- mp3
88.9 MHz - Radio Sainte Baume, Saint-Maximin (83), France. This is old local station located 40 km NE from Marseille (www). (There is hard interference coming from Radio Majakka (were I work) from 89.0 MHz) - 16.18- mp3

A few other networks were also audible. I will take e-mail contact to these French stations to have confirmation of my listening. On Friday 17.8.2007 there were good opening to Italy on FM but I was at work.

Contact from Croatia

2007-08-17T20:38:00.000+03:00

On 16th of August I had unique contact from Croatia.
Mr. Damir Totman from RadioComm Co (www) asked me if I have received the transmitters which they have installed.
His company gives full installation and maintenance service for FM-radio stations.
The transmitters he mentioned were Radio Trsat on 87.6 (20 kW), Narodni Radio on 101.9 MHz (20 kW) and Otvoreni Radio on 103.6 MHz (30 kW).
I have not made any loggings of these transmitters although it is possible I have heard them. Narodni and Otvoreni I have heard on different frequencies first time almost 10 years ago.
However, all these mentioned transmitters have been heard in Finland with good signals during last two years, in Helsinki and Tampere.

UK and Bretagne (France) on FM

2007-08-09T21:54:00.000+03:00

On Thursday 9th August I was in Helsinki visiting authorities of Finnish Communication Ministry (regulator) and Ficora (controller). Discussions about Finnish local radio.
During the day I was reported by other DX-ers of E-opening to France (Bretagne) and Southern England (shortly). France-opening was told to have been fairly good.

Later in the evening I logged Gemini FM, Torbay (SW England) on 96.4 MHz (16.57utc). This lasted only 5 minutes. Also Italians briefly around 19.00 utc...